A Hamas official made a major blunder Thursday in admitting they were taking steps to control the media and the images that were released from Gaza during their attacks on Israel.
The head of foreign relations for Hamas’ Information Ministry, Isra Al-Mudallal, was responding to an Arabic reporter and said that some foreign press were trying to “collaborate with the occupation” by showing Hamas terrorists.
“These journalists were deported from the Gaza Strip,” al-Mudallal said. “The security agencies would go and have a chat with these people. They would give them some time to change their message, one way or another.”
“We suffered from this problem very much,” she added. “Some of the journalists who entered the Gaza Strip were under security surveillance. Even under these difficult circumstances, we managed to reach them, and tell them that what they were doing was anything but professional journalism and that it was immoral.”
The Foreign Press Association says they have evidence that Hamas would screen any reporter attempting to enter Gaza and would use troops to block those who they felt were too pro-Israeli in their reporting.
“Some reporters received death threats. Sometimes, cameras were smashed. Reporters were prevented from filming anti-Hamas demonstrations where more than 20 Palestinians were shot dead by Hamas gunmen,” the FPA reported.
The Anti-Defamation League is reporting a “dramatic surge” in anti-Semitism around the world in the wake of the conflict in the Gaza strip with Islamic terrorists attacking Israel.
The ADL report showed dozens of international incidents including physical assaults, threats, intimidation, public hate speech and damage to synagogues including the use of Nazi symbols in graffiti.
Abraham Foxman, the National Director of the ADL, said that the report shows “focuses on actions and speech with extend far beyond the bounds of criticism into violence and bigotry.”
“There was a dramatic surge in violence against Jews and Jewish institutions around the world during Israel’s Operation Protective Edge. From France to the Argentina, from Canada to Chile, synagogues were attacked, Jewish cultural centers were vandalized, Jewish shops were threatened and identifiably Jewish individuals beaten on the street. Anti-Semitism was in the air, and in the streets,” Foxman said.
The ADL noted many of the incident were advertised or started as “pro-peace, pro-Palestine” rallies but quickly degraded into anti-Semitic rallies with messages of support for Islamic terrorists who want to exterminate all Jews.
The Obama administration has taken steps to weaken Israel’s ability to defend itself against the Islamic terrorist group Hamas and other Islamist threats in the region by blocking a scheduled arms shipment.
An official told the Wall Street Journal that the move by the White House and the State Department stopped the transfer and said it was because they wanted to increase pressure on Israel to make concessions to Hamas. The White House also said they will have greater oversight of anything that might be shipped to Israel.
One unnamed Israeli official told the WSJ that the move could be in part because the Israeli government didn’t support the re-election campaign of President Obama. The move is being seen as revenge for saying Mitt Romney would be a strongrer supporter of Israel.
The report says that the President and his inner circle are “persuaded that Mr. Netanyahu and his national security team are both reckless and untrustworthy.”
“Today, many administration officials say the Gaza conflict — the third between Israel and Hamas in under six years — has persuaded them that Mr. Netanyahu and his national security team are both reckless and untrustworthy,” the Journal report said. “Israeli officials, in turn, describe the Obama administration as weak and naive, and are doing as much as they can to bypass the White House in favor of allies in Congress and elsewhere in the administration.”
Sources inside the Israeli government say that Prime Minister Netanyahu is counting more on the support of members of Congress and not counting on support from the President.
The attack was scheduled to happen on Rosh Hashana.
Hamas had built tunnels that opened into residential neighborhoods, a kindergarden and various hospitals.
The plan? Massive terror attacks from all the tunnels at the same time. Kill women. Kill children.
A report released by the Israeli Defense Forces outlines the details of a Hamas plan to launch the massive terrorist attack. The plot was discovered after the IDF moved into Gaza following the kidnapping and killing of 3 Israeli youths by the Islamic terrorist group.
According to the study, Hamas spent nearly $130 million building the concrete tunnels from the Gaza strip miles into Israel. The money was taken from humanitarian relief sent into the region for the purpose of rebuilding after the last conflict with Israel.
The report also shows that Hamas used children to build the tunnels and that at least 150 children died during tunnel construction from cave-ins and accidents. The children were taken from their families without their parent’s consent to be used in the tunnel construction.
According to the Times of Israel, most of the tunnels were lined with uniforms made to resemble uniforms of the IDF. The report says the goal was to confuse forces responding to the attack and make them unable to quickly stop the assault.
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.
An elite unit of the Israeli Defense Forces announced they had captured a Hamas operative who was planning a terrorist attack near Hebron.
The arrest led to Israeli police and the IDF carrying out a sweep in the West Bank and East Jerusalem that led to the arrest of nearly 60 people who were connected to the plot or to inciting riots.
The IDF did not release the name of the suspect or the details of the attack saying that the information was withheld for national security reasons.
The arrest is the latest in an IDF crackdown on those leading riots or attacks in Israel. The investigations into many of the arrested suspects had been placed on hold or in a lower priority because of the conflict with Hamas in Gaza.
Tbe IDF said that 12 suspects were arrested late Monday and Tuesday nights in the West Bank on top of the almost 60 arrested today.
Officials say that rioting has increased in the Jerusalem area as Arab groups took advantage of decreased IDF presence.
Hamas has announced they will not extend the current cease-fire unless they see “real progress” during negotiations in Cairo.
Hamas did not make clear what they would consider “real progress.”
Egypt had presented a revised draft for a long-term cease-fire that would be implemented in two steps by early 2015. Hamas rejected the deal outright. It would have called for Israel to open border crossings and withdraw troops from the buffer zone in the Gaza strip. Deals for prisoners, an airport and seaport would be delayed for a month in negotiations.
The current cease-fire ends at midnight.
Meanwhile, a reporter for the Associated Press was killed along with a translator working for AP when a rocket shot into Israel from the IDF exploded as technicians were disarming it. Simone Camilli, 35, had been working with AP since 2005. An AP photographer, Hatem Moussa, was one of four people seriously injured in the blast.
Camilli is the first foreign journalist to die during the current Gaza conflict.
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.”
Israeli scientists have developed a system that allows the Israeli Defense Forces to detect the infiltration tunnels used by the terrorist group Hamas.
A source inside the IDF told the Jerusalem Post the system has proven flawless in laboratory testing and it will now be taken into the field to see if it is as effective in real world situations. If it proves reliable, it would be able to be deployed full-time in about a year.
The IDF also announced on Israel Radio they are working on an upgrade to the Iron Dome system.
The new system is aimed at stopping multiple rockets at the same time or multiple other pieces of debris that are fired into the country. Also, the system will be able to target rockets and other objects much higher in the air than the current system.
The IDF believes that Hamas is being given upgraded weapons by countries like Iran that will help them overwhelm the current Iron Dome system.
The IDF also prised the Trophy tank defense system, saying it successfully stopped dozens of anti-tank missiles in Gaza during Operation Protective Edge.
