After telling residents to leave pronto, Israel has now shown they mean business. Gazans and everybody else now understand this. Ted Belman

JPOST

Thousands of residents flee homes as IDF ramps up military offensive; Palestinian death toll stood at 353 before latest attack.

At least 20 Palestinians were killed on Sunday by Israeli shelling in a Gaza neighborhood, where bodies were strewn in the street and thousands fled toward a hospital packed with wounded, witnesses and health officials said.

The mass casualties in the Shejaia district in northeast Gaza appeared to be the heaviest since Israel launched its offensive on the Palestinian territory on July 8 after cross-border rocket strikes by militants intensified.
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by The Peninsula – 19 July, 2014

The UAE knew in advance of Israel’s plans for an offensive in Gaza and even offered to fund the operation provided the militant Palestinian outfit Hamas was eliminated in the process, Israel’s Channel 2 claimed in a recent report, according to local Arabic daily Al Sharq. The daily says in a report published today that Israel’s leading national TV station (Channel 2 in Hebrew) disclosed details of secret parleys between the UAE’s foreign minister, Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed Al Nahyan, and his Israeli counterpart, Avigdor Lieberman, in Paris at the end of last month.
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July 20, 2014

Since the beginning of Operation Protective Edge more than 1,770 rockets were launched from the Gaza Strip at Israel;1,333 rockets out of which hit Israeli home front and additional 360 rockets were intercepted by the Iron Dome.

Since the beginning of the ground phase of Operation Protective Edge more than 265 rockets were launched from the Gaza Strip at Israel; approximately 190 rockets out of which hit Israel. One of which killing a civilian in the Negev. Additional 63 rockets were intercepted by the Iron Dome. IDF forces struck some 480 terror targets using air, naval and ground forces; uncovering 13 tunnels with 34 access points to them across the Gaza Strip.
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By Jack Golbert

“There are people who can learn from books and lectures. There are others who can learn from the experience of others and there are some who just have to pee on the electric fence themselves”. (Someone anonymously spread that on the internet.)

Most of humanity seem to fall in that last category. So they cannot learn from history, which is learning from the experience of others. Then there are the Jews, many of whom seem to be incapable of learning survival skills, not even from peeing on the electric fence themselves. We fight an enemy who declares its intention of destroying us. And we stop fighting while the enemy is still able to rearm, regroup, replenish its ranks, upgrade its tactics and capabilities and fight another day. And then we do it again. And again. And again! And each time, the enemy is stronger. The “voltage” of the “fence” is greater each time. How many times do we have to pee on the same electric fence before we catch on?
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Posted by Daniel Greenfield @ the Sultan Knish blog
In our modern age, things no longer exist to perform their function. Washing machines aren’t designed to clean clothes, but to save water and energy. Food isn’t there to be eaten, but not eaten. And armies aren’t there to win wars, but to be moral. And the truly moral army never fights a war. When it must fight a war, then it fights it as proportionately as possible, slowing down when it’s winning so that the enemy has a chance to catch up and inflict a completely proportional number of casualties on them.

Forget charging up a hill. Armies charge up the slippery slope of the moral high ground and they don’t try to capture it from the enemy, because that would be the surest way to lose the moral high ground, instead they claim the moral high ground by refusing to try and capture it, to establish their moral claim to the moral high ground, which they can’t have because they refuse to fight for it. Read more…

Ambassador (ret.) Yoram Ettinger, “Second Thought: a US-Israel initiative”
“Israel Hayom,” July 18, 2014, http://bit.ly/1nSCn9l

The Hamas-Israel war is a test of Israel’s power-projection and posture of deterrence, which directly impacts the national security of Jordan and other pro-US Arab countries. They rely on Israel’s posture of deterrence in their own battle against rogue Islamic regimes.

In addition, the Hamas-Israel war highlights the limited impact of the Palestinian issue – both the PLO and Hamas – on Middle East developments and intra-Arab relations.  The war underlines the gap between the Western perception of the Palestinian issue, on the one hand, and the Egyptian and overall Arab perception on the other hand.

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By Mich Ginsberg, TOI

The tunnel threat, the unknowingness of it, has eclipsed the threat of rockets in Israel’s war with Gaza. This may change in the future, if detection methods improve. For now, though, after narrowly thwarting a mega-attack in the Eshkol region on Thursday, Israel has sent in troops to find, probe, and destroy the underground arteries that stretch beneath the border, all along the border.

Conversations with current and former officers illustrate some of the challenges those forces now face in Gaza.

Brig. Gen. Miki Edelstein, the Gaza division commander, told reporters near an offensive tunnel discovered in October 2013 that the entrance to that tunnel was likely in the back yard of a civilian’s home in Rafah.

Brig. Gen. (res) Shimi Daniel, a former commander of the combat engineering corps, painted a more complex picture. He said Thursday on Channel 2 news that the entrance shafts of the tunnels are located within civilian homes and that, by the time troops arrive, “they’ve already poured fresh concrete over the opening.” Read more…

Keep in mind that when Obama attacked Libya, he was in cahoots with Qatar. Also as part of his embrace with the Muslim Brotherhood, he also embraced Erdogan as his best friend in the ME. It seems that this triumvirate is still trying to be relevant.
Egypt: No plans to revise Gaza cease-fire proposal
Ted Belman

BY AVI ISSACHAROFF AND TIMES OF ISRAEL STAFF/ July 19, 2014, 10:24 am

Qatar has drafted its own version of a truce offer between Israel and Hamas, The Times of Israel has learned – and it adopts almost all of Hamas’s demands.

The document underscores the power struggle being waged behind the scenes of the Gaza conflict between Cairo’s new leadership and Turkey and Qatar — two countries which supported the Muslim Brotherhood’s rule in Egypt and its ousted president Mohammed Morsi. Hamas is an offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood, which was removed from power in Egypt in 2013 by then military chief, now president, Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi.

The Qatari document was presented to US officials, Western diplomats and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas earlier this week, before Israel began its ground offensive in Gaza on Thursday night. Qatar reportedly demanded that the US help in mediation between the sides, excluding Egypt from the proceedings. Read more…

By Yossi Verter, HAARETZ

As soon as the operation ends, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will have to rehabilitate and fortify himself politically, while clearing away the rubble of his devastated party and trying to heal the rifts. Operation Protective Edge exposed the ruling party for what it is: shifting sands. Twenty-something individual factions, and only a tiny minority, as negligible as it is marginal, backs the stance of the party leader, who also happens to be the country’s leader.

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By Martin Sherman, JPOST

Just as Hamas uses its civilians as human shields against Israeli military attacks, so the Israeli government uses its civilians as human shields to fend off diplomatic attacks from the international community.

The object of war is not to die for your country but to make the other guy die for his.
– Gen. George S. Patton Jr.

There is always a cost to defeat an evil. It never comes free, unfortunately. But the cost of failure to defeat a great evil is far higher.
– Jamie Shea, NATO spokesman, BBC News, May 31, 1999, on civilian casualties inflicted by NATO in the Balkans.
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HAARETZ

The fact that Israelis are one of the most staunchly pro-American people in the world is not new. But that their confidence in Barack Obama’s ability to handle world affairs climbed dramatically in 2014 to reach an all-time high? That will surely surprise and confound both supporters and detractors of the U.S. president.

Nonetheless, these are some of the findings included a new poll on global attitudes released this week by the Pew Research Institute. According to the poll, 84% of Israelis have a favorable view of the United States, second only to the Philippines, with 92%, among the 44 countries surveyed.
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By Ted Belman

When the West supports Israel’s right of self defense it also calls for restraint. These are conflicting notions.

Why is the West enamoured with restraint. They don’t ask it of anyone else nor do they practise it.

Besides Hamas is recognized by all as a terrorist organization. Why doesn’t the West want Hamas to be destroyed. Instead they are protecting them.

And that’s the truth. Its why they keep asking for restraint.

DEBKA SPECIAL REPORT

The first hours of Israel’s Operation Defensive Edge ground phase against Hamas were marked by heavy artillery and air pounding to soften up the terrain as the ground forces went in Thursday night, July 17. The troops advanced in two heads – one north to Jebalya and Beit Lahiya and the other south, where it went into action initially against Khan Younes and Rafah. The IDF took its first casualty before dawn Friday: Sgt. Eytan Barak, 20, from Herzliya, who served in the Nahal Division.

In its current phase, the IDF ground operation is focusing on southern Gaza, with the potential for expanding into further areas, as and when the government decides, IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Benny Gantz told the special cabinet session Friday.
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By Caroline Glick, JWR

Israel deployed ground forces in Gaza Thursday night both because Hamas’s terror tunnels into Israel have become an unacceptable threat, and because it had to break the deadlock that had developed between it and Hamas.

Until the ground invasion, Israel and Hamas were in a holding pattern. Hamas would not accept a ceasefire deal because Egypt’s offers provided the Iranian sponsored, Muslim Brotherhood terror army with no discernible achievements. And absent such achievements, Hamas prefers to keep fighting. Israel for its part is unwilling to make any concessions to Hamas in exchange for its cessation of its criminal terror war that targets innocent civilians in Israel as a matter of course.
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by TheTower.org Staff 07.17.14 10:13 am

Better still if you look at the ages and sex of those killed you will see that boys and young men have been killed out of proportion to their numbers. It is safe to consider them combatants rather than innocents. For the rest, you must make an intelligent guess at what percentage willingly served as human shields. They too are not innocents. Thus the numbers of innocents killed will be far less than what is alleged. Ted Belman

LT COL HOWARD

Invasion – the American Way
America would invade and take down the government.

Rabbi Prof. Dov Fischer, INN

With Israel’s long-restrained ground invasion into Gaza now at hand, Israel would do well to consider quietly and thoughtfully what America historically has done and always does when she perceives danger coming from south of the United States:  in such cases, America “goes ballistic.”  And G-d bless America for doing so.

When America learned that the Soviets quietly were setting up missile bases in Cuba, 90 miles from Florida, the “best and the brightest” who advised President John F. Kennedy counseled a naval blockade that threatened bringing the entire world to the brink of nuclear holocaust.  No missile actually had been launched towards America.  Indeed, the Soviets and Cubans were trying their best to camouflage and hide what they were building.
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The army says the goal of the Gaza op “is to establish a reality in which Israeli residents can live in safety without continue[d] indiscriminate terror, while striking a significant blow to Hamas’ terror infrastructure.” Since the start of the ground op, the army counts some 50 rockets fired at Israel, 25 of which actually land inside Israel. Twenty are intercepted by Iron Dome and a handful fail to make it out of Gaza. An anti-tank missile also hit an armored bulldozer, the army says, damaging the vehicle but not the soldiers operating it.

The IDF exposes and destroys some 20 concealed rocket launchers, strikes nine tunnels and hits 103 “terror targets” all told, it says Friday morning. “Additionally, IDF ground forces are advancing in their respective missions, including identifying and combating the terror tunnel threat,” the IDF says in a statement. The initial results “thus far fall in line with IDF expectations.” One IDF soldier, whose identity has not been released yet, was also killed in the fighting after being critically injured during clashed near Beit Hanoun. He was announced dead at Barzilai Hospital in Ashkelon; the soldier’s family has been notified. Four additional soldiers were also injured during the ground offensive overnight; one suffered moderate injuries and three others light injuries. Many of the injuries were to the face and neck; all of the wounded soldiers are being treated at Soroka Medical Center in Be’er Sheva. Read more…

Air Force Bombardment (LIVE UPDATES)
 

It began at 10:30 pm

Preceded by much artillery fire.

Limited objective namely destroy tunnels.  Israel wants to do it in stages so they can stop when they want.