Al-Manar reports: On the 15th day of Israel’s onslaught on the Gaza Strip, the Zionist entity killed more than 806 Palestinians and injured more than 3150 others, yet the goal to break the will of the people and the resistance has been futile. The Israel occupation army has been stunned by the Palestinian resistance’s fighting techniques, capabilities and determination. On Saturday morning, the Quds Brigades, the military wing of the Islamic Jihad resistance movement carried out an attack against an Israeli army unit north of the Gaza Strip and confirmed its fighters inflicted losses in the unit’s ranks.
The Islamic Resistance Movement Hamas said its armed wing, the Izzeddine Qassam Brigades, killed 12 Israeli special forces soldiers Friday, including eight in an ambush in Beit Lahyia.
“I bring the good news to our Palestinian people and our Arab nation that 12 Israeli occupation soldiers have been killed in Friday’s clashes,” Hamas’s politburo member Mohamad Nazzal said Friday night. Nazzal pointed that satellite channels have focused on the eight soldiers killed in the Beit Lahyia ambush, “but there were four other soldiers killed in sniper fire in different locations in the Gaza Strip.” He added that a number of occupation troops were injured in the fighting. The Qassam Brigades have recently shown footage of sniping Israeli soldiers in different locations in Gaza.
Abu Ubeida, the spokesman for the Qassam Brigades confirmed the Beit Lahyia ambush and the killing of the eight soldiers earlier on Friday adding that a resistance fighter was injured in the attack. Hamas’s toll of Israeli soldiers killed so far has reached some 45 troops and more than a hundred and fifty others injured.
Israeli authorities are imposing a total blackout on the course of its ground operation to avoid what they call “the negative effect on the home front.” Yet, under the pressure of Arab and international media, the Zionist army was forced to acknowledge the killing of at least 15 soldiers. Israel bombed a building housing several media offices in Gaza in a clear sign to the Zionist entity’s ire of relaying the massacre being committed in Gaza live on TV screens.
In the meantime, the Israeli occupation army said that Palestinian resistance fighters have attacked Ashkelon, Sderot and Beersheva regions alone with 646 rockets since the beginning of the war on the 27th of last December; an average of 45 rockets a day, not to mention at least a dozen other settlements.
Five Qassam rockets were fired Saturday from northern Gaza at Eshkol and Sha’ar Hanegev regional councils.
Four Grad-type rockets were fired at Ashkelon just before noon. One of the rockets landed near a four-storey residential building in the city, wounding an Israeli settler. Three other settlers were wounded and 10 people went into shock. Another rocket landed in a courtyard and wounded one settler.
Two other rockets landed in an open field and caused no casualties or damage. Two rockets were fired at Sderot. One landed in an open field, but another damaged a road in the city.
On Friday, the Qassam Brigades fired rockets at the main Israel Air Force base in Tel Nof, some 45km north of Gaza and 27km south of Tel Aviv. The base serves as a squadron base for fighter jets and helicopters.
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Note: I have no way of ascertaining whether these claims by the Ezzedine Qassam Brigades are trustworthy or not. In fact, I do not know whether Israel has hidden its casualties in the past.
Is there any historical record of the Israelis hiding their true casualty figures?
It is kind of hard to imagine. The Israelis would have to hide the burial of their soldiers from the families and from the Israeli press. I am not saying that they ain’t doing it, just being a little dubious.
Any opinions?
The Saker
Its too unlikely. They already publicly release the names of the KIA. So any family with a dead relative would notice if they are not mentioned.
In Lebanon, Hizbullah would make claims of several Israeli KIAs that would seem implausible at first, but would be confirmed later in the day by the IDF. The IDF would control the flow of this info by releasing it late in the day, but could not stop it entirely.
OTH, Hamas my not be deliberately lying. Israel has confirmed several wounded which hamas might have thought were killed. Indeed , they are probably more honest than the IDF which always claims dozens of Hamas ‘gunmen’ killed.
On a separate question, how do you think this is going to end? Will the Israelis simply starve Gaza into surrender? People mention how this must end before the Obama admin comes in, but I’m afraid not. He will be told to shut up and he will.
Will they invade Gaza’s cities and implant a collaborator of some sort? That is not impossible. They may take casualties, but they can do it. And if Abbas can’t play the role of Vichy governor, they will find some one else.
One thing is for sure, Israel can’t afford to emerge out of this with nothing and so they wont just leave. International criticism means nothing to them. It did not matter in 1982 and it wont matter now.
That is sad to say but its true.
@Lysander:On a separate question, how do you think this is going to end? Will the Israelis simply starve Gaza into surrender?
It hard to say. The Israelis have achieved really nothing at all with their usual terror tactics. They shot plenty of civilians, they bombed mosques, they bombed schools, they bombed the local TV station, they bombed ambulances, they bombed the UN compounds, they bombed the offices of Press TV and Alalam TV, they bombed UN relief convoys and….
… and nothing.
I terms of terror attacks they still got two possible targets:
a) the main Gaza hospital
b) the al-Jazeera TV crew
That’s about it. Should they target either one of these the outrage in the Middle-East will go through the roof, of course.
I think that it is becoming clear that Hamas did not just crap their pants and roll over. That is good news. No matter how slowly the Israelis have advanced in order to minimize casualties, the fact that they did not penetrate, nevermind control, a single urban center is a sign thay they are running into some real trouble.
And keep in mind that the clock is definitely running *against* the Israelis. There comes a point were the despair and terror of a population turns into raw, seething, burning rage and by then no amount of terror tactics can work.
Then there is the huge demonstrations of public anger in the Arab world (like in Jordan). This is also good news. The Israelis in their trademark narrow-minded stupidity are gradually undermining their puppet regimes in the Arab world who are (correctly) accused by their public opinion of being collaborators.
I also suspect that Abbas and his Fatah look like “Olmert’s poodles”, which is also good news.
To be honest, I was rather pessimistic when all this began. I did not see Hamas as having the guts to actually stand up to the Israelis, but so far they have done just that. I am now *very cautiously* optimistic that all this blood and suffering will bring Hamas and the Palestinian people so real, tangible, gains.
Two weeks into the operation it is still too early to call because the Israelis are moving extremely slowly, but if I had to bet, however reluctantly, on one outcome, I will say that Israel will have to “declare victory and leave” and that Hamas will remain in official control of Gaza.
But please, this is only a bet, not an analysis or in any way a prediction. Much can still change on the ground as all this will be fundamentally decided on how Hamas and the Israelis actually perform in the ground battle inside the urban areas.
My 2cts. (or my 1 cent).
VS
—first of all… all the commentary about the dead counts done is simply false
israeli forces WOULD(!!!) hide their dead against low morale and physiological discharge on the public and world view JUST LIKE TURKEY does when they lose tens and maybe more at every single operation they do on PKK
Now , I am not saying the PKK does not do the same on Kurdish public but realistically theirs is much lower percentage wise not number ratios wise.
Also TURKEY send the bodies with a or few bullets back to the families and tell them mostly the usual(standard) story which was an unfortunate Traffic Accident. Interestingly the traffic accidents still count as MARTYDOM…himmmmm…u gotta think about that a little
and ISRAEL ? …. OF COURSE !!!
Al Manar is reporting a televised speech by Mishal, who rejects international troops in Gaza and says that the resistance is still intact.
Second, see the video footage of what Gaza City looks like from Press TV or Al Jazeera — Israel would need thousands of troops to occupy the city, and would lose of hundreds in the process. They not “going in”.
Third, Israel is running out of time — they will be forced out by the international community sooner rather than later.
Fourth, see the protests from around the world today — 100,000+ in London!
Hamas just needs to hold on.
@anonymous:Second, see the video footage of what Gaza City looks like from Press TV or Al Jazeera — Israel would need thousands of troops to occupy the city, and would lose of hundreds in the process. They not “going in”.
Don’t be too sure. First, they can “go in” in the suburbs, or along one axis – not to control anything, but only to say that “they are in control of most of Gaza”, even if they control only <1% of it. They declared that they had taken Bint Jbeil how many times?
Then there are smaller cities, such as Beit Hanun or Rafah. Take a look at these cites with Google Earth and you will see that they are highly vulnerable to encirclement and that they are small.
Again, I am not saying that they will do it, only that they can do it if they decide to do it.
But yes, your bottom line is absolutely correct. Hamas just needs to hold on.
I think that they just might do it.
It’s hard to see Israel accomplishing anything to aid their cause; eventual withdrawal to the pre-conflict status quo is almost certain. But then again if Hamas’ response is considered acceptably ineffective, so that Israel can be seen as withdrawing on it’s own terms, rather than being forced into an arrangement by Hamas, Israel will see this as a first step in ‘re-establishing credibility’, and count it as a victory. I’m afraid that if such a scenario doesn’t also entail a change in the international situation or trigger an internal change in one or more Arab states, they may be right.
Masoud
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1053607.html
doubts grow in israeli media.
I hope you didn’t overlook the texts:
Israeli troops ‘shot at from Syria’
Are Cheney And His London Backers Pushing Broader War In Southwest Asia?
A Gaza war full of traps and trickery