Leaders within the terrorist group Hamas have been celebrating the statements and actions of President Barack Obama that show his administration moving into a more hostile relationship with Israeli leadership.
The Obama administration has started restricting arms shipments to Israel, in an attempt to weaken Israel’s defenses against the Islamic terrorist group. According to the Times of Israel, sources inside the administration say they’re hoping to drive Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu out of power so they can find a more liberal leader for Israel that will give up land to the Palestinians.
The news of the Obama administration actions comes after British Prime Minister David Cameron allowed the British Ministry of Trade to announce they will not send more arms to Israel if Hamas attacks Israel again.
Hamas leadership is attributing the withdrawal of Britain and the backing away of the U.S. to their blocking the media in Gaza from showing any of their terrorist attacks on Israel or any wounded Israelis. They also credited the social media and broadcast campaign to control the words used by those expressing news to make it appear Israel was the aggressor instead of the truth that Hamas was making terrorist attacks.
Hamas leaders plan to increase their social media and media manipulation, believing it is their best chance to destabilize the Israeli government through the use of western leaders like Obama and Cameron.
Israel has released strong statements about the appointment of a Canadian lawyer with anti-Semitic views to head the inquiry into the conflict along the Gaza strip.
“This commission’s anti-Israeli conclusions have already been written, all it needs is a signature,” Israel foreign ministry spokesman Yigal Palmor said to AFP news agency. “For this commission the important thing is not human rights but the rights of terrorist organizations like Hamas.”
William Schabas says the accusations are “absurd.”
“The suggestion that I’m anti-Israel is absurd,” Schabas said according to The Canadian Press. “Like everybody inside and outside Israel, I disagree with people. Is everyone in Israel who has an opinion about (Benjamin) Netanyahu anti-Israel?”
However, critics of Schabas include even members of his own government.
“UN Human Rights Council continues to be a sham for advancing human rights; today’s (announcement) for members of its Gaza inquiry reveals its agenda,” Canadian Prime Minister of Foreign Affairs John Baird wrote on Twitter. “It’s an utter shame and will do nothing to promote peace and dignity in Gaza for the Palestinian people.”
The head of a U.N. watchdog group says that Schabas must stand down because of his previous criticisms of the Israeli government.
“Under international law, William Schabas is obliged to recuse himself because his repeated calls to indict Israeli leaders obviously gives rise to actual bias or the appearance thereof,” Hillel Neuer of UN Watch said in a statement.
The International Red Cross is coming under fire for making veiled accusations that Israel is committing war crimes in Gaza.
The European Center for Law and Justice has responded forcefully to the Red Cross assertions, stating that the terrorist attacks of Hamas and their continued use of children and women as human shields for their fighters and weapons is the real war crime.
“It is deeply disturbing that the International Red Cross, which should be an objective relief organization, is engaging in an unbalanced and biased campaign to smear Israel,” wrote Jay Sekulow, who serves as Chief Counsel of the ECLJ. “While insinuating that Israel is committing war crimes as it protects its civilian population under attack by Hamas terrorists, the Red Cross is turning a blind eye to the deadly terrorist tactics used by Hamas – using its own population as human shields – in clearly violation of international law. We are urging the Red Cross to rely on the facts and the truth in reporting what is taking place in the Gaza conflict.”
The President of the International Committee of the Red Cross made statements during a visit to Gaza last week that in Gaza he saw “serious discrepancies between obligations” under the “laws of war” and what was “reality on the ground.” The statement was widely seen as an attack on Israel.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that Hamas wasn’t just committing war crimes but “double war crimes.”
“Hamas is committing a double war crime. It is both targeting civilians and hiding behind civilians, including U.N. facilities, which are not only rocket storage sites but rocket launching sites and mortar launching sites,” Netanyahu said. “So, Israel has every right to defend itself and we are obeying the rules of war and the international code and those who are responsible for all these tragic civilian deaths are Hamas.”
International media organizations, such as the New York Times, ABC, NBC and CBS, have been running stories from Gaza showing casualties and claiming that the Israel response to being attacked by Hamas has not been targeted like stated by Israeli leadership.
A report from the United Nations says all the anti-Israel stories are wrong.
Figures released by the U.N. High Commissioner on Human Rights were analyzed by the BBC’s head of statistics and found that the number of civilian men killed in the attacks were almost four times higher than women. The figures went even higher when Hamas terrorists killed were included in the total.
“If the Israeli attacks have been ‘indiscriminate,’ as the UN Human Rights Council says, it is hard to work out why they have killed so many more civilian men than women,” Anthony Reuben said.
Reuben said the conclusions being drawn in much of the media coverage is “premature.”
Several anti-Israeli politicians, including some within the United Nations, have been calling for Israel to be investigated for war crimes because of alleged targeting of civilians.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that the statistics show Hamas has been using civilians as human shields.
A 72-hour humanitarian cease-fire in the Gaza conflict ended in less than two hours when Hamas launched an unprovoked attack on Israeli soldiers.
A Hamas terrorist approached a group of Israeli soldiers and set off a homicide vest killing two soldiers. An Israeli officer was then kidnapped by another team of terrorists waiting for the homicide bomber to set off his vest.
A Hamas official confirmed the action but tried to claim that it happened before the cease-fire despite ample evidence to the opposite.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told Secretary of State John Kerry that because Hamas broke the cease-fire, they would “bear the consequences of their actions.”
Senior Republicans in Washington are reportedly putting together a measure for the House that would give $225 million in emergency funding for Israel’s Iron Dome missile defense system.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that he would not agree to any cease-fire that does not allow the Israeli Defense Force to destroy every infiltration tunnel that has been built in Gaza by the terrorist group Hamas.
“We have destroyed dozens of tunnels and we will finish the rest with or without a cease-fire,” Netanyahu told reporters prior to a security cabinet meeting Thursday.
Netanyahu then spoke about the Israeli offensive into Gaza to drive out the terrorist and reported that Hamas has taken hard hits to their infrastructure and storage locations. He thanked the Israeli people for standing so strongly together during this hard time.
“At this time I call on the people and the MKs to stand behind the mission. In the days that our soldiers are fighting the enemy and endangering themselves, we owe it to them… if we are together we are stronger,” he said.
Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon echoed Netanyahu after the meeting, saying that Israel would not sacrifice any of the security of its citizens to end the fighting.
The United Nations Security Council has voted for an “immediate and unconditional” cease-fire in the Gaza Strip after more than 1,000 people were confirmed dead because of the fighting.
The demand for the cease-fire comes on the Muslim holiday of Eid Al Fitr that is part of the end of the Ramadan month of fasting.
The demand from the United Nations makes no reference to the fact Israel has respected five cease-fire agreements so far in the conflict and Hamas had rejected or breached each one.
President Barack Obama reportedly spoke with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and told him that the U.S. continues to support their right to defend themselves from Hamas attacks.
“The President underscored the United States’ strong condemnation of Hamas’ rocket and tunnel attacks against Israel and reaffirmed Israel’s right to defend itself. The President also reiterated the United States’ serious and growing concern about the rising number of Palestinian civilian deaths and the loss of Israeli lives, as well as the worsening humanitarian situation in Gaza,” the readout of the call provided to the press said.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says a U.N. Security Council statement calling for an immediate cease-fire because it gives benefits to a “murderous terrorist organization” and completely ignoring Israeli security.
The Jerusalem Post reported that Netanyahu called U.N. head Ban Ki-moon to tell him that the deal is not acceptable to Israelis.
“The statement did not deal with the harm done to Israeli civilians, nor to the fact that Hamas turned Gaza civilians into human shields,” Netanyahu said.
Netanyahu reminded Ban that Hamas violated three different humanitarian cease-fires and that the U.N. has never condemned the terrorists for using U.N. facilities to store their weapons and supplies.
The U.N. representative from Jordan, who represented the Arab League on the Security Council, said that the cease-fire was necessary because of the loss of civilian life in Gaza. He called for “full respect” for international humanitarian law.
Netanyahu pointed out that unless the U.N. demilitarizes the area, takes away Hamas’ weapons and destroys their tunnels, no peace can be achieved.
“They are continuing to fire even now at Israel citizens,” he said. “Israel will continue to deal with the terror tunnels, which is only the first step in demilitarization.”
A plot by Hamas terrorists and associated terror groups to make a massive attack on Israeli citizens on Rosh Hashanah has been exposed by Israeli security forces.
The announcement of the foiled plot were released late yesterday by Prime Minster Benjamin Netanyahu in a meeting with his cabinet. He said the plot was so massive that the death toll would have quickly and easily passed the 2,200 deaths suffered during the 1973 Yom Kippur War.
A former U.S. Marine Corps general who had visited the site of the offensive in Gaza said that he saw tunnels designed for attacks on Israel and in locations designed to avoid response from Israeli troops.
“Unlike tunnels that I had seen during the Iraq war that were designed for smuggling, this Hamas tunnel was designed for launching murder and kidnapping raids. The 3-mile-long tunnel was reinforced with concrete, lined with telephone wires, and included cabins unnecessary for infiltration operations but useful for holding hostages,” Gen. James T. Conway, USMC (ret.) wrote in the Wall Street Journal. He noted the tunnels were located near schools.
The massive amount of tunnels lead one Israeli intelligence official to tell reporters it’s almost as if there is a “second underground Gaza.”
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry proposed a “cease fire” that did nothing to address the fact Hamas uses tunnels to conduct terrorist attacks on Israeli civilians.
The Israeli ministers voted unanimously to reject the proposal because Kerry did nothing to address Hamas’ as a terrorist organization killing civilians.
The proposal was reportedly a “watered down” version of the deal that was proposed by Egypt with significant benefits and concessions given to the terrorist group. One observer close to the vote said Kerry’s proposal was “pro-Hamas and essentially a win for the terrorists.”
The Israeli Defense Forces said the death toll among Israeli troops as of noon Friday had reached 35 soldiers.
The head of IDF says that Hamas in the Gaza Strip are “weakening and losing morale.”
“The spirit of Hamas terrorists is weakening,” Southern Region Commander Maj. Gen. Sami Turgeman says. “I see terrorists in distress, abandoned by their commanders who deserted them at the front and stayed behind…and facing them, our reserve and standing army units led by commanders leading the force. Every day of combat there is a day of accomplishments for us, both on the issue of tunnels and on the issue of enemy units.”
