Tag Archives: Hamas

Egypt Calls To Restart Peace Talks

Egypt is calling for Hamas and Israel to sit down at the table and restart the peace talks that have been stalled for years as a way to end the current conflict.

Egyptian Foreign Minster Sameh Shukri met with U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry today, working to find a framework to get the two sides sitting down to negotiate and end to the hostilities.

Shukri told reporters his goal is “to not only resolve this issue but also to set in motion once again the peace process that Secretary Kerry has been so actively involved in so as to end this ongoing conflict between the Palestinians and the Israelis.”

Kerry flew to Cairo Monday to see how he could assist with the negotiations.  President Obama said that the administration is building in concern for civilians.

“We have serious concerns about the rising number of Palestinian civilian deaths and the loss of Israeli lives,” Obama said in Washington. “And that is why it now has to be our focus and the focus of the international community to bring about a cease-fire that ends the fighting and can stop the deaths of innocent civilians, both in Gaza and in Israel.”

Kerry said that $47 million will be given by the United States for humanitarian aid to Gaza at the end of the hostilities.

Benjamin Netanyahu Stands Up To U.N. Chief

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu stood up to the head of the United Nations during a joint press conference, calling out Ban Ki-Moon for elevating Hamas to a position other than a terrorist organization.

U.N. head Ban Ki-Moon told reporters at a press conference that the two sides need to “stop fighting, start talking.”  He went on to talk about how too many Palestinian and Israeli mothers are burying their children because of the conflict.  He also began to push the two-state solution saying nothing else was viable.

That’s when Netanyahu challenged him on his fundamental basis for the comments.

“You spoke about the regional developments,” responds Netanyahu at their joint press conference in Tel Aviv. “What we are seeing here with Hamas is another instance of Islamist extremist that has no resolvable grievance. Hamas is like ISIS, like al-Qaeda, like Hezbollah, like Boko Haram.”

“What grievance can we solve for Hamas? Their grievance is that we exist.”

Netanyahu said that Israel will continue to defend themselves in any way they feel is necessary to stop the terrorists.

Two Americans Killed Fighting For Israel

Two Americans who went to Israel to defend the country have died in service.

Max Steinberg, 24, from Southern California and Nissim Sean Carmeli, 21, from South Padre Island, Texas, died during ground operations in the Gaza Strip on Saturday.  They were two of 13 Israeli Defense Force soldiers who perished in battles with Islamic terrorist group Hamas.

Stuart Steinberg, father of Max, said that his son was a sharpshooter for the Golani Brigade.

Steinberg had moved to Beersheba, Israel after he took a trip to his ancestral homeland in high school.  In December 2012, he moved to the country so he could join the Israeli Defense Forces and defend the land he felt was his home.

Steinberg’s brother told the Associated Press that Max had always had a passion for Israel and that he would not listen to anyone who told him not to go and join the IDF.  He said that his brother always had a passion for what he was doing in the IDF and was a great example to his family and friends.

Pro-Terrorist, Anti-Semitic Rallies In Europe

Crowds chanting anti-Semitic slogans and voicing clear support for the terrorists attacking Israel rallies throughout Europe over the weekend.

In Germany, a mob gathered on Kurfurstendamm Avenue, waving flags and chanting Jude, Jude feiges Schwein! Komm heraus und kämpf allein!”  Which translates to “Jew, Jew, cowardly swine, come out and fight on your own!”

Rallies in Dortmund and Frankfurt chanted “Hamas Hamas Juden in gas!” meaning “Hamas, Hamas, Jews to the gas!”

“We are currently experiencing in this country an explosion of evil and violent hatred of Jews, which shocks and dismays all of us,” Dieter Graumann of the Central Council of Jews in Germany said in a statement. “We would never in our lives have thought it possible anymore that anti-Semitic views of the nastiest and most primitive kind can be chanted on German streets.”

“Jews are once again openly threatened in Germany and sometimes attacked, synagogues are being defaced and declared as targets.”

In Paris, protesters ignored government bans and continued their vocal support of the terrorists attacking Israel.

Hundreds of protesters looted shops, burned cars and attacked a synagogue.  The attackers were yelling “F*** Israel” and “Israel assassin” as they attempted to access the synagogue and attack the Jewish citizens inside.

At least one Molotov cocktail struck the side of the synagogue according to French authorities.

None of the protest groups responded to reporters questions about why they were not concerned about the six million Israeli citizens being subjected to daily rocket attacks by the terrorist group Hamas.

Israel Begins Ground Offensive In Gaza

After the Hamas terrorist organization fired missiles into Israel during and immediately after a “humanitarian cease fire”, the Israeli Defense Forces have launched a ground offensive into the Gaza strip.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that Israel will continue the offensive until Gaza has been “demilitarized”.  He said that only when Gaza has been demilitarized can peace truly begin to come into the region because the terrorist threat from Hamas will have been eliminated in south Israel.

The initial wave of the ground offensive is aimed to destroy the tunnels that Hamas would use to attempt to sneak into Israel and to move weapons unseen throughout the Gaza region.

Hamas reportedly fired more than 100 rockets within the hour after the cease-fire, leading military experts to believe Hamas used the five hour window of peace to plan a massive offensive against Israel.

The IDF warned civilians to leave Gaza hours before the start of the ground offensive.

Hamas Used Cease Fire To Attempt Covert Attack

Hamas attempted to sneak a 13-man terrorist cell into Israel during the five-hour “humanitarian” ceasefire on Thursday but Israel Defense Force personnel stopped the infiltration.

IDF soldiers manning a border area near Kibbutz Sufa when one of them noticed a man rising out of the desert.  The troops quickly closed in and discovered a Hamas tunnel and the terrorists attempting to sneak into the country.

The official IDF statement says the troops “neutralized the threat.”

“Units arrived at the area, and terrorists were apparently surprised. They began returning to the tunnel. The air force began attacking them from the air,” IDF spokesman Brigadier General Moti Almoz said. “We understand there are casualties [among the terrorists]. The full picture is not yet known.”

“This is another successful thwarting of a Hamas attack planned for the southern area. We are ready for these scenarios in the coming days,” Almoz added.

No Israeli troops were hurt in the exchange with the terrorists.

Netanyahu: Hamas Committing “Double War Crime”

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said today that Hamas is conducting a double war crime in firing rockets at Israeli citizens while at the same time using innocent Palestinian citizens as human shields.

The prime minister spoke to reporters this morning taking questions about the ongoing Israeli response to Hamas’ continual terrorist attacks.

“Israel will continue to do what it needs to do to defend itself until peace and quiet are restored,” Netanyahu said. “[The] most important step for the international community to insist on is the demilitarization of Gaza.”

Hamas said today they rejected the peace proposal that Israel had accepted from Egypt because “Egypt has too many interests within Israel” to be impartial.

Hamas fired over 60 rockets Wednesday, 37 of which made it through the Iron Dome defense system.  Two Israeli citizens were slightly injured when a rocket destroyed by Iron Dome fell to the ground.

Israel Red Alert App Drives Some To Prayer; Drives Others Nuts

It’s an app that tells residents of Israel it’s time to take cover because a terrorist rocket is headed their way.

In other parts of the world, it’s an app that some people use to pray for the people of Israel…and for others, it’s a siren that’s driving them crazy.

Red Alert Israel has been downloaded over 780,000 times in the last week, with about half of the downloads happening outside of Israel.  The app was created in 2012 by software developer Ari Sprung and his partner Kobi Snir, who feared that some residents would not be able to hear the new “Red Color” emergency sirens in their homes.

“People were having a hard time,” said Sprung. “They couldn’t really sleep because they were too afraid they were going to miss the sirens. The app allows them to go to bed knowing the phone will wake them up in case of an emergency.”

The app gives a 15 to 90 second warning dependent on how close the resident lives to Gaza.

Some users, however, say the app is driving them crazy because of the amount of times it goes off during the recent terrorist assault.

“Every time a rocket was launched, my phone went haywire,” Dor Eldar, a 22-year-old dance instructor from Tel Aviv, told the Daily Beast. “I finally had to get rid of it. It was driving me nuts.”

In America and other western nations, users of the app have been seeing the app’s siren song as a call to prayer for the Jewish people.  William Koenig recently praised the app on the Jim Bakker Show.

“The beauty of this (almost a million people now have this app on their iPhone and I’ve been reading it very closely) is the prayer of support from Christians that go on. They can respond to these alerts and encourage people through prayers and comments. And it’s beautiful to see how many Christians right now have this on their iPhones so they can pray – so they can pray to God to cover and protect the state of Israel as these rockets fall,” Koenig said.

The app is available in the iPhone app store.

Israel Strikes Back After Hamas Rejects Peace Proposal

Air strikes against Hamas rocket launching positions resumed after Hamas flatly rejected a peace proposal from Egypt that would end the fighting in the Gaza Strip.

Israel had approved the peace deal and had de-escalated their forces as per the outline set up by Egypt; however Hamas completely rejected the deal and immediately fired up to 50 rockets into Israel.  Israeli officials then announced they would resume their offensive against Hamas because of the terrorist’s ongoing rocket campaign.

Israeli officials say that no one was hurt during the six-hour window that the IDF had scaled back and Hamas fired rockets into Israel.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel would likely intensify their campaign against Hamas because of their rejection of the cease-fire.

“If Hamas rejects the Egyptian proposal and the rocket fire from Gaza does not cease, and that appears to be the case, we are prepared to continue and intensify our operation,” he said in a statement.

While President Obama told a group of Muslim leaders that Israel had the right to defend itself from Hamas’ attacks, Secretary of State John Kerry announced he would skip visiting the region on his way home from talks with Iran in Geneva.

Hamas Terrorist Drone Shot Down Over Israel

The terrorist campaign against Israel took a surprising turn on Sunday when the Israeli Defense Forces shot down a drone as it approached the city of Ashdod.

The IDF would not say what was on the drone, only that they had shot it down with a Patriot missile and it clearly originated from the Gaza Strip.

It marks the first time that a drone has been confirmed in the terror attacks against Israel.

The IDF reported that almost 1,000 rockets have been fired into Israel by the terrorists in the first six days of “Operation Protective Edge”, the Israeli response to the provocations of the terrorist group.

Israeli analysts say that the bombardment is likely to continue well into the future because of Iranian shipments of arms that have been brought into Gaza for years.  The analysts estimate over 10,000 rockets, including some longer range weapons that could strike anywhere in Israel, are under the control of the terrorists.

Israeli ground forces continue to muster on the border with Gaza.