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New Gaza War 'Only a Question of Time'
A senior Israeli army officer has told the BBC that as long as Hamas remains in control of the Gaza Strip, another war is "only a question of time".
He said the Palestinian Islamist group had re-armed so much since the Israeli offensive two years ago that it was now in a stronger position militarily.
There has been an increase in rocket fire coming from Gaza in the past week.
Earlier, Israeli defence officials said tanks fitted with a new missile defence system would be deployed near Gaza.
The announcement came after Palestinian militants for the first time used a Kornet tank-piercing missile.
On 6 December the Russian-made laser-guided missile - which carries 10kg (22lb) of high explosive - penetrated the tank's armour, but did not injure its crew.
The UN has condemned the firing of "indiscriminate" rocket and mortar attacks by militants in Gaza in recent weeks.
Talk of war
Israeli Chief-of-Staff Lt-Gen Gabi Ashkenazi said the Kornet missile was "among the most dangerous that we have seen on this front and was not used even during the Lebanon war".
"The situation in the south is very fragile and explosive," he warned.
Speaking to the BBC's Jon Donnison on Wednesday, another senior Israeli army officer from the Gaza division said: "As long as Hamas remains in power, it is only a question of time before there is another conflict."
Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat also warned that tensions were escalating in the region, and that any Israeli attack on Gaza would only lead to further bloodshed.
"Military solutions such as these won't achieve anything and will only complicate the situation," Mr Erekat said.
Missile-defence tanks
The Israeli-developed active protection system (APS) - known as Trophy - is designed to destroy missiles like the Kornet.
The system, which has so far been fitted to a battalion of Merkava Mk4 tanks, uses radars and sensors to identify threats, then releases special explosives to neutralise them.
No Palestinian militant groups has claimed the attack.
Hamas is not thought to have been behind the increased rocket fire from Gaza this week, to which Israel retaliated with air strikes.
However, Israel has said it will increase attacks on Hamas facilities even if the movement is not directly responsible.
The Islamist group has controlled Gaza since June 2007, after winning elections in 2006 and then forcing its secular rivals Fatah, the party of Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas, out of the territory.
The UN has said at least 62 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli action in Gaza so far this year. Over the same period, one Thai farm worker has been killed by rockets fired from the coastal territory into Israel.
Two years ago, a 22-day clash between Israeli forces and Palestinian militants in Gaza left an estimated 1,300 Palestinians and 13 Israelis dead.
125 Comments so far
Show AllIt's time to end the Israeli occupation of Palestine. Stop US funding of the Israeli military. Keep our tax dollars here.
PAProgressive - your sentiments are in the right place, but your statement is too bland and obvious to have any impact with anyone. This is a war of rhetoric and narrative. What is needed is for young pro-Israeli American Jews to be shamed into cutting ties with and support for the Israeli terror state.
Hamas is a terrorist state. Lets stop the bloodshed and the suicide bombing and treat each other with kindness.
Hamas is NOT a state. It is a political party. The members of that party were elected in a free and fair election. Get over it. It is you who seems to be misinformed. I agree that the bloodshed should stop so I say to Israel stop the bombing of innocent civilians. You truly are blind if you believe that the Qassam rockets being intermittently lobbed out of OCCUPIED Gaza are in any way equal to the military might of Israel's Defense Force, the FOURTH largest military on the planet.
Take your blinders off and see reality.
Gaza was taken when Israel was attacked. Israel doesn't lob rockets on a daily basis into Gaza. The opposite cannot be said.
Indeed... it is a difficult situation for all...
Must suck being you!
Please, go back under the rock from whence you came. You are adding nothing to the discussion except hasbara.
I see... any opposite opinions and you want to stop free speech. Hmmmm. reminds me of Iran, Saudi, USSR, China, Egypt, Syria, North Korea... you should be proud.
lets talk peace, not war. Love, not hate.
Well stated. Let those who are ignorant ignore the truth.
It's too late. Israeli Zionists control our government and they have flooded Israel with high tech weaponry. 13,000 new illegal squatter's houses are abuilding in occupied Palestine.
The US gave over $250,000,000 to the PLA this year...
Who, pray tell, is the PLA? Your ignorance is appalling sir/madam.
Perhaps... but Hamas has revived its missile and kidnapping attacks...
The escalating Palestinian violence from the Gaza Strip is the direct result of the Damascus-based Khaled Meshaal's victory in his power struggle with the Gaza wing's leadership.
Sad... two days ago a Hizbollah - Qassam missile exploded near the Israeli Hof Ashkelon nursery school north of Gaza early Tuesday. A small child lost her arm... Who paid for that rocket..?
As Ariel Sharon once said 1948 was just one phase of Israel's "War of Independence" and that there would be many more phases until all the land had been "redeemed" (and it's inhabitants sent packing biblical style).
Dear m156:
That's what I worry about. All that land and the Persian Empire too ( Iran). No wonder Israel wants to attack them. I suppose that some will start screaming at me, but considering the all the time that the diaspora spent in Babylon , Persia amd even Egypt( (and time in Saudi Arabia,) it would seem that to some that all of the Middle East belongs to them. That would explain what has happened to Jordan, Syria and Llebanon too
I wonder if this is what drives some of the zionist? The fact that some Jewish people were in these lands ( as a negative experience) is God's proof that as in Joshua, that ALL that land is theirs from the Red Sea to all of the Persian empire. That's kind of scary.
I always wondereed too about Solomon's temple. People are always looking for it, but they never seem to find it; they do find lots of pagan things though. I wonder too if the stories about that temple were really memories of the glories of Babylon, but never existed anywhere else in real time.
A couple of links for those who want to cut through hoary mythologies:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1EmvANgw9Mk
http://www.salon.com/books/feature/2001/02/07/solomon
This article appears written by someone who has not set foot in Gaza the last year or ever.
Nobody from Gaza is interviewed. No mention of the constant shootings of Gazans in Israel's illegally imposed buffer zone in Gaza, repeated Israeli bombings, incursions of bulldozers, the number of Gazans shot and injured and continued economic stress caused by Israel on the Gazans. In addition, the BBC quotes the UN's number of 62 dead in Gaza vs 1 Israeli, but provides no context to the number, e.g, are these deaths warranted, how many were civilians that were no threat and why don't Gazans deserve security and freedom?
I presume this is a forewarning to the imminent final solution to the Palestinian problems.
When is the rest of the world going to rise up against the US and Israel and say, "Enough. These are rouge terrorist states, and we are no longer going to support these countries, we are going to sanction them."
Haven't you read the Wikileaks cables? The US threatens anyone that doesn't do what they want them too. And what country has more power than the US? Good idea tho
So, two years after "Cast lead", the Palestinian paramilitaries are better armed and "in a stronger position militarily". Another resounding success for the IDF.
But since Cast Lead, the firing of missiles and mortars into Israel has dropped to a fraction of what it was before the ceasefire that preceded Cast Lead.
Not saying it was good, but it worked from Israel's stand point.
A real point rather than rhetoric.
And a good day to you too!
Frankly I missed the point where I said that Hamas had a strangelhold on Gaza...in fact I believe if you check you'll find otherwise, what I have said is that they are the only legal government of Gaza, it matters little if they are a terroist organization or not, they were legally elected.
Only a moron would believe that the Israeli are the only ones capable of doing false flag events. But in any event it makes little difference who is firing them if they are being fired.
And as a last point to your idiotic post, I believe if you can bring yourself to read properly, you'll see that what was said was simply that "it worked" Nothing else.
Shade was correct, something you find yourself estranged from repeatedly.
Merry Christmas and Peace on Earth to you in any case.
Not really. I didn't judge whether Cast Lead was good or bad. I simply stated that from the Isreali standpoint it worked in stopping missile fire into Israel.
There is a viewpoint here that is totally nonsensical from time to time. A fantasy world where everything is the fault of zionists and that they do it for the exclusive purpose of genocide. Well I am pointing out that Israel is acting on a logic that you may not agree with, but a logic none the less. One that says attacking people that fire rockets and killing them makes them stop firing rockets. Not an issue of justice, but practicality.
As for this being a genocidal war, well if the evil, all-mighty zionists only killed 1400 people in two weeks in the most densely populated region on the planet, then they have to be incompetent. In Nanking the Japanese troops, certainly worse armed and supplied, were able to kill about 50,000 people a week for the 6 weeks during the Rape of Nanking. And they were doing it with bayonets and swords, not machine guns and white phosphorous.
I don't like the occupation and I don't like the blockade, but this echo chamber of hatred and fantasy here is like going to a Dungeons and Dragons convention and hearing pimply 13 year olds argue about how many hobgoblins can dance on the head of a pin.
'nuff said.
Myopic? Me? Are you off your meds?
1400 is what HAMAS reported. Who should I believe? Want to make it 14,000 instead? Then that is still a fraction of what might constitute a genocide.
Words have meaning. You can have your own opinions, but facts are pretty much facts.
I didn't once say Israel was right here, I just point out that on this forum if you can't be more hysterical than the last post, you have to be a zionist agent.
Get a grip.
There was NO misslie fire into Israel over the summer and fall of 2008! Unlike Israel, Hamas had complied with the cease fire until Isreal gunned down, withourt provocation, six of their soldiers.
Read this:
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=11811
"It is also the most racist,theocratic nation on the planet."
Really?? What about the United States, which has been a racist and theocratic nation all along?
That would be the ceasefire that was holding pretty well until Israel broke it on 4 November 2008 (when the world's gaze was fixed on the US presidential election).
Actually if you will remember, it was ISRAEL that broke the Ceasefire. Operation Cast Lead had been planned well before it "suddenly" began on 12/27/08. It appears that Israel will start another "Operation" soon; this time perhaps it will be named more realistically: OPERATION KILL THEM ALL. That is quite obviously the Israeli intent. They want all those dreadful Palestinians to just disappear so they can have what they believe to be rightfully theirs. After all they ARE the Chosen People, it says so right there in their Holy Book.
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to All...
"Worked" as for the Nazis in the Warsaw ghetto uprising?
"However, Israel has said it will increase attacks on Hamas facilities even if the movement is not directly responsible."
Soooo, even if you didn't do it, if you are of the same nationality, or ethnic group, or voted for them, or were elected by them, or are neighbors or cell-mates, co-religionists, or whatever the something is that's the same, you are guilty too.
Glad to have that cleared up.
Except the shoe never fits if put on the other foot.
And I agree because that kind of thinking is inaccurate and abhorrent, no matter what, no matter who.
In other words:
Armed home invaders, who have destroyed most of the Frederickson family home on Oak Street and are holding Arne and Mary Frederickson and their four young children prisoner in the basement, claim that bullets fired from a basement window have damaged a fender on their pickup truck. The Fredericksons have not claimed responsibility for this attack.
There were no reports of injury to criminals in the truck, who continued to drive the truck back and forth over the Frederickson's garden and chicken pen, and deliberately ran over the puppy that had been donated by the Make a Wish foundation to 10-year-old Mikey Frederickson, whose treatment for leukemia has ended because the home invaders will not allow the family to travel to a hospital for treatment.
The home invaders say that they regret that they will now be forced to detonate dynamite in the basement where the Fredericksons have been trapped with little food or water.
Pretty darn good.
Of course left out of the news release was the fact that the Invaders had been attacked by the Fredrickson's numerous times without provocation, had vowed to obliterate the whole race of Fredrickson's from the face of the earth and many declared it was a holy mandate they and any of the other Fredrickson's be murdered.
Thats the trouble with news reports and releases though, they are flavored by the prejudice's and preconcieved notions of the news organization.
When both sides are wrong I guess its a race to see who can be demonized the most.
"Of course left out of the news release was the fact that the Invaders had been attacked by the Fredrickson's numerous times without provocation,,,"
Mightymite, being invaded IS a "provocation." Resistance to invasion and occupation is not a crime, and is certainly not "unprovoked."
You speak about this as if there were two equal sides of the story. There are not. We see the Palestineans hearded into a tiny area, with buildings frequently bombed, with chemical weapons (WMD) frequently used, with one side armed to the teeth, and slaghter of the other. You want to take Israeli claims of rockets, forbidden by Hammas where no one was killed and where no-one knows if they are real, as equal, as if one sided propaganda, which is all we will ever get, is equal to reality.
War? The Palestinians have no military, the Hamas government is acknowledged not to be responsible for the random rocket fire coming from desperate individuals imprisoned in Gaza.
When one country uses it's highly equipped military (by U.S. tax dollars!) to attack, and imprison and deprive millions of innocent people, that is not a War, that is aggressive genocide.
It's not genocide. If it were genocide, the zionists would have done a lot better for themselves in the last 40 years. The situation is bad and there are a lot of words that might describe it, but genocide does not.
From dictionary.com:
Genocide: the deliberate and systematic extermination of a national, racial, political, or cultural group.
Care to quibble?
What is it, just that the velocity of this genocide is too slow for your taste?
Come on, man.
Yes. Explain to me how killing .9% of the population of the 1,551,859 is genocide unless it is a genocide of of the innocent by the incompetent. Especially when the growth rate in the Gaza is 2.225% per year.
Genocide has to be an active attempt to extermination of a national, racial, political, or cultural group and you should expect to see numbers that bear that out and you do not.
What Israel is doing is wrong, but it isn't genocide. No way no how. Using the term simply brands you ignorant because you do know better.
Semantics.
You're a sad, little human being.
So the definition of genocide in your mind should be reduced to a calculation, huh?
Care to give us the formula, Eichmann?
It's funny that I didn't see any formula in the definition I provided.
More importantly, you disgusting excuse for a person, you think it's AOK to murder people as long as said group of people are reproducing at an adequate rate, huh?
Hey, the percentages work out, right?
There are no words as to the scum you truly are.
The Israeli "Final Solution" to the "Palistinan Problem"?
The US and China should make a deal. US will stop supporting Israel and China will stop supporting North Korea. Two evil regimes would topple with one simple agreement.
Kayaker said "The US and China should make a deal. US will stop supporting Israel and China will stop supporting North Korea. Two evil regimes would topple with one simple agreement."
If North Korea falls to the South, then the S. Koreans and the USA would be on China's northeastern border. So China would do this for what reason? And China would believe the USA would follow through on said promise by USA, if for some reason China thought it was a good bargain? And the USA would keep its side of the bargain for what reason?
I don't see any sense in this suggestion. Maybe I am missing something?
This is something that should take place. In the same way that, 'the federal government should balance the budget'. We know it won't happen.
I'm amazed that most here are so uninformed that they believe Israel would fold up tomorrow without the support of the US and all the Israeli would go away?
Can people be so naive to believe the headlines and never look at the ground and the players involved.
Though Wikileakes has been pretty "much ado about nothing", surely the confirmation of certain support and relations that are well known but not spoken should inform even the most ideologically indoctrinated? Surely?
Really? You don't like facts much do you.
Israel's GNP is $201 billion. US aid to Israel is about $3 billion counting both military and non-military aid. That means if the US pulled funding it would be a 1.5% drop in the GNP. I don't think that would make them collapse. Might make a lot of people nervous and require a lot of shuffling around in Israel, but not a collapse.
Anyway they make their own tanks, guns, ammunition, missiles, and had made excellent aircraft till it just got too expensive compared to buying them. Helicopters, they might still need to buy. Anyone want to put money down on France not selling them anything they asked for if they couldn't get it from the US?
On the contrary, Horrified, I think your response to Mightymite on this is moronic.
He speaks truth. He just left out the names and affiliations that Israel has, that's all. Most of us know who and what they are.
/cm