Monday, August 08, 2022

08/08 Links Pt1: Israel pre-empts further Iran proxy attack; Islamic Jihad rockets killed more civilians in Gaza than IDF airstrikes; Will Amnesty condemn Islamic Jihad’s tactics as it did Ukraine?

From Ian:

Israel Surprised the Palestinian Islamic Jihad in Gaza
Fearing an imminent terrorist attack in early August, Israel declared four days of restrictions and a shutdown of the Israeli communities along the Gaza border. On August 5, 2022, Israel seized the initiative and struck a preemptive blow against the Palestinian Islamic Jihad centers and leaders in Gaza.

The Breaking Dawn operation aimed to thwart imminent Islamic Jihad terror attacks on Israeli targets using antitank missiles and sniper fire in response to the arrest of senior Islamic Jihad official Bassam al-Saadi in Jenin in the West Bank.

In recent days Islamic Jihad had sought to change the rules of the game and create a new linkage equation between the IDF's arrest of its operatives in the West Bank and continued quiet along the Gaza border.

The Islamic Jihad leadership sought to create a standoff whereby any harm to its operatives in the West Bank, their arrest, or the endangerment of the lives of security prisoners on hunger strike in Israeli prisons, would spark an escalation at the Gaza border.

The Israeli political echelon decided to launch the operation once it was clear that the efforts by Egypt and Hamas to restrain Islamic Jihad had failed. The terror group was at an advanced stage of preparations for attacks along the border.

Iran orchestrated everything that happened inside and along the Gaza borders. Ziad al-Nakhalah, the Islamic Jihad leader, visited Tehran’s leaders and ran the campaign in coordination with the Iranian Revolutionary Guard.

Israel succeeded in surprising Islamic Jihad using remarkable intelligence and technological capabilities. Israel thwarted the attacks that Islamic Jihad was planning and killed the group's entire military leadership in Gaza. Rehabilitating the IDF's deterrence against Islamic Jihad is very important.
Melanie Phillips: Israel pre-empts further Iran proxy attack
Even in the most precisely targeted airstrikes against military targets, there will inevitably be some civilian casualties. The death or injury of any child in these circumstances is a tragedy, whoever is responsible. But what the western media wilfully misses time and again in its reporting of Israel’s military campaigns are two crucial points.

First, that Israel’s defence forces go to lengths unmatched by any other military force — including the British and American — to avoid civilian casualties.

Second, while Israel targets terrorists and their infrastructure with rare precision and only ever as a defensive measure, the PIJ, Hamas and other Palestinian terror groups in Gaza deliberately target Israeli civilians. That is a war crime — as is also their strategy of siting their missiles and other terror infrastructure within civilian areas, thus using Gaza’s civilians, including their children, as hostages and human shields.

Israel’s enemies also point to the relative absence of Israeli casualties, as if this proves a “disproportionate response”. Not only does this grossly misunderstand proportionality in warfare (the response to aggression needs to be in proportion to the threat, not to the number of casualties sustained). There’s also this. When missiles rain down on southern Israel, the population takes cover in air-raid shelters. In Gaza, the Palestinians don’t build air-raid shelters to protect their people against war. Instead, they build terrorist tunnels from which to launch yet more murderous attacks on Israeli civilians.

This distinction is, of course, lost on the United Nations whose perverted and obsessive animus against Israel cannot be exaggerated. Thus the UN Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process Tor Wennesland said he was:
deeply concerned by the ongoing escalation between Palestinian militants and Israel, including the targeted killing today of a Palestinian Islamic Jihad leader inside Gaza…I am deeply saddened by reports that a five-year-old child has been killed in these strikes. There can be no justification for any attacks against civilians.

But he doesn’t seem to have been “deeply saddened” by the hundreds of missile strikes against Israeli civilians; nor by the murder of Israelis in March and April.

And let’s not overlook Francesca Albanese, UN Special Rapporteur to the “Palestinian territories,” who tweeted:
A short time ago, Israel reportedly accepted an Egypt-brokered cease-fire. PIJ rejected it and unleashed another barrage of rockets, one of which fell in an open area next to the Ashkelon marina.

Let’s hope for a speedy end to this latest outbreak of hostilities. But to the malice of the western media or the UN against Israel, there is, alas, no cease-fire in prospect.
Jonathan Tobin: Gaza fighting changes nothing about Israel’s image struggle
If you check the Twitter pages of Israel bashers in politics, the media or the chattering classes, you’ll find the same tired arguments treating the Palestinians as the victims of Israeli aggression, as if 30 years of Israeli peace efforts and Palestinian rejectionism and terrorism had never happened. Not one anti-Zionist course being taught on an American college campus will be altered. Nor will the advocacy of groups like Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, Students for Justice in Palestine, Jewish Voices for Peace or IfNotNow, all of which falsely claim that Israel is an “apartheid state,” be changed as a result of the actions of Islamic Jihad and their Iranian sponsors.

Arguments about the anti-Semitic BDS movement, efforts to restrict U.S. military aid to Israel, or the unreasonable and criminal behavior of Hamas, PIJ or their “moderate” Fatah rivals running the West Bank who reward terrorists and their families with pensions aren’t affected by the facts about the conflict.

If you accept the false Palestinian narrative about Israel being born in sin as an expression of Western imperialism and colonialism, as those who buy into intersectionality and critical race theory do, then it doesn’t matter what the Israelis or their terrorist opponents actually do.

That’s important not just because it speaks volumes about those who regularly libel Israel from the editorial pages of major newspapers or from platforms on liberal cable news networks. It’s also something that both those who speak for Israel—and those groups and individuals who support it—must draw the correct conclusions from.

Talking about the need to ensure Israeli security or the tremendous care that the IDF takes to avoid civilian casualties, which is almost certainly unmatched by any army in the world, seem like important debating points in the discussion about the conflict. The same is true when you remind people about the withdrawal from Gaza in 2005. But none of that matters to those who think ill of the Jewish state.

There isn’t even much evidence that it does much to rally Jewish opinion behind Israel, which is heavily influenced by biased media outlets and ignorance about the facts of the conflict. If you accept, as so many Jews have, that it’s somehow unfair that Palestinians don’t have an Iron Dome, or that the perceived imbalance of power means that the terrorists and those they exploit are the underdogs, then history or the true reason for the stalemate is forgotten.

All of this means that while defenders of Israel should always debunk the lies of their opponents, they must also understand that their purpose should be to remind people that Israel has a right to exist and that the goal of its enemies is to deny that right. Once you establish that basic truth, you’re making clear that those who question the right of the Jews to one state aren’t merely wrong but practicing discrimination. Which is to say that they are anti-Semites.

So, rather than being bogged down in security arguments or bragging about the sacrifices Israel has made for peace, which only convince its critics that it is a thief returning stolen property rather than a country whose cause is just, friends of the Jewish state must speak primarily of Jewish rights and about how anti-Zionism is anti-Semitism. Everything else is generally a waste of time and effort.


Islamic Jihad rockets killed more civilians in Gaza than IDF airstrikes
Following the ceasefire, the Home Front Command announced that it would be gradually lifting the security restrictions posed on Israelis living close to Gaza as Israel returns to normal.

In the first stage, the roads in the Gaza envelope were all opened, and the trains to Sderot and Ashkelon were scheduled to go back to work at noon. The Home Front said that it would look into lifting further restrictions throughout the day while closely monitoring the situation.

The checkpoints between Gaza and Israel were scheduled to open at 9 a.m. for humanitarian purposes only, and the IDF said that more people would be allowed through if the situation remained quiet.

Throughout the operation, the Islamic Jihad fired an approximate total of 1,100 rockets, 200 of which landed within Gaza. Of the 990 rockets that made it into Israel, 380 were intercepted by the Iron Dome at a 95% success rate. The other 610 landed in the sea and open spaces.

Apart from a few people who were lightly injured from debris on Saturday, no Israeli casualties were reported. The Palestinians, however, reported a total of 35 deaths out of which 26 were innocent bystanders. Of the 26, 11 were killed in Israeli airstrikes, and 15 were killed by Islamic Jihad rockets that failed to clear Gaza.

According to the briefing, no civilian infrastructure in Gaza was harmed in the operation by Israeli forces.


'It's not assassination,' says expert on laws of armed conflict
Col. (Res.) Pnina Sharvit Baruch says that Israel's elimination of Palestinian Islamic Jihad leaders is justifiable under the laws of armed conflict, and that the Israeli military was restrained in its conduct




Will Amnesty condemn Islamic Jihad’s tactics as it did Ukraine?
Israel’s strikes in this operation have been extremely precise. Gazan casualties have been overwhelmingly combatants. However, Islamic Jihad has been conducting attacks no less indiscriminate than Russia. By Sunday morning, almost 600 rockets were launched into Israel, about 120 of them having fallen within the Gaza Strip. The rockets are unguided, aimed at Israeli towns and cities.

Amnesty’s report may have also been misguided, striking a blow against themselves.

President Volodymyr Zelensky denounced Amnesty’s report, accusing the NGO of “trying to shift the responsibility from the aggressor to the victim.”

The US Ambassador to Ukraine, Bridget Brink, didn’t directly address the report, but a day after the report’s release, she said that “after 163 days of an unprovoked war the Kremlin started, it should be absolutely clear that Ukrainians are in danger due to Russia’s aggression, the brutality of its forces, and their relentless barrage on cities across the country.”

Most damning of all, Amnesty’s Ukraine head Oksana Pokalchuk resigned from her role over her disagreement with the findings. She said that Amnesty gave the Ukrainian Defense Ministry little time to respond before it published its report.

“It pains me to admit it, but we disagreed with the leadership of Amnesty International on values,” Pokalchuk wrote. “That’s why I decided to leave the organization.”

As of Sunday morning, Amnesty International hasn’t commented on the tactics of Islamic Jihad in the Gaza Strip, or the operation at large.

Amnesty fired off a report on Ukraine while operating in a dense political landscape, and revealed that it is armed with hypocrisy, not human rights.
‘Israel did not agree to free Islamic Jihad prisoners in Gaza ceasefire’
Israel did not agree to release Palestinian Islamic Jihad prisoners as part of ceasefire talks to end Operation Breaking Dawn, a senior Israeli diplomatic source said on Sunday, hours after the hostilities ended.

Before the ceasefire went into effect at 11:30 p.m. on Sunday, Islamic Jihad announced that Israel would release as soon as possible one of the terrorist group’s senior members, Bassam al-Saadi, who was arrested last week, as well as administrative detainee Khalil Awawda, to transfer him for medical treatment. Egyptian state media also said that Cairo would work to that end.

“Israel did not agree to release any of the prisoners,” said the senior source. “The Egyptians asked, and we will allow a dialogue on the situation of the prisoners” on how they are faring, from a humanitarian perspective.

The senior Israeli source said that Israel has a “diplomatic opportunity” following Operation Breaking Dawn, and that Israel wants to leverage recent messages from Hamas about Israeli captives.

Hamas has been holding Israelis Hisham al-Sayed and Abera Mengistu in captivity, as well as the bodies of soldiers Hadar Goldin and Oren Shaul. Hamas recently released a video showing al-Sayed in poor health.

“We want to take this forward and not just be satisfied with a quiet Islamic Jihad,” he said. “The captives are a high priority for Prime Minister [Yair] Lapid. We are acting to exhaust every opportunity to deal with this humanitarian matter.”

At the same time, he said, “Israel did not agree to release any of the prisoners.”
Palestinian Islamic Jihad Leader: The Enemy Has Conceded to Our Demand to Release Two PIJ Leaders
Following three days of conflict between Israel and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) in the Gaza Strip, PIJ leader Ziyad Nakhalah said in an August 7, 2022 press conference in Tehran that was aired on the PIJ’s Palestine Today TV network that the Israeli “enemy” has conceded to the PIJ’s demand to release two PIJ leaders, and that the ceasefire proves that Israel has not achieved anything in this round of fighting. He said that if the prisoners are not released, the ceasefire will be considered void and the PIJ will resume fighting. In addition, Nakhalah praised Qatar’s Al-Jazeera Network and thanked it for its coverage of the “war”, adding: “I salute you”. He also thanked Iran’s Arabic-language Al-Alam TV.








Israeli-Designated Terror Org Urges Voters To Pressure Lawmakers Into Supporting Resolution ‘Condemning’ Israel
A non-governmental organization (NGO), which is also an Israeli-designated terror group, is urging U.S. voters to pressure lawmakers to back a Democrat-sponsored resolution “condemning” Israel, according to an email obtained by the Daily Caller News Foundation.

“Your member of Congress hasn’t signed on to Rep. McCollum’s House Resolution to condemn this criminalization of Palestinian civil society,” Brad Parker, senior adviser for policy and advocacy at Defense for Children International — Palestine (DFCI-P), wrote in their email supporting the Democrat-backed resolution.

DFCI-P was designated as a terror group by the Israeli government in October 2021 for operating as part of “a network of organizations” acting “undercover” and “on behalf of” the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), which is a U.S.-designated terror group. The PFLP is a Marxist-Leninist group responsible for hijacking aircrafts and murdering U.S. citizens.

“It’s crucial that our leaders stand up to any attempt to quash civil society, especially when the U.S. gives the Israeli government $3.8 billion a year. Tell your representative to reject the Israeli criminalization of Palestinian civil society,” reads DCFI-P’s email, which was sent Thursday.

The resolution in question is co-sponsored by Rep. Betty McCollum of Minnesota and 10 other Democrats, including Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, Rashida Tlaib of Michigan, Cori Bush of Missouri, Ilhan Omar of Minnesota and Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts. The resolution demands the U.S. condemn Israel for its “repressive designation” of the groups.

The resolution labels Israel’s terror designations of DFCI-P and other groups as “authoritarian” and calls on “Israeli authorities to immediately end efforts aimed at persecuting, delegitimizing, and criminalizing Palestinian human rights defenders and civil society organizations.”


IDF believes 12 children killed in Gaza by Islamic Jihad’s rocket misfires – report
The Israeli military reportedly believes most of the children killed in Gaza during this weekend’s three days of fighting died as a result of explosions caused by failed rocket launches by Palestinian terror operatives and not due to Israeli strikes.

According to an unsourced Sunday report in the Haaretz daily, the military believes Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) was responsible for at least 12 of the 15 deaths of children reported by the Hamas-run Health Ministry in Gaza in the fighting.

The IDF has presented what it says is video evidence showing that seven people killed in Jabaliya on Saturday night, including four children — in what Palestinian media claimed was an Israeli strike — were in fact killed by a failed PIJ rocket that landed inside the Strip.

A second disputed incident resulted in the deaths of five children — aged 4, 13, 14, 16, and 17 — in an explosion at the Jabaliya refugee camp on Sunday, which was said by Palestinians to be an Israeli attack, but which Israel believes was also the result of a failed launch, the report said.

In another incident on Sunday, three more children were killed, along with their father Yasser Anbahin (who was claimed by the Hamas terror group as a member), when their house was damaged in an explosion. The IDF is said to believe that too was caused by a rocket misfire by Islamic Jihad.


Statement by President Biden on the Ceasefire in Gaza
I welcome the announcement tonight of a ceasefire between Israel and Gaza-based militants after three days of hostilities.

Over these last 72-hours, the United States has worked with officials from Israel, the Palestinian Authority, Egypt, Qatar, Jordan, and others throughout the region to encourage a swift resolution to the conflict. I thank President Abdel Fattah Al Sisi and the senior Egyptian officials who played a central role in this diplomacy as well as Amir Sheikh Tamim Bin Hamad Al Thani of Qatar and his team for helping to bring these hostilities to an end.

My support for Israel’s security is long-standing and unwavering—including its right to defend itself against attacks. Over these recent days, Israel has defended its people from indiscriminate rocket attacks launched by the terrorist group Palestinian Islamic Jihad, and the United States is proud of our support for Israel’s Iron-Dome, which intercepted hundreds of rockets and saved countless lives. I commend Prime Minister Yair Lapid and his government’s steady leadership throughout the crisis.

The reports of civilian casualties in Gaza are a tragedy, whether by Israeli strikes against Islamic Jihad positions or the dozens of Islamic Jihad rockets that reportedly fell inside Gaza. My Administration supports a timely and thorough investigation into all of these reports, and we also call on all parties to fully implement the ceasefire, and to ensure fuel and humanitarian supplies are flowing into Gaza as the fighting subsides.


PIJ Rocket Misfires, Lands in Gaza Neighborhood During Live Mayadeen TV Broadcast
During a live Mayadeen TV (Lebanon) coverage of the recent escalation between Gaza and Israel on August 7, 2022, the channel’s correspondent insisted that a rocket that had misfired and hit in a local neighborhood had actually been fired towards the sea. The correspondent then asked the cameraman to turn the camera away from the densely populated area in which the rocket had landed.




FDD: Assessing Palestinian Islamic Jihad's Military Capabilities after the August 2022 Conflict
Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) is the second-largest terrorist organization in Gaza after Hamas.

Over the years, PIJ has strengthened its military capabilities with significant assistance from Iran, with an estimated arsenal of 6,000-8,000 rockets, the majority with a range of up to 40 km.

PIJ also possesses the lethal Kornet anti-tank guided missile, which has a range up to 5.5 km.

During the August conflict, the rockets fired exposed their poor quality and lack of accuracy; 20% fell inside Gaza.

Many of the longer-range rockets deviated from their intended trajectory and fell into the sea.

PIJ likely still possesses 5,500 short-range rockets and at least several long-range rockets that can reach central Israel.
MEMRI: In Tehran Visit On The Eve Of The Gaza-Israel Conflict, Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) Leader Nakhaleh, Iranian Regime Heads Praise Iran's Support For PIJ; IRGC Qods Force Commander Qaa'ni: 'The Palestinian Fighters Are At The Stage Of Planning To Strike The Final Blows Against The Rotting Body Of The Zionist Regime, When The Time Is Right'
In the days before the August 5, 2022 Israeli strike on Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) military commanders in Gaza, PIJ secretary-general Ziyad Nakhaleh was in Tehran meeting with senior Iranian leaders. During the meetings, he stressed the PIJ's increasing hold in the West Bank and its preparations to carry out terror attacks in Israel. For their part, the Iranian leaders reiterated their support for the PIJ and their encouragement of its armed resistance operations against Israel carried out from both Gaza and the West Bank.

It should be noted that the PIJ is a proxy of Iran and that since its founding it has received Iranian weapons and funding. Although it is a Sunni Arab organization, it accepts as its leader Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, who heads the Islamic revolutionary regime in Iran, and PIJ leaders regularly express their gratitude to him for his active support of the organization and its operatives.[1]

Tehran appears to be demanding of the PIJ and its visiting secretary-general that the organization carry out terror attacks against Israel in response to operations attributed to Israel on Iranian soil in recent months. This can be understood from statements by Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) Qods Force Qods Force commander Qaa'ni, on August 5, on the eve of the outbreak of the conflict: "Although in many cases the enemy [Israel] has received a response to its hostility within a very short time, we have a plan for everything that is left [unanswered]... The Palestinian fighters are at the stage of planning to strike the final blows against the rotting body of the Zionist regime, when the time is right."[2]

On August 4, 2022, the day before the outbreak of the conflict, Nakhaleh presented Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi with a report on PIJ capabilities and activity in Palestine. Pointing out "the Zionist regime's passivity in dealing with resistance forces in Gaza and the West Bank," he added: "The Palestinian resistance has a strong presence in the West Bank, in addition to a strong presence in Gaza... These achievements are thanks to Iran's support."[3]

The previous day, August 3, 2022, at a meeting with Khamenei's advisor Ali Akbar Velayati, Nakhaleh declared that "Supreme Leader [Khamenei] has a place in our heart, and he has no equal in all the world. You are our big brothers and you play an important role both in Iran and beyond it." During this meeting, he asserted that "Israel is besieged from all sides" – a statement he reiterated also in conversations with other senior Iranian officials.[4]

This report reviews the meetings in Tehran between PIJ secretary-general Ziyad Nakhaleh and senior Iranian officials in the first days of August 2022, prior to and following the August 5 outbreak of the hostilities from and within Gaza:


Iran "Almost Certainly" to Blame for Escalation
Palestinian Islamic Jihad is an Iranian-backed militia force in the Gaza Strip, and estimations are that Tehran is funding the organization to the tune of between $30 million and $40 million a year.

Avivi, who served as the deputy commander of Israel’s Gaza Division, is well-acquainted with the heated Gaza front.

Terror infrastructure
“Most of the budget from Iran is being used to build tunnels. Some defensive tunnels, and others that enable surprise attacks on Israeli forces,” he explains.

The Israeli military announced on Sunday morning it had destroyed an attack tunnel, as part of the campaign against PIJ infrastructure.

“It was an operational tunnel that got quite close to the border and could have been used to carry out an attack on Israeli troops,” an official military party told The Media Line.

“I can carefully estimate there are dozens of more tunnels, built for that purpose by PIJ,” Avivi says.

Avivi is the founder of the Israel Defense and Security Forum, in Hebrew “Habithonistim” (“The security-minded ones”), an organization comprising former military and police officers that supports annexation of the West Bank and a proactive Israeli military agenda.

“What we’re seeing right now is a decision made by Iran and PIJ to escalate the situation. I’m not involved in the details, but I can assume it has to do with Iran wanting to take revenge on Israel for many hostile actions attributed to it, like bombing nuclear facilities and assassinating Iranian officers and scientists,” he says.

“I estimate this round will end in two or three days, but the question is, what is the [Israel’s] long-run strategy? Will it be waiting for another blow or taking the initiative and crafting the security reality? I don’t have a complete answer [to the Gaza problem], but being active is definitively a better option,” Avivi says.

Brig. Gen. (res.) Hasson Hasson, another member of the Israel Defense and Security Forum, spoke to The Media Line about the behind-the-scenes efforts to reach a cease-fire.

“The Egyptian mediation is done by the Egyptian Mukhabarat [General Intelligence Service − A.K]. They have very good communication with both sides and have been doing a great job for years,” he says.


Erdogan rails at Israel over Gaza fighting: ‘No excuse for killing children’
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan hit out at Israel on Monday, accusing the Jewish state of killing children during its three-day operation against the Palestinian Islamic Jihad terror group in the Gaza Strip.

The scathing criticism comes after two years of steadily warming relations between Jerusalem and Ankara.

“We condemn Israel’s actions in Gaza. There can be no excuse for killing children,” Erdogan said in comments carried by the official Anadolu news agency.

Erdogan stressed his support for the Palestinians, saying Turkey “stands alongside the Palestinian people and our brothers in Gaza,” and reiterated Turkish support for a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

“We stress that the site holy to us, the Al-Aqsa Mosque, is our red line,” the Turkish president said, referring to Jewish pilgrims visiting the Temple Mount on Sunday to mark the fasting day of Tisha B’Av, which mourns the destruction of the temples that once stood at the Jerusalem holy site.

The Turkish leader’s criticism came after the country’s foreign ministry issued a statement over the weekend criticizing Israel over the Gaza strikes.

The statement followed reports of a rocket hitting a Palestinian home in the Jabaliya refugee camp, killing at least seven civilians, including four children.
Islamic Jihad head: Fighting will resume if Israel breaks Gaza ceasefire
Palestinian Islamic Jihad Secretary-General Ziyad al-Nakhala warned that his terrorist movement would resume fighting with Israel if its demands for the release of Islamic Jihad prisoners were not met, during a speech delivered as a ceasefire took effect between Israel and Islamic Jihad on Sunday night.

The movement's leader claimed that Israel had agreed to release Islamic Jihad official Bassam al-Saadi and hunger-striking prisoner Khalil al-Awawda in return for the ceasefire agreement. He additionally claimed that Israel was the one who “strongly sought to reach a ceasefire.”

Saadi, a senior official of Islamic Jihad in the West Bank, was arrested on Monday by Israeli forces in Jenin. Shortly after, movement restrictions were issued for towns in the south due to concerns that the terrorist movement would attempt to carry out an attack in response.

“If the enemy does not abide by what we agreed on through the Egyptian mediator, we will resume fighting again, and God will do with us what He wills,” warned Nakhala.

The ceasefire took effect at 11:30 p.m. on Sunday evening. Just minutes after it entered effect, rockets were fired in two waves from the Gaza Strip towards southern Israel. No faction took responsibility for the rocket fire.


Israel Re-Opens Gaza Crossings as Truce With Palestinians Holds
Israel reopened border crossings into Gaza on Monday following an Egyptian-brokered ceasefire with the militant Islamic Jihad group that ended the most serious outbreak of fighting around the volatile Palestinian enclave in more than a year.

At least 44 people, including 15 children, were killed by both IDF strikes and failed rocket launches by the terror group, during the 56 hours of violence that began when Israel targeted a senior Islamic Jihad commander. Israel said its action was a pre-emptive strike against an attack planned by the Iranian-backed group.

Hundreds more people were wounded and several houses destroyed in the Gaza Strip. Palestinian terrorists fired more than 1,000 rockets at Israel, sending residents of southern areas and major cities including Tel Aviv fleeing to shelters.

In a news conference broadcast on the pro-Iranian station Al Mayadeen following the ceasefire late on Sunday, Islamic Jihad leader Ziad al-Nakhala declared: “This is a victory.”

But Israel saw a significant degradation of Islamic Jihad capabilities.

“There’s no doubt Islamic Jihad was dealt a serious blow from which it will take time to recover,” an Israeli military official said, pointing to the loss of two senior commanders, which he said would severely disrupt its ability to plan and carry out operations.

“We did not annihilate Islamic Jihad nor was that our goal.”

As well as the two commanders, Israeli officials said around 20 fighters were killed by the strikes and large quantities of anti-tank weapons and rocket production and storage facilities were destroyed.

“I think they were surprised by our capabilities and by the level of our intelligence and operational abilities,” a senior Israeli diplomatic official told reporters.

A spokesman for Islamic Jihad in Gaza said the group may have suffered losses to its leadership and fighting strength but it had been able to impose conditions on Israel and maintain unity and cohesion.

“The enemy made ending the Islamic Jihad group its battle aim but such a dreaming, delusional goal failed,” he said. “We own the human element, the human miracle that can repair capabilities regardless of how humble they are.”
The Blood Libel That Went Viral: Israel Blamed for Palestinian Islamic Jihad Rocket That Killed Children
"A lie can travel halfway around the world before the truth can get its boots on.”

This quote — frequently attributed to American writer Mark Twain but traced back to satirist Jonathan Swift — perfectly encapsulates the reaction to the news that an explosion at the Jabaliya camp in Gaza during Operation Breaking Dawn had left several children dead.

Many of the first reports from the Strip claimed the bloodshed was the result of an Israeli strike.

The IDF, however, acted immediately and released a statement that confirmed it had not targeted its airpower anywhere in the vicinity at the time of the blast. Later, both video and radar evidence was published online that showed the carnage was in fact caused by a misfired rocket shot by Palestinian Islamic Jihad terrorists.

Related Reading: Media Silent As New Iranian President Raisi Rolls Out Red Carpet For Terror Leaders

As early as Saturday night — mere minutes after the explosion — a widely circulated video of the rocket showed that it was launched from inside the coastal enclave before sharply turning and losing altitude.

Yet, the initial media reports buried the IDF’s statement and ignored the video that was available online.

The BBC opened its coverage of Operation Breaking Dawn with the following two paragraphs:
Israel has killed a second top militant from the Palestinian Islamic Jihad group, as the death toll continues to rise from air strikes in Gaza.

Six children and several PIJ fighters – including leaders Khaled Mansour and Tayseer Jabari – are among the 32 Palestinians reported to have died.”

It is only further down in the article that the reader is told that there is evidence that Israel was not responsible for the deaths in Jabaliya, although the nature of this evidence — incontrovertible video proof — is omitted:
Gaza’s health ministry blamed “Israeli aggression” for the deaths of Palestinians, and for the more than 200 people wounded.

Israel accused PIJ militants of accidentally causing at least some of those deaths – claiming on Saturday that the group fired a stray rocket killing multiple children in Jabalia, in the Gaza Strip. The BBC has not been able to independently verify this claim.”
Guardian fails in coverage of Israel's war with Gaza terrorists
With the truce having gone into effect last night, ending the three day war between Israel and the antisemitic terrorist group Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ), here are some of the egregious omissions and errors, by the Guardian (including one in The Telegraph) thus far.

Guardian
They published an Aug. 6 video story characterising a building destroyed by the IDF as “residential” without mentioning, as other outlets did, that it was struck – after the civilians were evacuated – because it was being used by PIJ for military purposes.

(We complained to editors about this omission, but we haven’t yet received a reply.)

Guardian
Their Jerusalem correspondent, Bethan McKernan, characterised, in an August 8 article, PIJ threats to retaliate against Israel for the arrest of Bassem al-Saadi last week, one of the group’s top West Bank commanders, as an unproven Israeli claim. In fact, as documented by many news outlets, the group publicly vowed revenge for al-Saddi’s arrest.

(They have thus far failed to correct this error.)

Guardian
McKernan, in the same article, cited a casualty count for the conflict without acknowledging that the source was the Hamas-run Gaza Health ministry, whose stats conflict with those released by the IDF. We complained to editors and the article was amended to note the source of the stats, with the following addendum added:

The Telegraph
Middle East correspondent Abbie Cheeseman published an article on Aug. 8th strongly suggesting that all the children killed in Gaza were the result of IDF strikes, without acknowledging that at least four were killed as the result of errant Palestinian rockets – a fact that even Al Jazeera acknowledged.
When does the BBC require ‘independent verification’
Readers are not provided with any further information about the activities of Khaled Mansour over the years, including his responsibility for multiple attacks and rocket fire, or the significance of his death.

Some versions of this report also included a paragraph of gibberish:
“The latest conflict closely follows Israel’s arrest of Bassem Saadi, reported to be the head of PIJ in the West Bank, on Monday night.

He was held in the Jenin area as part of an ongoing series of arrest operations after a wave of attacks by Israeli Arabs and Palestinians that left 17 Israelis and two Ukrainians dead. Two of the attackers came from the Jenin district.

IDF found illegal weapons and a large sum of money in his house. We know from intelligence we cannot share details we know that they have PIJ operatives in Gaza close to the border trying to attack Israeli civilians.”

So as we see, while the BBC qualifies the cause of the deaths of Palestinian children killed by a shortfall rocket fired by PIJ terrorists by pointing out that it has “not been able to independently verify this claim”, at the same time it continues to uncritically cite equally unverified claims from the “Gaza health ministry” run by another terrorist organisation.

That’s quite some contortion.
BBC website omits information from report on airstrike
Not only did the BBC fail to clarify that the building concerned was used by the Palestinian Islamic Jihad terror group, it also refrained from informing viewers that the residents had been instructed to evacuate before the attack took place, despite that fact being known to the BBC.

Over four hours before the report was published on the BBC News website, a journalist working at the corporation’s Gaza bureau had sent the following Tweet relating to the same location, as can be seen by the sign on the right:

Apparently though BBC News website editors had no qualms about presenting audiences with a context free version of the story which omitted relevant information regarding Israel’s efforts to avoid civilian casualties while carrying out a counter-terrorism operation.


IDF razes homes of terrorists behind deadly Independence Day attack
As a shaky cease-fire between Israel and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad took effect on Sunday night, Israeli forces demolished the homes in the village of Rumana near Jenin of the two terrorists responsible for murdering three Israelis in Elad in May.

The High Court of Justice rejected petitions to stay the demolition.

During the operation, local residents began rioting, burning tires and stoning the Israeli forces, who deployed crowd control measures.

As’ad Yousef As’ad al-Rifa’i and Subhi Emad Subhi Abu Shqeir were indicted approximately two months ago for the attack, which took place on Israel’s Independence Day.

According to the indictment, they were wielding axes and knives when they broke through the security fence around the village of Rantis, from where they were picked up and taken to Elad.

When they arrived in Elad, they murdered the driver, Oren Ben Yiftah, and set out on a killing spree that lasted several minutes. At a local park, where residents were celebrating Independence Day, they murdered two more Israelis—Boaz Gol and Yonatan Havakuk, whose son was with him at the time.
Israel tourism industry offers free vacations to residents living near Gaza border
Residents of towns near Gaza Strip border have been living under rocket fire for 3 days

As Israel's military Operation Breaking Dawn against Islamic Jihad in the Gaza Strip entered its third day, Arkia Airlines started offering free holiday packages to residents of towns bordering Gaza.

In cooperation with the regional councils, the Israeli airline gives residents the choice of staying in Cyprus, Greece or Bulgaria for three to four nights. The packages, which include free flights and hotel reservations, are currently available for residents of Eshkol and Ashkelon Regional Council.

To fund these deals, the government has provided grants of $95 per person, while the airline will pick up the rest.

Meanwhile, Israel Nature and Parks Authority offers Israelis, who live within 25 miles of the Gaza Strip, free entry to the country’s national parks from Sunday to Wednesday. Residents can register on the Nature and Parks Authority website.

In addition, several hotels across the country implemented special promotions for residents of the south of Israel, who have been living under rocket fire for three days.




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