Apartheid Israel Intensifies Gaza Genocide

Almost two days into a brutal assault on the Palestinians of Gaza that has left 65% without electricity and thousands more without clean water, pro-Apartheid Ha'aretz reports on the myriad terrorist operations:

IDF troops carried out an air strike Thursday afternoon against a car in Gaza City carrying a senior Islamic Jihad militant, who survived the attack...

IAF aircrafts fired missiles near Khan Yunis late Thursday morning....

Palestinian witnesses said an IAF plane fired a missile at the Islamic University in Gaza City early Thursday morning....

The IAF also bombarded seven roads the military said were being used by Qassam launch crews, and Israel Navy vessels were involved overnight in shelling targets in Gaza.

There were no reports of Palestinian casualties following the strikes...

But in spite of the crippling attacks on what little Palestinian infrastructre it hasn't already destroyed, Apartheid Israel still finds itself on the warpath searching for ways to induce more suffering upon the Palestinians.

Day two of Apartheid Israel's invasion of Palestinian Gaza produced nothing more than an increase in number of the same predictable operations undertaken many times over. The Daily Star describes the reality on the ground:

In Gaza, tanks and infantry, backed by assault helicopters and artillery, set up a strategic observation post at an airport - ruined by previous Israeli attacks - outside the southern town of Rafah as Palestinian gunmen waited behind barricades for battle to begin.

Anonymous collaborators from Mahmoud Abbas's Fatah party have blamed Hamas for Apartheid Israel's attack on Palestinian Gaza. And Ha'aretz reports that Egyptian dictator Hosni Mubarak continues to act closely in consult with its Zionist allies.

Some 2,500 Egyptian border guards were deployed in the Rafah area on Monday - the former Philadelphi Route - due to fears that the people who abducted Shalit would try to smuggle him into Egypt, Palestinian sources said.

But the Palestinian resistance quickly moved to scuttle this Egyptian-Zionist collaboration, blowing "a 4-meter wide hole in the border wall between the Gaza Strip and Egypt," as part of its wider Resistance:

Dozens of Palestinian militants armed with grenades and automatic weapons took up positions near sandpiles and barricades in the northern Gaza Strip on Thursday, in anticipation of an Israel Defense Forces operation.

That resistance also includes the continuation of Palestinian rocket attacks against betwetting colonialist settlers:

Two people suffered from shock when Palestinians fired a Qassam rocket that slammed into a horse farm in Sderot on Thursday. The farm, located next to the city's cemetery, was damaged in the rocket attack.

In other developments, Avi Issacharoff and Amos Harel reported in pro-Apartheid Ha'aretz that the occupying army launched a "major arrest operation overnight" against the Hamas government, "detaining 64 of the ruling party's cabinet ministers and parliamentarians in the West Bank, as well as another 23 military activists."

According to the paper, "The IDF operation is designed to gain 'bargaining chips'" against the Palestinians.

Citing Shin Bet security chief Yuval Diskin, the authors of the piece corroborate the claim made by Hamas lawmaker Mushir al-Masri, who called the operation, "a pre-planned plot to destroy the [Palestinian] Authority, the government and the parliament and to bring the Palestinian people to their knees." They reported that Diskin "[told] Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas on the day of the kidnapping: 'If the soldier is not returned in 24 hours, Israel will not allow the Palestinian government to survive...'"

But the consequences of this operation may yield quite another outcome. Abu Obaida, a spokesperson for the Al Qassam Brigades, the Hamas armed resistance wing, told the Palestine News Network Thursday morning "that the arrests among the ranks of the government and the continuing incursion into Gaza will cause more reaction."

“The actions of Israel stresses that it is unaware of the nature of the Palestinian resistance and that it will not succumb, regardless of what they do to us.”

Even as Apartheid Israel's terrorist operations continue in Southern Gaza, Yaakov Katz reports in the pro-Apartheid Jerusalem Post that it may soon open a second front:

IDF tanks, bulldozers and APCs carrying Givati Brigade soldiers were preparing to move into the northern Gaza Strip Thursday morning. The incursion would be the second phase of "Operation Summer Rains."

Another maneuver, already invoked by the Zionist government, involves using propaganda and misinformation about the current episode as a pretext to launch a much wider-scale war against Syria. Issuing a direct threat against the Syrian government, Public Security Minister and former head of Shin Bet Avi Dichter explained that because Israel "warned" Syria in the past about the presence of Hamas and Islamic Jihad leaders, "this therefore gives Israel full permission to attack these assassins."

Jennie Matthew reports in Middle East Online that:

Israel was on high alert Thursday for possible retaliation after it... flew warplanes over Syria's presidential palace.

Israeli warplanes overflew Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's palace in northern Syria Wednesday while the leader was inside, an operation Syrian state television called an "aggressive act and an unacceptable provocation."

In addition to the Syrian 'threat', Matthew then offers yet another pretext confected by Apartheid Israel to expand the conflict: Hizbullah. Despite the repeated statements by Hizbullah that it concerns itself with Resistance to Apartheid Israel's occupation of Lebanon, the Zionist colony conjures it up as a threat anyway:

The army said it was bracing for any strikes by the Syrian-backed Lebanese Hezbollah militia...

"This measure has been taken due to concerns that the Lebanese Shiite militia Hezbollah or other organizations will try to trigger an escalation of hostilities by launching border attacks," an [unnamed] army spokeswoman said.

Apartheid Israel's contempt for the truth and its arrogant and ruthless display of military and political barbarity has provoked a storm worldwide outcry. Hardly confining itself to the Arab world alone, rallies to express solidarity with the Palestinians are even planned in places where support for Apartheid Israel is most steadfast: England and on Uncle Sam's Plantation.

Apartheid Israel knows that by itself, this assault on Palestinian Gaza is a public relations catastrophe. Which explains precisely why, rather than retreat, it has begun to fabricate a justification for an attack on Lebanon or Syria that fully ignite the Middle East Tinderbox.