Global SITREP C29-14: Operation Protective Edge Morphs Into War of Attrition

IDF Merkava Mk4 MBTs form up in ranks to return to Israel from Gaza

3 August 2014 - Operation Protective Edge Day27: After 27 days of combat in Gaza, Israel's political leadership has decided that Operation Protective Edge will have achieved its mission objective of destroying all terrorist tunnels. Along with this determination the IDF also declared 2LT Hadar Goldin KIA and therefore not a prisoner of the enemy in Gaza. Israel can now go home, it's mission in Gaza is complete and there are no MIA soldiers to search for in Gaza. Yes, it appears as if 2LT Goldin's corpse, as well as that of SGT. Oron Shaul, will be left in the hands of the terrorists of Gaza; Israel abandons its soldiers on the field of battle for the purpose of political expediency; not everyone gets to come home.

With HAMAS, the PIJ, Islamic State and all other jihadi factions still extant on or under Gaza's soil this war will now morph into a war of cross-border attrition with rocket, missile, mortar and sniper fire coming out of Gaza being responded to by Israeli airstrikes, artillery and tank fire coming into Gaza. There will be no demilitarization of Gaza by the IDF, not this time anyway. And Israel's population will have to live with the sound of Code Red sirens 24/7 indefinitely. No army pulls itself out of a war zone, (i.e. relinquishes conquered territory) just to re-group, spin around and then go back in a day or a week later. The destruction of the terrorists of Gaza will have to wait for another day, another war.

In this type of unilateral disengagement the government of Israel can make all the claims that suit its political purposes and whims, but it has not achieved anything close to a comprehensive military victory. Israel has not won this war; it has postponed it to another day in the future. The Islamic Republic of Iran, though its proxies, has achieved a state of perpetual war on Israel's southern border with Gaza, a war of attrition which is guaranteed to continue to consume Israel's resources of every type imaginable for the foreseeable future. It also remains to be seen how the Israeli public will react to the current situation; how Likud manages to spin this fiasco and remain in power after the next election. Israel's generals did not get to fight this war with respect to any established doctrine; the politicians in Jerusalem made certain of that.

4 August 2014: OPE Day 28 was pretty much the same as what occurred on OPE Day 27. The terrorists launched another 100 rockets at Israel. The difference, if one can it that, is that yet another in an endless stream of worthless 72-hour cease fires has been scheduled to erupt in about four and one-half hours from now (0800 Israel time) during what we might ostensibly refer to as OPE Day 29. Same old, same old, including the quasi-intifada going on in Jerusalem's environs. By the way, as of sunset this evening Tisha B'Av officially commenced in Israel.

HaKirya, Israel government center and IDF HQ in Tel Aviv defended by the Lord's Qadiym

Final Update 4 August 2014 - OPE Day 28: On Sunday, 3 August, there was a report in Israel Today in which an Iron Dome anti-missile system operator admitted that there was a very rare instance recently where a HAMAS long range rocket (an M-75 of R-160 no doubt) that was inbound for the high-value the HaKirya (Campus) of central Tel Aviv. The inbound rocket was targeted, fired at and missed three times by its Arrow interceptors. This kind of failure of Iron Dome is virtually unheard of.

What happened within the next few and precious seconds is straight out of Genesis 41, Exodus 10/14 and especially Job 27:21, which says: "The east wind (qadiym) carries him away, and he is gone; It sweeps him out of his place." This is precisely what the Hand of God did to save hundreds of lives in the the HaKirya. As translated into English from the Hebrew kooker website, here is the Iron Dome operators narrative:

"A missile was fired from Gaza. Iron Dome precisely calculated [its trajectory]. We know where these missiles are going to land down to a radius of 200 meters. This particular missile was going to hit either the Azrieli Towers, the Kirya (Israel’s equivalent of the Pentagon) or [a central Tel Aviv railway station]. Hundreds could have died.
"We fired the first [interceptor]. It missed. Second [interceptor]. It missed. This is very rare. I was in shock. At this point we had just four seconds until the missile lands. We had already notified emergency services to converge on the target location and had warned of a mass-casualty incident.
"Suddenly, Iron Dome (which calculates wind speeds, among other things) shows a major wind coming from the east, a strong wind that…sends the missile into the sea. We were all stunned. I stood up and shouted, ‘There is a God!’
“I witnessed this miracle with my own eyes. It was not told or reported to me. I saw the hand of God send that missile into the sea.”

Despite all that is now occurring, or not occurring, as we may perceive these events in the Israel-HAMAS War this summer, one thing remains true above all else - the God of Israel is in total control; His will is being done for His purposes. Nothing is finished until He says "It is finished!"

Thank you Abba, in Jesus Name!

Global SITREP C28-14: Another Truce That Isn't

1 August 2014 - OPE Day 25/Ground War Day 15: What type of a ceasefire is it where observers who are watching it do so by counting the number of minutes and actual seconds on a clock in which it appears to be valid? One hundred twenty minutes and a few seconds into the latest declared Gaza ceasefire and Code Red sirens were wailing in Kerem Shalom, Israel. That means the latest U.S.-U.N.-brokered 72-hour ceasefire was actually a 2-hour and several seconds ceasefire. Atypical Islamic jihadist treachery. It matters not one iota that the HAMAS' rockets fired into Israel this morning did not hit anything but desert sand, what matters is that they were fired at Israel period.

The first thing to note following the collapse of the Day 25 ceasefire into which Israel entered in good faith, is that Israel has declared existent a closed military zone around all of Gaza bordering with Israel and the entire length of the northern border with Lebanon and Syria. This action has apparently come after an IDF officer, 2LT Hadar Goldin of the Givati Brigade, was apparently kidnapped by HAMAS terrorists while executing his assigned duties on a tunnel in Rafah. This action was apparently a HAMAS ambush which killed two other IDF soldiers who were members of 2LT Goldin's platoon at that tunnel. Heavy HAMAS rocket and mortar fire and along with even heavier IDF retaliation then put the truce that wasn't permanently to rest. Again, Muslims engaged in jihad cannot be trusted. Period.

I will also critically note that this attack and kidnap against the Givati Brigade came after an article in the ultra-Orthodox paper Mishpacha (Family) was circulated in Israel, and which was thereafter was even more widely circulated in other Israeli media, such as Ha'aretz, and the The Times of Israel, which prominently featured Col. Ofer Winter, commander of the brigade. That kind of completely unnecessary high profile notoriety was quickly noticed by other Islamic jihadists and which instantly put the Givati Brigade dead-center in the cross-hairs of HAMAS' kidnapping plots. There is NOTHING more important during a war than OPSEC (Operational Security), and based upon the overwhelming majority of the Israeli media's near-real time reporting and blogging such as the photographing and naming of field commanders that it was a virtual certainty that HAMAS would put that information to good use at the first opportunity during this particular and highly-ill advised "humanitarian ceasefire."  The Israeli media need to learn that "loose lips sink ships." It also gets your fathers, sons and brothers kidnapped and killed on the battlefield. Shut up already!

First Update - OPE Day 25: There is no proof of life for 2LT Hadar Goldin; it is being assumed he was taken alive. If I am correct in reading between the lines of various reports coming out of Israel today, it would seem that the abduction of 2LT Goldin had PM Netanyahu reading the "riot act" to a promptly called onto the carpet US SECSTATE Kerry. This may have been the proverbial "straw that broke the camel's back." I am inclined to think the bottom line fall out of this mornings high level dressing down was that unless 2LT Goldin is immediately released by HAMAS, then PM Netanyahu and the security cabinet will deal with this kind of islamic treachery in the manner which even islamic terrorists can appreciate - unrelenting violence with no quarter given to any enemy combatant. If there was ever a reason for Israel's national leadership to come to the realization of the necessity to eliminate HAMAS for all time... this was it.

Final Update - OPE Day 25: As made clear in the update above, there is without question a sense in Israel that the entire paradigm of the war in Gaza against HAMAS has changed, possibly irrevocably, and to the point that it has finally hit a resonating chord across a broad political spectrum of the Israel population. So much so that there is now no chance of Israel agreeing to any cessation of hostilities against the terrorists in Gaza as long as 2LT Goldin remains a hostage of the islamic enemy. Instead of a truce the security cabinet now is debating an expansion of the mission objective beyond just a thorough demilitarization of Gaza, but now to include a military annihilation of HAMAS as the ultimate "mission complete" objective.

Again, the government of the State of Israel and its military forces are assuming that 2LT Goldin was abducted from the battlefield in Rafah alive and that this abduction occurred while HAMAS used the ruse of the ceasefire combined with Gaza human shield civilians collecting or checking up on their possessions near the IDFs Givati Brigade positions in Rafah. The U.S.-U.N. brokered ceasefire was for HAMAS a total sham. That the abduction of this Israeli officer occurred after the start of the ceasefire is beyond question. It is believed that 2LT Goldin remains within the matrix of underground tunnels in the vicinity of Rafah; all IDF artillery or other strikes in this immediate area today have been for the express purpose of freezing in-place 2LT Goldin and his abductors in the same general area of Rafah where the abduction occurred this morning.

2 August 2014 - OPE Day 26:  War brings out the strangest situations. Yesterday, a featured blogger (Yochanan Gordon) at The Times of Israel had his blog post entitled "When Genocide is Permissible" deleted because it was a violation of their editorial guidelines.  I have read Israeli news reports in which members of Israel's government, the security cabinet, have been quoted in Israeli media saying in a far more direct manner what Yochanan merely posed a question about in his blog post. Read it for yourself at the link above.

There is no question that HAMAS holds to the goal of genocide against all Israel. This is the ultimate objective of HAMAS in the current Arab-Israeli struggle as it has been since 1948. This was the central point of Yochanan's blog post, and at no point in his post did he call for or otherwise advocate for a genocide of all Arabs. In fact, Yochanan reiterated in his post what a very many people in both the United States and Israel, to include Jews, born-again Christians and even secular folks, have been discussing for the better part of the past month, as has this blog has been openly discussing - the need to destroy HAMAS and thereby the goal of its brand of political Islam - the genocide of Israel.

Obviously no Israeli editorial board can delete the HAMAS charter any more than it can delete the stated objectives of the Islamic Republic of Iran, or Hezbollah, or the new Islamic State, or Al-Qaeda or any other Islamic jihadist group -- or even the Islamic Qur'an itself, all of which speak pretty much to the same thing about the genocide of Israel at the hands of fully submitted adherents of islam for the sake of their small-g god. Nor can any Israeli editorial board delete the rampant anti-Semitism that has swept through European and South American capitals.

And neither can the editorial board of The Times of Israel delete the text, or any portion thereof, of the Bible, such as the text of Psalm 83:4 which speaks to exactly what is stated in the Qur'an as reflected in HAMAS' charter, and is the existential goal, the genocidal goal, of Israel's enemies round about them on every side:

“Come, and let us cut them off from being a nation,
That the name of Israel may be remembered no more.”

The editorial board of The Times of Israel, and all other editorial boards who followed suit in deleting Yochanan's blog post, are the equivalent of the proverbial ostrich who sticks his head in the sand because he simply can not face the cold hard facts of reality staring back at him: Islam has no interest in and does not care to coexist with Israel. Instead they are dedicated to the purpose stated by the singing prophet Asaph of the God of Israel's ancient fathers, and that purpose is the genocide of the State of Israel.

Hear O' Israel, wake up and smell the Nachle black coffee. 

First Update - OPE Day 26: Has anyone reading here wondered why it is that with so much global corporate media present in Gaza that there has been not been any video or images taken of HAMAS, PIJ or other Islamic jihadists at war or on the battlefields of Gaza in the past 26 days?  Have you seen a HAMAS rifleman firing his weapon? A rocket launch or mortar battery in action? Not even a policeman? We have only seen women and children in images of devastation and suffering. In pondering this question, consider also that there hasn't been an hour gone by in all this time where video or images of IDF troops engaged in this war have not been broadcast by these same corporate media. So, what do you think is the answer?

It is because the global corporate media were put on notice prior to day one that the cameraman or videographer who turned his/her lens in the direction of HAMAS or PIJ fighters during combat operations would be immediately shot at and killed. Yes, the media face immediate execution if they film HAMAS or PIJ fighters firing their weapons from fighting positions defended by Gaza's human shields, the civilian population. 

This is what we have learned from a Spanish journalist (who must remain anonymous for his own personal safety) who is based in Gaza and has covered the war from the get-go. This news was published by the New York-based paper the Algemeiner on July 31st. Didn't see or hear this news or anything remotely like it in any major US corporate media have you? ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN, or even FoxNews? I certainly haven't. So, the fact is that we will never see any of the terrorists in Gaza fighting from within their human shield redoubts in Gaza because there is no corporate media will to risk their own lives to report it in high definition video format. Or text for that matter. This is what the Iranian IRGC has expertly trained its proxies to do whenever they engage Israel in combat. We in the West are seeing from inside Gaza exactly what the mullahs in Tehran want us to see, and it is having the desired effect upon the war effort from their terrorist jihadi perspective.

NOTE 6 August: With the ceasefire having held for more than 24 hours some clandestine video footage (taken by Indian and French news crews in Gaza) of Palestinian terrorist firing rockets from civilian areas have been released publicly. See this report from the Jerusalem Post for details. 

Speaking of Iran, there is a very good possibility that the terrorist operation to kill the most recent ceasefire was an Iranian plot carried out by the Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ). HAMAS may not have custody of 2LT Hadar Goldin (or his corpse), but Iran has him through its PIJ proxy.

Is it becoming clear that in order to defeat the terrorist enemy in Gaza that Israel may very well need to reach out and very profoundly touch those mullahs in Iran? You know, the mullahs in Iran that Barack Hussein Obama appears dead set on seeing acquire nuclear weapons with which to attack Israel. Who exactly is being played as the fool here?

This morning the IDF has also begun unilaterally moving its forces out of the northern urban areas of Gaza and telling those residents, such as those of Beit Lahia (image above), that they may return. To what exactly, I'm not sure. Seems to me all functioning societal infrastructure there has been devastated; it's only hours removed from being an active war zone.

Meanwhile, the residents of Israel's northern communities, such as Kiryat Shmona, report hearing the noises of tunnels being dug beneath their homes. This nothing nothing new. Hezbollah has been tunneling into northern Israel for a few years now and have openly boasted from time to time that in the next war they will bring the war into northern Israel.