Live Updates Over 400 Gaza Rockets Fired at Israel; One Israeli Dead, Eight Palestinians Killed

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1. @ Buzz of the Orient: Good points, Buzz.

2. In Memo to Kushner I recommended that Gaza be emptied of all refugees about 1.4 million and that Israel annex it. Then and only then will we have peace there.

3. It’s not going to stop. It will continue. Rockets and missiles will continue to rain down on Israel, and are bound to be aimed at more and more targets. There is no such thing as a cease fire, merely a hudna allowing them to rearm to do more damage. It’s never-ending. And it WON’T end. All the king’s horses and all the king’s men will not be able to stop it. Israel is blamed when the rockets are fired into Israel. Israel is blamed when it defends itself. Israel is blamed when it retaliates.. When Hamas strikes, the mainstream media calls it resistance or ignores it. When an IDF soldier accidentally steps on the toe of a Hamas terrorist, it will make world-wide headlines “Israel Injures Gazan”. The UN will cook up a resolution chastising Israel for its violence. The EU will demand that Israel be punished, The Palestinians take Israel to the ICC for war crimes. SO WHAT DOES IT MATTER IF ISRAEL JUST GOES IN AND DESTROYS GAZA? Israel will be blamed, so what else is new?

4. From today’s JP. Desperately needed common sense from a patriotic retired Israeli general.

   Former IDF Commander says Israel has no strategy for handling Hamas
   “The absence of a strategy in the wake of the disengagement from Gaza in 2005 is one of the factors contributing to the serious situation we have faced with Hamas in the Gaza Strip,” he said.

   A day training with Israeli-Arab soldiers who play a key role defending the Gaza border
   A day training with Israeli-Arab soldiers who play a key role defending the Gaza border. (photo credit: JONATHAN SPYER)
   “Israel does not have a strategic vision for how to handle Hamas,” Yom-Tov Samia told The Jerusalem Post. “This is just one round in our round-after-round in Gaza.”

   Samia, a retired Israeli general and former head of the Israel Defense Forces’ Southern Command from January 2001 to December 2003, said that “Israel is a strong state, with the strongest army in the world and a NIS 75 billion security budget… I don’t understand how and why we allow a terror organization of less than 40,000 people to drive this situation, to hold 2.2 million Palestinians prisoners in Gaza and to hold the whole region under fire whenever it wants.”

   In a conversation with the Post just over 24 hours after Hamas opened the firing of a new round of more than 600 rockets on Israel, Samia said, “Right now, Hamas decides when the round starts and when it finishes.”
   The retired general entered the 2019 Israeli elections as head of a party called B’Yahad – which was an acronym of the Hebrew words for security of Israel, socioeconomic and democratic – but withdrew 40 days before the election when it became apparent that his party would not cross the threshold. However, he told the Post that his platform for dealing with Hamas still stands and is a vision that could help ensure Israel’s future security.

   “The absence of a strategy in the wake of the disengagement from Gaza in 2005 is one of the factors contributing to the serious situation we have faced with Hamas in the Gaza Strip,” he said.

   While Hamas and its branches are viewed differently among the governments of various countries, Hamas’s charity branches and military wings have been put on the terrorist lists of almost all Western countries.

   Israeli airstrikes kill two Hamas` fighters as protests in Gaza flare up

   “Hamas is a terrorist organization whose platform includes establishing a Palestinian state in all of Israel, including the 1949 Armistice border,” Samia emphasized, adding that it is the “occupier” of the Gaza Strip. He explained that most of its activities there focus on strengthening armaments in preparation for fighting with Israel.

   “A strategic security policy vis-a-vis Hamas and Gaza must be fighting this terrorism without interruption – without being blinded by the supposed breaks, which are exploited to intensify and make the next round more difficult,” Samia said. He noted that as time passes, Hamas grows stronger, its attack capabilities improve, the accuracy its rockets increase and its arsenal expands.

   “Therefore, the sooner Israel sets itself the strategic goal of eliminating Hamas, the better,” he told the Post.

   He said the way to eliminate Hamas would involve efforts on three fronts simultaneously: diplomatic, economic and military.

   “No organization or country in the world will do this for us,” Samia said, although he recommended partnering with like-minded Middle East countries, America and Russia to combat Hamas. “Others may join the effort if we act with strategic intelligence, but they will not do so in our place.”

5. This is from the 5/5/19 issue of Arutz Sheva. Langfan is right on. A very incisive analysis of why this Gaza disaster is happening:

   “Mark Langfan
   The writer is Chairman of Americans for a Safe Israel (AFSI) and specializes in security issues, has created an original educational 3d Topographic Map System of Israel to facilitate clear understanding of the dangers facing Israel and its water supply. It has been studied by US lawmakers and can be seen at http://www.marklangfan.com.

   I
   Let us look at Israel’s Left-wing generals, these “military experts,” who for decades advocated, based on their “professional military expertise,” that Israel withdraw from the Gaza Strip and the ‘West Bank’ and have a “Demilitarized” Palestinian State.

   Did any of these Left-Wing Israel generals ever adequately warn Israeli and American Jews that:

   1) there is a 99% risk that the “Demilitarized” Palestinian State would become a Palestinian terror hot spot and the Palestinian Arab terrorists would smuggle in and fire Katyusha rockets into pre-1967 Israel, and

   2) that there is a 99% risk Israel will have to re-invade the “Demilitarized” areas to where the terrorists will have smuggled in 10 of thousands of of advanced anti-tank missiles and tens of millions of rounds of small arms ammo.

   Checking the word “adequately disclosed,” have these Left-wing generals ever warned of any risks in their “Two-State Solution”?

   The answer to all these questions is a resounding no. Left-wing generals never warn of any risks to their suicidal policies, and that’s why they are frauds.

   Knowing how to plan and conduct miitary operations and command soldiers does not make one a political prophet or statesman.. . .

   when you go to a military general, a military expert, you don’t ask whether the general is a Labor, a Meretz, or a Likud general. A general is supposed to be a general who is supposed to be a non-political military expert. You are going to a general for his unvarnished military advice and expertise, not his politics. A general’s political opinions should have nothing to do with his professional military advice.

   You expect the general, if he can, to tell you the whole story and disclose all the risks, and allow you as the decision maker to make an informed decision on what military course of action you should vote for.

   In fact, the entire basis of Israel’s generals’ legitimacy is that they give the appearance that their advice is “purely professional,” and not political. Have you ever heard an Israeli general tell people, “I’m really a politician, and I have an undisclosed political agenda which is what lies behind my pronouncements” before he explains that Israel must create a Palestinian State in the Judea and Samaria aka ‘West Bank’? Never!

   When is the Israeli media going to stop treating them like oracles?

   There is another possibility. Maybe these Left-wing generals didn’t know the obvious military likelihood that the Palestinians would smuggle and fire rockets from Gaza. That, however, would make them idiots – and they are not.

   What happens when these Israeli Left-wing generals-cum-politicians get it all wrong, and force Israel to leave Gaza,, resulting in rockets fired into Israel? They go to America and make countless millions telling American Jews how Israel is a fascist apartheid state.

   It’s time an official Israeli governmental commission is convened to investigate these Left-wing generals and expose them for what they are.”

6. Killed in Ashdod: Rabbi Pinchas Menahem Pashwazman
   ‘When siren went off, he ran to a stairwell to take cover but was hit by shrapnel from the rocket.’ US citizen killed in rocket attack.

   Rabbi Pinchas Menahem Pashwazman
   Rabbi Pinchas Menahem Pashwazman
   Rabbi Pinchas Menachem Pashwazman was killed by a rocket in the city of Ashdod, the fourth person killed in the current round of fighting.

   When the siren went off, the deceased ran to a stairwell to take cover but was hit by shrapnel from the rocket. Rescuers who arrived at the scene attempted to revive him and evacuated him to the hospital, but he died of his wounds on arrival.

   The deceased, a young yeshiva student in his early twenties, was a Gur Hasid. He was born in Beit Shemesh to a father who serves as a teacher in the local Gur community. He moved to Ashdod after he got married. His parents are originally from Monsey, New York, and the victim was an American citizen, according to a report by Yeshiva World News.

   According to the family, this is the third time that the family has lost family members in disasters. His mother’s two brothers perished in disasters, one of them in a terror attack on a bus on Mount Meron, and the other in the Gesher Bnot Yaakov disaster.

   He is survived by his wife and four-month old baby.

   Monsey is not far from where I live. I know some people from this community. Awful.

7. tis a pity with modern tech one or two of those 400 rockets was not misdirect and hit both the dome on the rock and the mosq on the T.M.
   could have blamed it on a drunken Jihadi, to much marinated goats milk

8. MORE Jewish blood squandered….. This should be at the very top of the next “Very Good Israel”…entitled “Very VERY good Israel”.. 220 air strikes…..Wunderbar…

   And a massive 8 terrorists killed….. “incroyable”….That’s a miserly $7-8 mlll per Hamasnik….a mere nothing…. with Israel’s massive budget and wonderful economic success all over the civilised (and uncivilised) world….

   I wonder if.anyone on this site has any PROTEXIA….at least…enough to get me the contract for manufacturing the “knock-knockers”……. . they must be working double shifts at least…

   After all the tallying up for the past couple of years only….There could be only… maybe…say …about 40-50 thousand more vital Hamas arms depots, factories, and terrorist headquarters left…. that uses up about 2 million knockers…(the warning phone-callers should be tried for treason)…although by now the IAF actions at such times are so predictable that the Hamas ship is all squared away well in advance of any IAF “calm down” medication..

   I suppose they even set up dummy shell buildings to give their pals the AF practice.

   And since Israel now allows in up to 30% of “dual purpose” materials we can expect another onslaught of tunnels -and maybe at least one more billion dollar encompassing “HIGH-TECH” wall (cutting edge as usual).

   And then the Kesset can go home to it’s comfortable Shabat dinner…..as usual…

   Just another average working day………..

9. The latest report on casualties from Arutz Sheva.

   Rocket death toll rises to four, Ashkelon victim identified
   Israeli driver critically injured after his car was hit by Russian-made anti-tank missile dies, bringing total Israeli death toll to 4.

   Scene of rocket attack
   The death toll in Israel rose to four Sunday afternoon, after terrorists operating out of the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip fired more than 600 rockets and missiles at Israel.

   An Israeli man roughly 60 years of age succumbed to his injuries Sunday afternoon after his car was hit by a missile fired from the Strip, bringing the total number of dead in Israel to four.

   The man was evacuated to Barzilai Medical Center in Ashkelon Sunday after his car was directly hit by a missile fired from the Gaza Strip. After his arrival, however, the man was declared dead.

   IDF spokesman Ronen Manelis confirmed that the projectile which hit the car in the western Negev was a ‘Kornet’ type Russian-made anti-tank missile.

   “There was a direct hit on the vehicle in the Erez area by a Kornet anti-tank missile,” said Manelis

   .

   Earlier on Sunday, two men were killed when a rocket struck a factory in the coastal city of Ashkelon. The men, 50 and 22 years old, were evacuated to Barzilai hospital, where they were declared dead. The 50-year-old victim has been identified as Ziad Alhamada, a resident of a Bedouin town in southern Israel.

   On Saturday night, 58-year-old Moshe Agadi was killed by a rocket attack on Ashkelon.

   A total of 13 Gazans, including several known Hamas officials, have been killed in Israeli retaliatory strikes across the Gaza Strip.

   The Israeli cabinet instructed the IDF Sunday to intensify its attacks on terrorist targets in the Strip, and to hit Hamas leaders in targeted killings.

   One of the 13 Gazans killed as been identified as 34-year-old Hamed Ahmed Abed Khudari, a Hamas official who had smuggled large amounts of Iranian cash into the Gaza Strip for Hamas and Islamic Jihad.

10. The Israeli death toll is now at three. Many others in critical condition.