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Day 24 – Ceasefire Declared; Issacharoff in Gaza; Hamas’ Weapons; The “Summer War”

by TheTower.org Staff |

Today was the twenty-fourth day of Operation Protective Edge and the thirteenth day of ground operations in Gaza.

Breaking: Secretary of State John Kerry announced that Israel and Hamas agreed to a ceasefire to go into effect shortly.

A source in the Israeli Prime Minister’s Office confirmed late Thursday that Israel had agreed to the 72-hour truce.

In a statement released in New Delhi where Secretary of State John Kerry is traveling, the US and UN said they had gotten assurances that all parties to the conflict had agreed to an unconditional ceasefire.

“This humanitarian ceasefire will commence at 8 a.m. local time on Friday, Aug. 1, 2014. It will last for a period of 72 hours unless extended. During this time the forces on the ground will remain in place,” the statement said.

During the 72 hours, Israeli forces will be able to maintain their positions and continue their efforts to destroy Hamas’ terror tunnels.

In The Times of Israel, Avi Issacharoff went into Gaza with the IDF and reported on what he saw and heard.

“The sheer destruction around us is devastating,” a battalion commander, Yoav, noted. “What’s most disturbing is that they operate from this urban environment, and the ones who suffer most are the civilians. I’d much rather manage all this in face-to-face combat against a real Hamas, one that is genuinely here.”

Toledano also took pains to stress that it was Hamas’s cynical decision to operate in a civilian environment that had brought about such devastation. A few days ago, the troops found a tunnel under a chicken coop, he said. And now this one, in a home, where people lived until very recently.

The damage was evident all around us. Broken homes and crumbling walls, as army bulldozers dug relentlessly in a search for more sections of the tunnel.

Issacharoff also noted that the network of tunnels that Hamas built allows terrorists to “to move quickly and undetected between private homes and streets and alleyways.”

Also at The Times of Israel, Elhanan Miller answered a number of questions about the threat that Hamas poses to Israel. Miller reviewed the arsenal of weapons at Hamas’ disposal for fighting the IDF on the ground:

Very little face-to-face fighting is taking place in Gaza. Mimicking the tactics used by Hezbollah in Lebanon, Hamas heavily relies on two types of weaponry: anti-tank missiles and improvised explosive devices (IEDs). The anti-tank weapon of choice is the Russian shoulder-launched RPG-29, and is used against infantry troops and armored vehicles. This was the weapon used by Hamas fighters who infiltrated Israel and attacked an IDF post near Kibbutz Nahal Oz on Monday, killing five soldiers. It was also used against an army jeep near Kibbutz Ein Hashlosha on July 19, killing two soldiers.

Inside Gaza, Hamas has booby-trapped hundreds of homes and installations with improvised bombs. One such IED killed three Israeli soldiers on Wednesday in a building labeled as an UNRWA clinic in the southern Gaza Strip city of Khan Younis, where IDF soldiers were searching for a tunnel shaft. IDF’s Gaza Division commander, Brig. Gen. Micky Edelstein, told journalists that in one Khan Younis street he encountered, 19 of the 28 homes were booby-trapped, ready to explode over IDF soldiers who enter them.

The information about the booby traps raises questions about how much of the destruction in Gaza has been caused by Hamas.

The Jerusalem Post reports that the IDF had been anticipating that Hamas would launch a “summer war” against Israel.

Hamas’s scheme involved simultaneous terrorist attack against Israeli villages, IDF bases, and army border patrols. In recent months, the IDF has moved large numbers of forces to the Gaza Division in preparation. Most of the scenarios discussed in April by the army have come true in the current war.

The IDF’s attacks on Hamas, in which 4,000 targets have been destroyed, have set it back by four to five years in terms of its capabilities, the source said. “It can rebuild, and we will monitor that. Our deterrence was achieved by making clear that Israel does not fear a ground offensive, and harming their capabilities. Not enough Hamas commanders have been hit, but many of their other assets, like rocket launchers, have been.”

Today The Tower covered a report in Tablet magazine explaining how Israel knows that Hamas’ leaders are headquartered in Gaza’s Al Shifa hospital. In fact, the Israeli government built the hospital, including a secure basement. Observations from the media confirm a strong Hamas presence in the hospital.

International media described this week’s IDF attack on Al Aqsa Television as an attack on a symbol of Hamas’ power. Al Aqsa was attacked because it is a recognized terror organization – and designated as such by the United States Treasury Department. The station is part of Hamas’ terror infrastructure and, thus, a military target.

Pro-Palestinian demonstrations in France have gotten a lot of attention recently for the anti-Israel and anti-Semitic incidents that are attached to them. Now a similar phenomenon is being seen in the UK, where the riots have “been accompanied by a surge in anti-Semitic attacks throughout Britain.”

CNN reported yesterday that Israelis are overwhelmingly supportive of Operation Protective Edge, leading one analyst to observe, “I can’t remember a military operation which had so much support from the Israeli people.”

The Tower described the ten-step strategy that makes up Hamas’ “Road to Victory.” The cynicism that underlies this strategy is mind-boggling.

Recent events surrounding the United Nations Relief Works Agency (UNRWA) operations in Gaza “fuel a growing debate over the degree to which the UN organization has been complicit in the militarization of the Gaza Strip’s civilian infrastructure.” These events include the discovery of rocket caches in three differnet UNRWA schools and the placement of a terror tunnel in a building that was labelled a UNRWA clinic.

[Photo: idfnadesk /YouTube ]

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