Israeli Public Security Minister Yitzhak Aharonovich today ruled out any ceasefire negotiations with Hamas, as the Israeli military continues to escalate airstrikes against the tiny Gaza Strip, and is building up for a ground invasion.
The cabinet has given the military authorization to mobilize up to 40,000 reservists as part of preparations for a ground invasion of Gaza, though so far there is no confirmation that such an invasion yet. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu did, however, say that whatever sort of war Israel carries out “may take time.”
Army sources also say that the planning right now is for a “long operation” against Gaza, and with so many hawks in the government pushing for a full conquest of the strip it is hard to imagine Israel stopping short of such a war.
Israel invades or attacks the Gaza Strip on a fairly regular basis, and threatens to do so even more often. Since the large-scale 2008-09 invasion of Gaza, Israel has launched significant operations against Gaza at least once a year, including a massive aerial campaign in 2012.
As is always the case during Israeli attacks on Gaza, the US government has endorsed the operations, saying that Israel has ever right to conduct military offensives in the name of “self defense.”
Of course they will need to continue – they have been taking out Gazans and rockets respond. Whoever planned this thing, planned for maximal destruction.
There is but one thing that concerns me personally about this: because Israel gets to use drones and assassinate people all over the place, the US has followed suit. Perhaps some Americans are not entitled to due process of law because Israelis think that way. They have deeply influenced and enabled our military and our executive to be like them, but somehow, I think it is all hollow at the core. The Israelis who kill this way do not believe in the God in which some Americans profess to believe, but in a Bronze Age dictator who has his favorites and his rejects in the human race. The seed of this thinking came to America with the Puritans, who sought to revive that Old Testament bloody-mindedness. Anything brought of law through the Enlightenment into the American polity is in danger of being crushed under theocratic justifications for the worst mankind can deal out.
Israel will do what it will do, but we should abandon its ways that we have adopted. They aren't for us.
America and Israel are one and the same. Only thing America does it on a larger scale! I don't understand why the Arabs fight with each other , when they should fight their common enemy ISRAEL!!!
"….though so far there is no confirmation that such an invasion yet."
Check for the missing word or typo there please. Let's keep antiwar.com typo free so I can feel comfortable recommending the site to the more editing-conscious people I know. The news section would be amazing if only it weren't so prone to typos like this.
"…saying that Israel has ever right to conduct military offensives in the name of “self defense.”"
Should be "every" right.
PS I don't want you guys to publish these comments, I'm just trying to help so that the errors get fixed. Cheers!
Gaza as a Palistinian (Phillistine) City Predates Abraham even according to the Torah!
How one sided can a "war" be when one side openly discusses war plans like they're planning tomorrow's luncheon date. Imagine if both sides had the same toys.
About time we disengaged from this. Israel needs this Gazan whipping boy to slap around every once in awhile to show everyone how tough she is, to test new weapons, or to disappear the potential problem of Palestinian males ages 15-75.
Whether it is called in the news revenge over the kidnapped kids (cynically played by Netanyahu – these kids were dead early on, he knew it and played it out for world sympathy), Hamas rockets hitting the desert, (probably just scaring people – these things never seem to kill anyone or cause property damage – with or without the costly Iron Dome scam) or election season there (between a bunch of supremacist wingnuts trying to out-Heil each other) doesn't make any difference. All these interventions, do they need to bother, even with a perfunctory reason anymore? Oh wait, maybe it's about Hamas and Fatah getting chummy again and this is how spoiled kosher skank Israel shows her disapproval?
The US need not be a party to these crimes any longer.
I suspect that Israel and their warmongering government is going to go way over the line this time – far enough that even the sycophantic USG cannot continue to blindly support them…well, wishful hoping on my part, I guess.
Will that satisfy israel's bloodlust? Probably not.
How come no one comments on the rockets flying all over Israel?
"Rockets flying all over IsraHell, Olga?"
You mean those fireworks.
Get a grip.
Israel is going to genocide Gaza. They are going to murder thousands to get Iran to intervene
I hope Israel gets nuked into a grey smudge
Agree, JR. I'd love to see a great big one land in the middle if Tel Aviv.
Now, will all the Americans here please email their U.S. senator and congressperson and tell them we're sick and tired of American blood on their hands?
Agree, JR. I'd love to see a great big one land in the middle if Tel Aviv.