Bombing is just first phase of Gaza op

BBC:

Israel's air assault on Gaza is "the first in several stages" of operations aimed at ending militant rocket fire, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has said.

As the bombing continued for a fourth day, another top official said Israel was ready for "long weeks of action".

Palestinian officials say 10 people died in the latest attacks, taking the death toll to over 360 since Saturday. Four Israelis have died in rocket fire.

A BBC reporter says Israeli tanks and troops are massed along Gaza's border.

Correspondents say this could be a prelude to ground operations, but could also be intended to build pressure on the militant group Hamas, which controls Gaza.

"The army is concentrating troops near the Gaza Strip, but I don't want to give any details over what we are planning in the future," Israeli Defence Minister Ehud Barak said.

...

Richard Falk - the UN special rapporteur for human rights in the Palestinian territories - said the international community must put more pressure on Israel to end its assault.

"Israel is committing a shocking series of atrocities by using modern weaponry against a defenceless population - attacking a population that has been enduring a severe blockade for many months," Mr Falk said in a BBC interview.

...

Falk is not paying attention to the facts. Since the first day of the operation the casualty figures have been extremely low compared to the destruction of infrastructure. If Israel was really doing what he is saying the casualty figures would be in the thousands rather tahn the 10 or so yesterday. The fact is that Israel has warned the Palestinians of the target areas and theya re avoiding them. People like Falk have no credibility on this issue.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Should Republicans go ahead and add Supreme Court Justices to head off Democrats

Washington Post: Some Democrats eye adding more justices to the Supreme Court to change its ideological bent The once-remote idea has gained the attention of liberals angered by the GOP push to remake the federal courts. Probably the easy way to defeat this court-packing scheme is for Trump to propose doing the same thing now.  It would lead to Democrat denunciations and claims that it would be wrong, thereby blowing up any attempt by them in the unfortunate event of Democrats winning a presidential election.
Read more

29 % of companies say they are unlikely to keep insurance after Obamacare

Conn Carroll: A new survey of 368 midsize to large companies found that 29% of them are considering terminating their active employee health care plans when Obamacare is full implemented in 2014. Only 71% of employers surveyed said they did not expect to drop their health coverage, while 20% said they did not know and 9% said they were planning to exit. The latest survey, conducted by Towers Watson, echoes an ealier survey by McKinsey & Co. finding that 30% of private-sector employers were planning to drop their employee health insurance coverage by 2014. When the Congressional Budget Office crunched Obamacare's spending numbers, they estimated that only 7% of employees currently covered by employer-sponsored plans would lose their plans. ... This means the cost of the health care fiasco will be hundreds of billions more than estimated by the CBO and Congressional Democrat. It is also clear that Obama's pledge that you could keep your health care plan if you wanted t...
Read more

Is the F-35 obsolete?

Headline USA: Pentagon Fires Back after Musk Calls Its Most Expensive Project ‘Obsolete’ 'Yeah, as I'm sure you can appreciate, Mr. Musk is, currently, a private citizen, I'm not going to make any comments about what a private citizen may have to say about the F-35....'   ... ... Drones appear to be replacing jets for many operations.  The Russia-Ukraine war is an example of that.  Drones are often hard to detect and can be used for intelligence operations as well as for attacking enemy targets.  It would not surprise me to see drones engaging other drones in combat.  They also cost much less than manned fighters.  
Read more