.bmp)
.bmp)
After a mother and toddler escaped miraculously with scratches from a Qassam explosion outside the door of their Kibbutz Zikkim home, and Sderot residents roundly abused visiting defense minister Ehud Barak, the IsraeliIsraeli AirAir ForceForce was ordered into action Monday night and Tuesday morning, Dec. 17-18. Eleven senior Jihad Islami operatives were killed in GazaGaza CityCity, including Majd al Harazin, head of Jihad Islami’s military arm in Gaza and Karim Dahlul, director of Qassam missile production.The Israeli military spokesman maintained the ShinShin BetBet had provided precise intelligence on three command levels of the Iran-funded and trained jihad group – the military chiefs, the Qassam missile squads and their manufacturing bosses.On the West Bank, the Jihad Islami’s northern commander was shot dead in Kabatia outside Jenin. Later Tuesday, a Hamas command center was targeted in the southern Gaza town of KhanKhan YounesYounes. Two operatives were killed. During the day several rounds of heavy missile and mortar fire was directed against Israel locations. No one was hurt.After the Hamas-Jihad Islami terror machine was allowed to build up to formidable proportions, even a large-scale Israel military operation in the Gaza Strip will not easily stifle the missile and mortar campaign grinding down the Israeli population. However, the longer it is delayed, the harder it will be.In the course of 2007, Palestinians in Gaza fired 2,359 missiles and mortar shells into Israel, double the 2006 figure. The current estimate is that, barring a full-scale counter-terror offensive in Gaza involving the call-up of reserves, the 2008 figure will soar past 4,000, and may well include volleys from the West Bank as well as Gaza.In this offensive, the IDF’s mission would entail liquidating the Hamas terrorist war infrastructure, clobbering the 12,000-strong armed Palestinians - many of whom may go to ground in the dense civilian population, demolishing their command centers, missile foundries and arms arsenals, and severing their smuggling routes from Egyptian Sinai to Gaza. This campaign would not be short or painless.Israel’s chief of staff Lt. Gen. Gaby Ashkenazi put his finger on a key question when he asked what happens the day after the war. In other words, to whom would the IDF hand the Gaza Strip?He had no answers. Ashkenazi knows there is no point in handing Gaza back to Mahmoud Abbas’ Palestinian Authority, which lost the territory to a Hamas coup in June. Abbas and his associates are good at begging aid, but hopeless at securing or otherwise governing territory.NATO is strapped for troops to serve in Afghanistan and will have none to spare for Gaza. A Saudi-Jordanian-Egyptian force has no precedent and would be an unknown quantity, assuming that the three governments agreed to form such a force.Since the 15,000 UN peacekeeping force took over in south Lebanon after the 2006 war, not only Hizballah but the pro-Iranian-Syrian camp in Lebanon is laughing. They have prospered and gained strength, militarily and politically, under the protection of an international shield. This scenario would be replicated in the Gaza Strip.It would be pointless to list the blunders committed in seven years by the governments headed by Ehud Barak, Ariel Sharon and EhudEhud OlmertOlmert in handling the Palestinian and Hizballah terrorist challenges. What counts now is charting a way forward out of the current predicament for the IDF and policy-makers to pursue – first in Gaza, then in the West Bank, before the latter territory goes the way of the former.By now, Hamas rule is too entrenched to overthrow without the IDF capturing the entire Gaza Strip. It is important to stress that the siege-cum-sanctions strategy imposed by Israel and other nations has been ineffective in unseating Hamas in Gaza in the same way as this strategy failed to cow Iran....To read more go to:
As in the days of Noah.....
