RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.jns.org/opinion/jihadi-missiles-israeli-mourning/

Four families’ names will now be noted and quoted together by virtue of their shared tragedy over the course of a single fateful weekend.

Reeling after three days of nonstop rocket barrages from Gaza, and fully aware that the ceasefire with Hamas and Islamic Jihad terrorists is temporary, Israelis are preparing for this year’s Yom Hazikaron (Memorial Day) ceremonies with particular sadness and no small degree of frustration.

This evening, when the Jewish state enters into a 24-hour mourning period for all the fallen soldiers and civilian victims of terrorism who have been killed since its inception, four new names will have been added to the list. Four new sets of spouses, children, parents and siblings will have earned the dreaded label of “bereaved.”

Each will wish he or she could have turned the clock back to the minute before Moshe Agadi, Moshe Feder, Ziad al-Hamamda and Pinchas Menachem Pashwazman were murdered by missile fire that changed the course of their history.

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/273686/gaza-crisis-tipping-point-ari-lieberman

Israel’s 2005 withdrawal from the Gaza Strip was a test of sorts to determine whether unilateral concessions would be met with reciprocating goodwill gestures. The experiment in unilateral concessions was an abysmal failure, evidenced by three major conflagrations and countless minor flare-ups since.

The latest spasm of violence began on Friday when Hamas snipers fired on an Israeli patrol wounding two soldiers, one moderately and one lightly. Israel responded with accurate fire killing two Hamas operatives. Shortly thereafter, Hamas and its affiliate, the Palestinian Islamic Jihad began bombarding southern Israel with rockets and mortars.

An Egyptian brokered ceasefire went into effect on Monday at 4:30 a.m. but since Saturday, the southern Israeli cities of Sderot, Ashkelon, Beersheba and Ashdod, as well as a number of smaller communities along the Gaza periphery were subjected to unrelenting rocket and mortar bombardment.

According to Israel’s military spokesperson, Gazan terrorists fired some 700 rockets and mortar rounds at Israel over a two-day period. Approximately two-thirds of these landed in open spaces. Others were intercepted by Israel’s rocket defense system, Iron Dome. But a few managed to penetrate Israel’s missile defense shield inflicting death and property damage. According to published reports, four Israeli civilians were killed in this latest round of Hamas-provoked violence.

https://www.nationalreview.com/2019/05/the-law-of-war-permits-israel-to-destroy-hamas/

The double standards imposed on the IDF are yet another symptom of international anti-Semitism.

As of this moment, a fragile truce holds in southern Israel. After Hamas volleyed 600 missiles at Israeli civilian targets on Saturday and Sunday, prompting Israel to attack hundreds of targets in Gaza, the air-raid sirens have fallen silent, for now.

But over the weekend, when the rockets fell, we saw all the old arguments against Israel’s acts of self-defense crop up. The air raids were “disproportionate,” we were told. There were arguments over individual civilian casualties, as if it would somehow discredit Israel if its precision strikes killed more than a handful of noncombatants. Yes, there were rote condemnations of Hamas’s efforts to kill as many civilians as it could, but once again all too many voices on the left rose at once, demanding that the nation under attack — the nation defending its schools, hospitals, and homes from an indiscriminate rocket barrage — exercise restraint.

It’s important, however, to be very clear about Israel’s legal obligations. When it comes to Hamas, “restraint” is Israel’s choice — one it may make for tactical and strategic reasons of its own. The actual law of war would allow Israel to invade Gaza, utterly destroy Hamas, and occupy Gaza City until Israel’s safety is ensured, even if it burned in the fight.

Let’s break this down as simply as possible. First, firing 600 rockets at civilian targets in a neighboring country is an act of war. It’s an attack by an army against a nation-state, and as such it grants the nation-state the authority under the international law of armed conflict not just to disable the specific military assets used to carry it out but to destroy those who carried it out.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/gaza-israel-reach-cease-fire-after-days-of-deadly-clashes-11557133042

TEL AVIV—Militant groups in Gaza said Monday they had reached a cease-fire with Israel after two days of the deadliest fighting since the 2014 war.

Israel lifted security restrictions in the south near Gaza in a sign that it expected calm, though it didn’t officially confirm the truce. Four Israelis and 27 Palestinians were killed since Friday evening after militants launched nearly 700 rockets, and Israel said it hit more than 350 military targets in Gaza in response.

The latest conflagration sparked fears of a wider war after a year of violent flare-ups and periodic cease-fires. But calm descended across Gaza and Israel on Monday after a weekend of rocket fire from the strip, blaring sirens over southern Israeli communities and explosions on both sides of the border.

https://www.frontpagemag.com/point/273673/islamic-terror-rocket-hits-israeli-kindergarten-daniel-greenfield

There were no children in this room in an Israeli kindergarten when the rocket hit. But you can only get lucky so many times.

In the latest round of Islamic terror attacks on Israel, some got lucky, others did not. One man is dead. A number of others were wounded by the terror rocket attacks. And this kindergarten video of the aftermath of a rocket attack shows what might have happened.

The video shows what happened after a rocket landed in the yard of a Sderot kindergarten and shrapnel from the strike pierced the classroom.

https://worldisraelnews.com/netanyahu-declares-special-situation-as-idf-upgrades-air-strikes-to-target-gaza-terrorists/
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says he has ordered more “massive attacks” on Gaza terrorist targets. IDF moves additional tanks to the Gazan border.

By David Jablinowitz, World Israel News

In response to the massive air attacks from the Gaza Strip, the IDF says that the Israel Air Force (IAF) has struck back by hitting terror targets in Gaza.

Terrorist targets include rocket launchers, terror tunnel shafts, weapons manufacturing factories belonging to Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ), as well as a PIJ training compound and command center located inside a mosque, and a Hamas weapons depot.

The IDF says that it attacked arms and ammunition warehouses located in the home of Hamas terrorists in Rafah and Khan Yunis and another warehouse in Gaza City in the home of a member involved with Hamas’ rocket infrastructure.

By midnight Saturday, the Israeli military said that it had carried out some 220 air strikes and that the attacks were continuing.

On Sunday, the IDF said that it was starting to attack arms and ammunition depots placed “purposely” by the terrorists in areas populated by civilians and was targeting terrorists themselves.

https://worldisraelnews.com/watch-gaza-terror-groups-fire-over-200-rockets-into-israel/?utm_source=browser&utm_medium=push_notification&utm_campaign=PushCrew_notification_1556997154&pushcrew_powered=1