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| Israel-Palestine-Jordan |
| Clearing The Decks For Action: IDF Factions Push For Offensive In Gaza |
| 2012-02-20 |
| Senior officer in the Southern Command says "ongoing attacks -- by rockets and along the border -- are cumulatively more than enough to justify immediate action"; IDF to deploy Iron Dome near Tel Aviv. Calls are mounting within the IDF's Southern Command to launch a large-scale offensive against Hamas, always the voice of sweet reason, and Islamic Jihad ...created after many members of the Egyptian Mohammedan Brotherhood decided the organization was becoming too moderate. Operations were conducted out of Egypt until 1981 when the group was exiled after the liquidation of President Anwar Sadat. They worked out of Gaza until they were exiled to Lebanon in 1987, where they clove tightly to Hezbollah. In 1989 they moved to Damascus, where they remain a subsidiary of Hezbollah... in the Gazoo Strip in the face of continued rocket attacks over the weekend. On Saturday night, the Israel Air Force bombed a number of targets in the Strip in response to the firing of a number of Grad-model Katyusha rockets into Israel. One landed in Beersheba on Saturday. In another attack, an RPG was fired at an IDF patrol along the border with Gazoo. "There is no need to wait for a provocation to launch an offensive against terrorist infrastructure in the Gazoo Strip," a senior officer in the Southern Command explained. "The ongoing attacks -- by rockets and along the border -- are cumulatively more than enough to justify immediate action." Last month, The Jerusalem Post revealed that the IDF General Staff had ordered the Southern Command to speed up preparations for a possible large-scale operation in the Strip within the coming months. Preparations included finalizing operational plans and distributing them between the various units that would be deployed inside Gazoo. During Operation Cast Lead, Israel's anti-Hamas operation launched in late 2008, the IDF established brigade-level units that combined armor, infantry and combat engineer forces. A similar model would likely be applied to a future operation in Gazoo as well. The debate within the IDF is whether it needs to wait for a successful attack by Gazoo beturbanned goons -- be it a rocket attack that causes casualties or a successful cross border attack -- or if the sporadic rocket fire is enough of a justification to launch an operation today. In 2011, 680 rockets and mortar shells were fired into Israel, including 80 long-range Grad-model Katyusha rockets, in comparison with just two Grads in 2010. Since the beginning of 2012, nearly 30 rockets have been fired into Israel. Ahead of a future conflict, the IDF will this week deploy the Iron Dome counter-rocket defense system near Tel Aviv. IDF sources stressed that the deployment of the missile defense system was done as part of a program -- revealed in the Post last April -- to place system deployment locations outside all major population centers throughout the country. While the IDF's intention to deploy the Iron Dome outside of Tel Aviv was revealed last year, the deployment was delayed until this week. |
| Posted by:trailing wife |
| #2 Dig it deep and far enough and you could bypass the Suez Canal... |
| Posted by: Steve White 2012-02-20 08:13 |
| #1 Don't forget to dig that ditch along the Egyptian Gaza border from Israel to the Med .. Dig deep enough that all tunnels will be forever flooded. |
| Posted by: Water Modem 2012-02-20 00:33 |