IDF strikes Hamas posts in Gaza after explosive flown into Israel
The Israeli Air Force struck two Hamas positions in the eastern Gaza Strip on Sunday in response to an explosive device that was flown into southern Israel earlier in the day, the army said.
On Sunday morning, a bomb was flown into Israel using a large cluster of balloons and a drone-like glider device, landing in a carrot field in the Sdot Negev region of southern Israel shortly before noon.
In retaliation for the cross-border attack from Gaza, Israeli military helicopters attacked two observation posts east of Khan Younis that are controlled by the coastal enclave’s Hamas rulers, the Israel Defense Forces said.
“IDF attack helicopters struck two military positions belonging to the Hamas terrorist group in the Gaza Strip in response to the balloon-borne explosive device, which was launched by a model drone,” the army said.
In addition to the posts near Khan Younis, Palestinian media reported that the IDF had attacked targets near Jabalia, in northern Gaza, and in the Zeitoun area of Gaza City, in the central Strip. The IDF refused to comment on those reports.
The military did not say who it believed flew the bomb into southern Israel, but said it held Hamas responsible as the rulers of Gaza.
“The IDF will continue to act in defense of the citizens of Israel and against terrorism from the Strip,” the army said.
Suspicious drone-shaped device from Gaza explodes in Israeli field; no injuries
A drone-shaped device from the Gaza Strip exploded in an agricultural field of an Israeli kibbutz northeast of the coastal enclave on Sunday, causing neither injury nor damage, police said.'LA Times' publishes column excusing antisemitism
Security forces had been sent to the carrot field in the Sdot Negev region where the object landed, the Israel Defense Forces said.
The object was shaped like an unmanned aerial vehicle, with a wingspan of over 1.2 meters (4 feet), and was carried into Israel by dozens of colorful helium balloons. Though similar to a drone in appearance, the device was apparently not capable of flight.
The name of a Gazan engineering college was printed on the side of the drone lookalike.
Police said the device exploded as a bomb disposal robot examined it. The drone lookalike was then carried away.
The Los Angeles Times published a column on Friday evening excusing the charges of antisemitism against the leaders of the Women’s March.
The op-ed, written by the newspaper’s columnist Robin Abcarian was titled, “Can you admire Louis Farrakhan and still advance the cause of women? Maybe so. Life is full of contradictions.”
In the column, Abcarian claimed that she thinks “it is possible to be repulsed by [Farrakhan’s] hateful rhetoric about white people, especially Jews, and still appreciate some of the empowerment work that he has done in the black community.”
Though she criticized the Women’s March organizers for taking too long to respond to accusations of antisemitism, Abcarian wrote that the fruits of the march were so inspirational as to eclipse that.
“While organizers of the Women’s March battled over who said what to whom about Jewish people when, and the merits of a noted antisemite, American women stood up by the millions and changed the country,” Abcarian wrote. “For that, everyone involved in the Women’s March can take a bow.”
But many people – Jewish and non-Jewish alike – were far from moved by Abcarian’s dismissal of antisemitism by both the Women’s March and Farrakhan.
A tweet from the newspaper’s “L.A. Now” Twitter account with a link to the article was subject to what’s known on Twitter as “the ratio.” As of Sunday morning, the tweet had been liked just 294 times, while it had been the subject of close to 2,500 irate replies on the social media platform.
This is the paper that buried the Khalidi Tape, so this is poetic. https://t.co/BN364DuV9D
— Stephen Miller (@redsteeze) January 5, 2019