Pretty much as I was writing my previous post on the subject the Israeli Defence Force (IDF) - whom I am now going to have to Twitter-stalk - confirmed that on Sunday (20/7/14) 7 of it's troops were killed in an explosive attack on their Armoured Personnel Carrier (APC). They went on to confirm that only 6 of the bodies had been recovered. The 7th - Oron Shaul - bears a striking similarity to Shaul Aaronson - the solider that Hamas claimed to have kidnapped on Sunday evening. The IDF went on to describe Shaul as missing presumed dead. The presumption of death comes from the fact that the other 6 people in the vehicle were killed.
Later on Monday evening an Israeli Jewish male in his mid 20's was shot and killed in the West Bank. This could have been a simple murder although it is more likely to be local idiots picking up their rifles to avenge their Palestinian brothers in Gaza. Either way the Israel police backed by the military moved in to seal off the area provoking a night of rioting.
Meanwhile the conflict in Gaza has continued unabated meaning that Hamas have fired dozens of rockets into Israel whilst also attempting to mount tunnel raids. Meanwhile the IDF have continued their ground operation to prevent Hamas for mounting this type of offensive action. The only difference is that today the IDF decided to attack a Hamas tunnel/bunker network from the air rather then risking their combat engineers. This obviously caused a series of massive secondary explosions which endangered civilians. This was a response to the protests against the IDF's attempts to clear the tunnel networks centred in the Shejayia neighbourhood of Gaza City using excessive artillery fire. At this point I probably need to sober up so I can look at the issue of artillery fire in civilian neighbourhoods in more detail tomorrow. In the meantime the IDF should consider working in smaller teams backed by attack helicopter support even if it is always going to be nasty.
Obviously some of the dozens of missiles Hamas have been firing on Tel Aviv's civilian Ben Gurion airport daily creates a clear risk of an MH17 type event on a more then hourly basis. This afternoon several US airlines - I believe Delta took the lead - finally woke up to this risk and suspended flights in and out of Ben Gurion. This prompted the US Federal Aviation Authority (FAA) to follow suit banning all US airlines from using the airport for 24 hours. At around the same time Air France and the Dutch carrier KLM also stopped flights into Ben Gurion. This prompted the European (Union) Air Safety Authority (EASA) to follow the FAA's lead creating an image of Israel under international sanctions.
I believe that the important thing to remember is that US Secretary of State John Kerry is currently in Egypt/Israel/Palestine trying to negotiate a cease-fire. After all Kerry's boss Barack Obama - much like his predecessor Tony Blair - has decided that he is the hero that is going to bring peace to the middle-east. Sadly my experience of the region leads me to believe that the blood-letting is going to go on for a good few weeks still. Hopefully Kerry won't drag his feet as he makes his way home.
21:00 on 22/7/14 (UK date).
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment