Operation Cast Lead – One Year On

One year on from Israel’s response to years of Hamas terrorism, and here are some vital statistics you’re not going to find in, say, the Guardian. Or on the BBC website. Or anywhere in the Western media, in fact.

 

Courtesy of The Israel Project:

 

Key Statistics

• 1 million:

– Israeli civilians under threat from Hamas rocket fire.

• 15 Seconds:

– Israelis have to get to a bomb shelter once a warning siren has sounded

• 2 million:

– Leaflets the Israel Air Force dropped on Gaza during Operation Cast Lead, warning civilians to stay clear of Hamas fighters.

• 200,000:

-Phone calls made by the Israeli army to civilians in Gaza warning of an impending strike near their residences.

• 8: Years:

– Israel has endured rocket, missile and mortar fire from Gaza.

• 1:

– Israeli left in Gaza – Staff Sgt. Gilad Shalit, kidnapped by Hamas from Israel on June 25, 2006.

• 3,200+:

-Rockets and mortar fired from Gaza in 2008.

• 6,500+:

– Rockets and mortars fired from Gaza since Israel withdrew from Gaza in 2005.

• 10,389:

– Rockets and mortars fired from Gaza 2001-2008.

• 1,000+:

– People in Israel injured from rockets and mortars fired from Gaza since 2001.

• 270:

– Rockets and mortars fired from Gaza since the end of Operation Cast Lead, Jan. 18 – Nov. 31, 2009.

Iran-Backed Hamas Terrorism

• 17:

– Attacks on Gaza goods crossings by Palestinian terrorist groups in 2008.

• 80%

– of mosques in Gaza which Hamas reportedly controls, some of which are used for weapons storage, command and communications headquarters.

• 37 mi (60km):

– Range of Hamas rockets in Gaza acquired after Operation Cast Lead.

• 2.5 mi (4 km):

– Range of Hamas’s anti-tank missiles, smuggled into Gaza since the end of Operation Cast Lead.

• 1,500:

– Number of smuggling tunnels between Gaza and Egypt (estimate)

• 59 ft (18 m)/6.8 mi (11 km):

– Length and depth of metal fence Egypt is building on Sinai-Gaza border to prevent tunnel smuggling operations.

• 22 mi (35 km):

– Distance between Gaza and Yavneh – the northernmost Israeli city hit by Gaza rockets on Dec. 28, 2008.

• 900:

– Hamas operatives trained by Iran.

• $20 million – $30 million:

– Funding Iran provides annually to Hamas. Iran gave Hamas another $50 million following Hamas’s victory in the 2006 Palestinian elections.

Israel’s Humanitarian Aid to Gaza

Yes – even as Gazans were sending suicide bombers and missiles into Israeli civilian areas, Israel continued sending aid into Gaza!

• 900%

– increase in humanitarian aid delivered to Gaza in 2009, compared to 2008.

• 630,253:

– Tons of humanitarian aid delivered to the Gaza Strip, Jan. 19 – Dec. 13, 2009.

• 24.5 million gallons (92.7 million liters):

– Heavy-duty diesel fuel delivered to the Gaza Strip, Jan. 19 – Oct. 31, 2009.

• 10,346:

– Gaza residents who entered Israel for medical and humanitarian reasons, Jan.19 – Nov. 7, 2009.

• 57,295 tons:

– Monthly average of humanitarian aid entering Gaza since Operation Cast Lead, Jan. 19 – Dec. 5, 2009.

• 11,508:

Monthly average (in tons) of humanitarian aid entering Gaza from February – June 2008, a period of intense rocket fire.

• 34,253 tons:

– Monthly average of humanitarian aid entering Gaza during period of calm, July – December 2008.

• 18,500:

– Permits Israel issued to Gaza residents to enter Israel or travel overseas in 2009.

• 28,400:

– Flowers from Gaza scheduled for export to Europe on Dec. 10, 2009.

• 250,000:

– Flowers from Gaza scheduled for export beginning Dec. 13, 2009.

Britain, Israel, And A Case Of Rank Hypocrisy

 

 

David Miliband must have enjoyed himself today. For finally, Britain’s Foreign Secretary got to announce an arms embargo on Israel.  Never mind that Britain itself sent soldiers thundering into two foreign countries.  The embargo might only have been declared today, but ever since Israel retaliated against Hamas at the end of last year, Britain has been waiting eagerly for this day to arrive.

 

Indeed, during Operation Cast Lead, nowhere was condemnation of Israel louder than in Britain. It’s a matter of public record that Muslims across the country bombarded their MPs with demands for Britain to sever all ties with the Jewish nation. Three British politicians, including Louise Ellman, received death threats purely because they had the guts to remind both parliament and the media that Israel had endured eight years of terrorism before finally responding.

 

The British media, led by the Guardian, threw out journalistic ethics entirely, dispensed with context, and swapped fact for fiction as they repeatedly ignored Hamas terrorism against Israeli civilians.

 

Forget the obscene suicide bombings that Hamas had routinely unleashed on Israel. Forget the roll call of women, children and babies who had died at the hands of Hamas operatives.  Forget the fact that when Israel left Gaza, it did so because this departure was deemed – by the international community – to be a necessary condition for DEcreased terrorism.

 

Forget all that. Nobody gave a damn. Israel had gone into Gaza to get rid of Hamas terrorists and that was all the media and the government cared about. What – Jews, defending themselves? How dare they. 

 

During this period I attended a meeting at the House of Commons, organised in fact by a Christian group whose members were distraught at the way Israel was being demonised. There, we were told by a small number of politicians, that the atmosphere in parliament was ‘poisonous’.  An out and out hate-fest was going on, and the few souls who spoke up for Israel were being shouted down and ‘bullied’ on a daily basis.

 

And so, here we are some months later, and finally the British government has done what it was longing to. In other words, punished Israel, publicly, for fighting its own War On Terror. Britain has revoked five export licenses, in what it calls in Brit-speak, a ‘gesture’.

 

I’m making a gesture right now, as it happens. It involves the middle finger of my right hand and I’m sure you can imagine to whom I’m directing it.

 

Because let’s face it, Britain’s hypocrisy here is staggering. How many civilians have died because of British troops, in Afghanistan and Iraq? Only yesterday, reports surfaced of British soldiers’ sadism in these countries. And yet here sits the holier-than-thou British government, judging Israel for trying to protect her own citizens?

 

Writing about the British government’s arms embargo against Israel, because of Gaza, Melanie Phillips  notes:

It says Israel’s actions were “disproportionate.” What is it talking about? The actual evidence showed that the proportion of civilians killed in Gaza was very small – far smaller than might have been expected given the tactics Hamas was using of embedding itself within the population.

 

The claims of large numbers of civilians and children killed were fabricated by Hamas and recycled by the Israel-bashers of the UN and media. Far from being “disproportionate,” Cast Lead was a carefully targeted operation which, given the circumstances, was astonishingly successful in its aim of confining its attack to terrorist operatives.

 

  The false flag of “disproportionality” is hoisted only by those who find it “disproportionate” that Israel should ever defend itself against the Palestinians by military means at all. Israelis are expected instead passively to die under rocket and bomb attack – or perhaps live in shelters for ever. That’s proportionate.

 

 

 

 

Britain showed its true colours today.  Several months back, David Miliband called for new coalition of consent’ between the West and the Islamic world. And if he has to hand Israel over on a platter to achieve this, then that’s just what he and the rest of the dhimmi Labour government will do.

 

Hamas Speciality: Hiding Among Women And Children

And the award for the Most Caring Politician  Of The Year goes to…. come on down, Ismail Haniyeh, Hamas Prime Minister!

It now transpires that Ismail operated a command centre in the heart of Shifra Hospital during January, when Israelis finally went into Gaza after thousand of missile attacks, courtesy of Hamas.

Now the IDF has revealed that Haniyeh, and other Hamas commanders, took over an entire ward within the hospital, and used it as a ‘command centure’ throughout Operation Cast Lead.

From the Jerusalem Post:

Guards were posted at the entrance to the ward and field commanders took advantage of the humanitarian corridor and cessation of action that the IDF instituted every day for several hours, to enter the hospital and meet with senior Hamas officials to receive instructions.

Senior Hamas commanders also set up a command center in a Red Crescent Society clinic in Khan Yunis and used it as a detention center. An IDF investigation, conducted by Col. Erez Katz, focused on the targeting of health facilities, vehicles and medical teams.

The probe discovered that out of seven medical personnel claimed to have been killed by the IDF, five were Hamas operatives, including a nephew of the Hamas health minister. Two were civilians.

The probe also uncovered a number of cases during which Hamas used ambulances to transport operatives. Testimony by a Gazan medical worker and obtained by the IDF revealed how Hamas forced the Red Crescent to hand over medic and nurse uniforms for its operatives.

See how the whole thing works? Hamas makes a habit of planting operatives and weaponry among civilians. Then Hamas expects Israel to care more for the welfare of Palestinians than Hamas itself does!

And when Israel, quite properly and rationally, puts its own citizens first and duly hits any areas where Hamas is hiding, Hamas complains when innocents die!

And most of the world, rather than lambasting Hamas for using innocents as human shields, condemns Israel for not allowing Hamas to get away with doing so!

To watch a video clip of what really went on in Gaza, click HERE