OF THE
TIMES
Sunday's airstrikes hit a busy downtown street of residential buildings and storefronts over the course of five minutes just after midnight. The Gaza Health Ministry said 16 women and 10 children were among those killed, with more than 50 people wounded. The main coastal road west of Gaza City, security compounds and open spaces were among the targets hit and damaged a line feeding electricity from the only power plant to large parts of southern Gaza City. It was was the deadliest single attack.Update 17/5/2021 8:01 Israel downplays Palestinian response:
Israeli military claimed only 60 rockets had been fired at Israeli cities from Gaza a decrease from 120-200 the previous nights. Recent Israeli airstrikes destroyed 15 kilometres of militant tunnels and the homes of nine alleged Hamas commanders, though they were unlikely to be home at the time due to going underground when the fighting began.Update 17/5/2021 10:08 Blinken claims he has yet to see evidence of Hamas operating from the media building struck down by Israel:
Blinken, while delivering remarks in Copenhagen, said he has asked Israel for evidence to bolster its claim that Hamas was operating in the building, according to the AP. He said that he personally has "not seen any information provided."Update 17/5/2021 11:32 Israeli Air Force and Navy attack Hamas submarine off the coast of Gaza:
Netanyahu, in a Sunday interview, told host John Dickerson on CBS's Face the Nation that an intelligence office for Hamas, that plots and organizes the terror attacks against Israeli civilians, was housed in that building "so it is a perfectly legitimate target."
The IDF released footage showing the destruction of an "unmanned diver vessel" in the northern Gaza Strip, with the footage said to be filmed Monday.Update 17/5/2021 11:56 Netanyahu vows no end to conflict as a a top Islamic Jihad commander is killed by Israeli airstrike:
Israel claims: It has neutralized more than 130 terrorists in the last week, while Palestinian militant groups had fired more than 3,150 missiles at Israel, killing 10. IDF said that Hussam Abu Harbeed, Islamic Jihad's northern division commander of 15 years, had been killed in an airstrike. The tweet was accompanied by a video of the attack on Abu Harbeed's compound:Update 17/5/2021 14:11 Mixed message. US Secretary of State claims US is working behind the scenes to end violence while intending to sell $735M worth of bombs to Israel:
Blinken announced on Monday the Biden administration was working "intensely," in a "behind the scenes" effort to restore peace to the region. "We are ready to lend support if the parties... seek a ceasefire," as the Biden administration is pressing ahead with a massive arms sale to Israel.Update 17/5/2021 14:18 Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan appeals to Pope Francis to help end the massacre as Tehran weighed in:
The bulk of the shipment consists of Joint Direct Attack Munitions (JDAMS) kits. These kits bolt onto ordinary 'dumb' bombs, transforming them into precision-guided munitions. Lawmakers have 20 days to object. Rep. Mark Pocan (D-Wisconsin): "US aid should not be funding" Israel's military activities.
Erdogan told the Pope that:Update 17/5/2021 14:34 Lavrov condemns the attacks pledging help with peace negotiations:"all of humanity should be united against" Israel and should punish it for its "savagery. Palestinians will continue to be subjected to a massacre unless the international community punishes Israel... with sanctions."Pope Francis described the mounting death toll as:"terrible and unacceptable." "In these days, violent armed clashes between the Gaza Strip and Israel have taken over, and risk degenerating into a spiral of death and destruction."Tehran reiterated its support for Palestine:"The Islamic Republic of Iran strongly condemns the new round of brutal aggression by the Zionist regime against the defenseless people of Palestine and the Gaza Strip, which has resulted in the martyrdom of dozens of civilians, including women and children, and the destruction of many residential buildings."
Update 17/5/2021 17:44 Tel Aviv supposedly gave US 'smoking gun' evidence of Hamas presence in razed media tower according to The Jerusalem Post and anonymous sources, however this is not verified."We condemn the strikes that are being launched from the Gaza Strip to residential areas [in Israel']. We also, of course, condemn the completely unacceptable strikes on civilian targets in the Palestinian territories.
"Now, everything depends on the negotiability of the parties and their goodwill. We will do everything to help them find agreements to calm down the present, extremely dangerous, hot phase of the conflict and to start direct negotiations as soon as possible."
The owner of the building was left with rubble.See also:
"There is no missile in the world today able to intercept missiles or rockets. Iron Dome is a sound and light show that is intercepting only Israeli public opinion, and itself, of course. Actually, all the explosions you see in the sky are self-explosions. No Iron Dome missile has ever collided with a single rocket. Open spaces are a myth invented in order to up Iron Dome's current interception percentages. The rockets announced as intercepted by Iron Dome either never reach the ground, or are virtual rockets invented and destroyed on the Iron Dome control computer. To this day, no one has ever seen an intercepted rocket fall to the ground."
"What lands here is what's launched. The parts we see on the ground are from Iron Dome itself. We're shooting at ourselves, mainly virtually. The virtual rocket was invented in order to increase the vagueness surrounding Iron Dome. Assume that a real rocket arrives. What does the command-and-control system do? It creates nine more virtual rockets, and transmits their paths on computer graphics to the rocket launcher operators. The launcher operators see 10 rockets and launch 10 Iron Dome interceptors. People hear 10 booms, one rocket enters, and you get a 90% success rate."
Comment: This is only what we've been saying here for many months - and is now being admitted to by an all-too-timid few.