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© 2021 AFPIsrael strikes Gaza in response to incendiary balloons
By Mai Yaghi and Guillaume Lavallee GAZA/JERUSALEM©2023 GPlusMedia Inc.
87 Comments
venze
Israel strikes Gaza, 1st time under new government & after ceasefire that ended 11-day war.
So, that is the kind of new government Israel has, perpetrating the atrocity within dozen hours of the new premier installation.
What more to say?..
RichardPearce
I suppose when you know a charge for participating in a Crime Against Humanity is going to drop against you, adding another war crime charge just doesn't seem that big a deal to Bennett.
Express sister
Meet the new colonizer, same as the old colonizer.
Ego Sum Lux Mundi
Good to see all that freely-donated American military equipment being put to use by Israel. The American taxpayer is a very generous creature.
Joe Blow
Hoping for a double KO here.
Blacklabel
this. maybe stop doing this, unprovoked?
Sanjinosebleed
Sad to see the leopard hasn't changed it's spots. I suppose Lapid has his hands tied by Bennet. At least he actually condemned the death chants probably a first for a Jewish Israeli politician.
BDS until fairness wins
Commodore Perry
Is there a country in this world that would do nothing when a group of Islamic terrorists send fire balloons to burn people's property?
The poor Palestinian Arabs--they voted for and got their Hamas faction of a government. A terrorist group is their leader. Fact.
So, Israel is allowed, under international law, to defend its borders and take our these murderous Islamic Terrorists who seek to murder innocent civilians, and at the same time make their own Palestinian Arab brethren be targets for self-defense measures by Israel.
Israel is already patient enough to allow the Palestinian Arabs to stay on those lands in Gaza and the West Bank--lands that were stolen by Jordan.
Go Get'em Israel!!!
Cricky
Didn’t know a balloon could result in a million dollar response. Putting my balloons in storage. And my match box, that could be seen to be a threat too. Hope I can keep my Flint.
Commodore Perry
P. SmithToday 11:58 am JST
Love Israel's response! Islamic Terrorists deserve no mercy. Nor do their sympathizers.
Any hospitals hit? Any "innocent civilians" killed?
The Palestinian Arabs got what they deserve. And not much they or anyone else can do about it. So just stand back, and watch a country take its rightful action, with extreme prejudice. Biden could learn a thing or two about leadership from the Israelis.
Everyone can whine and try and act so concerned, but really, come on, that is false concern, as the feigned outrage is pure anti-semitism.
Simon Foston
Commodore PerryToday 12:39 pm JST
You really sound like you're enjoying all this a bit too much. Looks like Israel has as many extremist whackos on its side as Hamas does.
Maybe you're too lost in macho right-wing fantasy land to notice what normal people think, but "extreme prejudice" is not generally considered to be a good thing. Ironic, given how you like to bleat sanctimoniously on about anti-semitism.
Simon Foston
RichardPearceToday 11:37 am JST
Of course not, when compliant US governments unconditionally condone whatever you do.
Freshwind
I'm absolutely gutted by this news. I saw the images of the palestinian children who got killed because of this war. This truly breaks my heart. These monsters need to be held accountable, STOP BOMBING THE PEOPLE.
Commodore Perry
militants in the Palestinian territory sent incendiary balloons into the south of the country, in the first major conflict between the two sides since a flare-up in May in which hundreds were killed
Even Arabs have no tolerance for these terrorist attacks by Hamas. Israel is made up of 20% Arabs. There is a reason they don't run off to live in Gaza.
And Israel's government includes an Arab party. So, Arabs and the Jews both agree not to tolerate these Islamic terrorist attacks.
Why can't the Palestinian Arabs just try and live in peace, and stop attacking Israel without being provoked?
What did the Islamic Terrorists think would be accomplished by sending incendiary balloons into Israel? Who would condone that?
Who would support these Islamic terrorist attacks?
I admire Israel for its restrained response against these needlessly violent Islamic terrorists. I encourage them to CRUSH them.
Simon Foston
Commodore PerryToday 01:14 pm JST
Real restraint would involve using Mossad and the elite Israeli special forces that are supposed to be so fantastic to quietly go in and eliminate the terrorist leaders. Israel instead seems to be using tactics developed by the Luftwaffe in 1940.
Even if I were wholly supportive of Israel I would find that kind of language a bit disturbing. I generally associate talk of "crushing" enemies with upstanding regimes such as Stalin's USSR, Nazi Germany, Saddam's Iraq and the Galactic Empire.
Alfie Noakes
BDS on the genocidal, apartheid state please.
RichardPearce
There were those who believed that Germany was 'only defending itself' when it attacked its neighbors, and they suffered from the same mental or moral defect as those who believe that the Israeli regime is 'only defending itself'.
Commodore Perry
Simon FostonToday 01:28 pm JST
Israel determines its own restraint.
How are the Islamic terrorist tactics of shooting missiles at innocent Israeli civilians described? So, no mercy on them.
Really? I am quoting Bennet, Israel's PM. And those regimes you mentioned--what happened to them? They were CRUSHED. And rightfully so.
If Islamic Terorrists are going to continue to attack Israel and try and hide behind schools, media buildings or whatever, then the people who suffer the consequences only have them to blame.
ulysses
Am sure if the balloons set your house on fire the response would have been different.
Sad fo see no condemnation of the Hamas terrorists sending incendiary balloons which can cause a loss of civilian life, but attacks on Israel for responding to the attacks.
Simon Foston
Commodore PerryToday 01:46 pm JST
Simon FostonToday 01:28 pm JST
Israel determines its own restraint.
So if Israel were to kill all the Palestinian Arab males and herd the women and children into reservations as a "restraint," that would be okay with you. As presumably, would anything else they chose to do.
Ah, such a well-known paragon of peace, tolerance and mercy. Well, it's hardly surprising you don't have any opinions of your own.
Then Israel and its supporters who use that kind of fascist rhetoric can expect the same thing to happen to them sooner or later?
Well, they're going to blame the Israelis.
Express sister
You're saying that regimes that say their enemies should be crushed should, rightfully, be crushed themselves, and also acknowledge that the current Israeli regime says their enemies should be crushed?
OK. I don't think Israel should be "crushed", but you can certainly hold that view, if you want.
ulysses
I would guess the US response after 9/11 would have been to send its own radicals, hijack Afghan planes and fly them into the Kabul WTC.
Kumagaijin
It won't be long before Israel considers rock throwing from Gaza into Israel a terrorist activity or even waving a Palestinian flag. Israel is a joke!
Boku Dayo
What's the matter? Did Hamas run out of rockets and revert to incendiary balloons?
So fitting for a bunch of militant clowns, isn't it?
IMO, Israel should keep hammering on Hamas until they surrender.
No limp truces anymore. Surrender should be the only choice for Hamas.
Anonymous
Israel goes to a lot of expense to retaliate. Why not just launch their own incendiary balloons from offshore and let them land willy-nilly in Gaza?
Every reader knows that action would be met here with cries of “indiscriminate attacks on civilians” and “war crimes”.
In fact, it already has.
So, why doesn’t Israeli reply in the same manner?
If you don’t know the answer or can’t bear to say it among “friends” for fear of losing fashionable anti-Zionist (or good, old-fashioned Jew hatred) street cred, allow me to answer.
The lives of their citizens matter to every Israeli government. I can’t say the same for Hamas, the PA or their spiritual role models in Maoist China, Bolshevik Russia or Nazi Germany.
Express sister
In China, the guy who drove the tank stopped, instead of running someone over. In Israel, the bulldozer driver destroying Palestinian homes crushed a woman to death.
Please learn what these ideologies are and how they differ.
Mr Kipling
Simon Foston....
I agree with your response but actually it was RAF bomber command that started the carpet bombing of German cities in August. The Luftwaffe replied in September.
Simon Foston
AnonymousToday 02:09 pm JST
Money's no object when the US government supports everything they do.
Why use balloons when you've got $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$s' worth of much more impressive ordnance?
Mr Kipling
Especially when you don't even have to pay for it. Much of the military hardware is gifted as aid and a lot of the rest is funded by loans that are waived a few years down the line. Sadly the poor hardworking tax payers in the US are not very well informed of how much they fund the Zionist agenda.
Anonymous
Time sequence is important. The Great Leap Forward with the resultant famine death of millions and the Cultural Revolution with its discriminate destruction of Chinese tradition, persecution of intellectuals, and reversal of economic progress were under Mao or his henchmen.
”Tankman” (the civilian, not the driver) was spared, but hundreds in Tiananmen Square and the avenues leading to it were slaughtered. Before you say “propaganda”, it’s fact.
spiritual role models in Maoist China, Bolshevik Russia or Nazi Germany.
I’ve studied them for many years. The similarities are more important than the differences. One party, a clique, in total control trying to implement an unsound, poisonous, inhumane ideology at ANY cost in lives.
BTW, how’s the weather in Beijing?
Cricky
Please bring on the rapture, after that we might be able to live in peace. My god or whatever what the hell are you doing? It’s been over 2000 years and not a peep. He she it, must enjoy the mayhem. Like really enjoy watching children killed in their name. Nice god.
Express sister
Their ideologies are completely different. You didn't understand my point at all, which you prove by including "implementing an ideology" as things they have in common. Every government, and every state, attempts to implement an ideology, and everyone subscribes to one ideology or another.
According to Google, it's raining. I cannot confirm this personally, however, as I live in Tokyo.
WilliB
venze
You missed the "incidentary balloon" part from the article, did you? What is Israel supposed to do? Sit back and enjoy the constant enrichment with fire balloons and rockets from Hamas in celebration of the "cease fire"?
ulysses
Im WW2, the Germans killed around 6 million but lost only 500,000 of their own. I guess according to your metric we still need another 5.5 million Germans before the account is settled.
Kumagaijin
Good point. I'm going to assume that much of the ordinance Israel has used recently is about to expire and that its much easier to expose of it in Gaza than it is to take it apart or send it back to the US. The Israelis probably have a new shipment of bombs/missiles set to arrive from Uncle Sam.
Kumagaijin
Offer an olive branch is what a civilized country would do.
Commodore Perry
Express sisterToday 02:14 pm JST
Oh, one tank stopped. So nobody was killed at Tianemen Square, right?
P. SmithToday 02:18 pm JST
Is there evidence that a country called Palestine existed before 1948? No. So good, you establish no land was stolen from the Palestinian Arabs, because they never ever ever had s country.
Did the Jews live in the lands where they now inhabit for 3000 years? Dig a whole anywhere in Israel and you will find Jewish artifacts. It is difficult for some people to understand what Israel stands for.
P. SmithToday 02:18 pm JST
Wrong characterization. There Islamic terrorists deserve the force deployed upon them. If you view the Palestinian Arabs the same as Islamic Terrorists, well, that is very telling.
Tell_me_bout_it
The old king is dead, long live the new king...
err...new king the liar???
Simon Foston
Commodore PerryToday 03:35 pm JST
There is, however, evidence that the Arabs were promised an independent homeland during WW1 in exchange for helping the Allies against the Ottoman Empire. Then for whatever reason, the Balfour Declaration was issued, Jews were allowed to emigrate to the area in greater numbers and it became a Jewish state instead.
Indiscriminate bombing supported or condoned by the US makes it more difficult.
Commodore Perry
Simon FostonToday 03:48 pm JST
I and several other posters have repeated the same several time. The Arabs were promised an independent homeland. And you know what? They rejected the offer, because they wanted all the land, and were not willing to share with the Jews, who have a history in those lands for thousands of years.
Repeat--the Palestinian Arabs rejected the offer for a homeland, because they were greedy, and unwilling to live peacefully with the Jews. Proven by the fact that the Palestinian Arabs and 5 other Arab countries attacked Israel.
So, now look what their greed got them. No one to blamer but themselves,
Oh--and they can also blame Jordan for occupying the lands the Palestinian Arabs now suddenly claim to be theirs!
Express sister
Not sure how you took that from what I said. Both the Chinese government and the Israeli government are and have been engaged in atrocities. The difference is that Israeli colonizers are so used to seeing protestors against their invasion of Palestinian territory as inhuman that they are happy to flatten them without compunction, something even a Chinese soldier shied away from.
If I'm understanding you correctly, you are clearly condemning the murder of Palestinian children and babies by the Israeli state. That's good to know, and is, of course, the only humane stance to take.
Simon Foston
Commodore PerryToday 03:54 pm JST
Simon FostonToday 03:48 pm JST
The same one they thought they were going to get in 1917?
Cricky
A new Crusade, god wills it, it’s the only chance of peace. God wills it!
Peter14
Up to two million Palestinian prisoners being held in the Gaza Ghetto by Israel have no rights. How dare they send balloons on the wind to fight this imprisonment. Israel has the right to keep annihilating the terrorists who fight for nothing more than freedom and equal rights to live by their own rule, in their own land. A shocking occurrence.
It is almost as if they do not appreciate being kept in a small area where they have no freedom to leave at will or to export and import the goods of their choice or even to seek medical assistance beyond what is available to them in Gaza. Israel is benevolent by allowing them to exist at all.
Palestinians should be grateful that their lands are being slowly stolen by a nation as grand and righteous as Israel instead of constantly fighting it.
*sarcasm
Express sister
"Other" implies here that the Palestinians had a country of their own. If you didn't think that Palestine was a legitimate nation, you would have surely said "Palestinian Arabs and 5 Arab countries".
Thank you for accepting the legitimacy of Palestine, it's good to see other posters' growth.
Commodore Perry
Simon FostonToday 04:02 pm JST
You mentioned about the promise given for helping the Allies. They should take it up with those parties.
So because the Allies may have reneged on a deal with Palestinian Arabs, that gives Islamic Terrorist leader Hamas the right to bomb Israel?
Regardless, Israel's lands have been the home of jews for 3500 years, well before WWI, or WWII.
And the West Ball has been part of those lands, and will remain so.
Concerned Citizen
The headline should read.....
Israel strikes Gaza in response to incendiary balloons sent in response to Israeli land theft, genocide, occupation, subjugation, brutality, etc.
Commodore Perry
zichiToday 04:43 pm JST
There is no Palestine. There never has been a city, state, nation, or country called Palestine.
No, the word Phillistine derives from the word Philistia.
Blacklabel
Maybe dont try to have armed conflict with people who have bombs when you only have fire balloons?
That was not the intention was it? Dont confuse ineptness or lack of accurate weapons with not having a different desired result.
Simon Foston
Commodore PerryToday 04:33 pm JST
Simon FostonToday 04:02 pm JST
The same Allies who decided to let the Jews have the land instead? What do you think that would achieve? Have you got anything sensible to suggest, other than more US-subsidized bombing campaigns?
The Irgun and other Revisionist Zionist fanatics didn't like it when the British restricted Jewish immigration to the Mandate of Palestine, and launched deadly terrorist attacks on British police and military personnel. What gave them the right to do that?
So everyone else who lives in the area can either remain as second-class citizens or get out, right?
Express sister
You've written many words about "Palestinian Arabs". What distinguishes a "Palestinian" Arab from an Arab of any other location?
albaleo
My dad told us he served in Palestine with the British army. And my 1949, 1956, and 1963 Stanley Gibbons stamp catalogues list Palestine as country and shows stamps bearing the name.
Commodore Perry
P. SmithToday 05:06 pm JST
Express sisterToday 05:07 pm JST
Saudi Arabia. Oman, Yemen--those are countries. Arabs live in those countries.
The Palestinian Arabs do not live in any country and never had a country. Are you claiming there was a country called Palestine?
P. SmithToday 05:06 pm JST
The word "Palestinian" derives from the Philistines, a people who were not indigenous to Canaan
Were the Philistines Arabs?
Express sister
Could you answer my question? What merits the descriptor, "Palestinian"? What does the word "Palestinian" denote?
Tobia
"The General Assembly today adopted seven resolutions, including five on the question of Palestine and the Middle East, one of which cited the illegality of annexing any part of the Occupied Palestinian Territory, and two on the importance of fostering a culture of peace." Dated December 2020. Does Israel really expect peace with its neighbours if your land is occupied and your house is destroyed to make way for Jewish settlers? What's more, you are treated as a second class citizen. Please check the number of UN resolutions that Israel NEVER respected.
Express sister
Of course you and I know that, but I'm wondering if CPerry is able to understand that, by his own definition, if there are a Palestinian people (which he has affirmed multiple time that there are), then the existence of Palestine is a pre-requisite.
Simon Foston
Commodore PerryToday 05:22 pm JST
P. SmithToday 05:06 pm JST
No, it's a totally false equivalency as the Germans more or less shared the same culture and ethnicity, and created a nation by themselves in lands they had always lived in. Israel is a bit like what happened when the British introduced rabbits to Australia.
Express sisterToday 05:07 pm JST
Saudi Arabia. Oman, Yemen--those are countries. Arabs live in those countries.
It was part of a bigger Muslim state, the Ottoman Empire, and generations of Palestinian Arabs were born there, forming the majority of the population until the British took over and messed everything up with well-intentioned geo-political blundering. You seem to see them as trespassers that the Israelis can deal with in any manner they see fit.
Commodore Perry
P. SmithToday 05:27 pm JST
It could--if there were a country called Palestine. And if there was ever a people called Palestinians. But there isn't, and there wasn't. That's smooth.
P. SmithToday 05:27 pm JST
Does your home country, the US, recognize it as a country? Do the Palestinian Arabs even consider they have a country?
Express sisterToday 05:43 pm JST
When did I affirm there are a Palestinian people? And by your definition, the existence of Germany was required for there to be Germans. You got it backwards.
Back on point--when these people led by the terrorist government Hamas send missiles, rockets, incendiary balloons into Israel, then they deserve the response that Israel decides to mete out.
Express sister
In this topic alone:
So I'll ask again: what differentiates a Palestinian Arab from an Arab of any other nation? What does "Palestinian" mean?
Express sister
This is not an answer to my question. I understand that Saudi Arabs are from Saudi Arabia. Where are Palestinian Arabs from? What does "Palestinian" mean?
Why are you so afraid to answer this very simple question?
Commodore Perry
Express sisterToday 06:13 pm JST
You don't know--tell us!
I guess you just don't understand my answer.
In April 1920, when the British occupying force carved out a “Palestine.” Muslims reacted very suspiciously, rightly seeing this designation as a victory for Zionism. No prominent Muslim voices endorsed the delineation of Palestine in 1920; all protested it.
Commodore Perry
Express sisterToday 06:13 pm JST
I will ask again--Is there a country called Palestine? Is there a people called Palestinian?
Why are you so afraid to answer this very simple question?
Express sister
Do you understand how knowledge works?
You haven't given one.
Express sister
Yes.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_of_Palestine
Yes.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palestinians
Simon Foston
Commodore PerryToday 05:55 pm JST
There does seem to be a lot of people living in the area that you claim has belonged to the Jews since the time of the Old Testament, yet they're not Jews themselves. Are you going to deny that? So given that it's the 21st Century and we should have put aside ridiculous disputes over ethnicity and religion at least five hundred years ago, why not have a country in which everyone who lives there has the same rights and gets treated the same? Ah, wait a minute though - I don't suppose it would do for the majority of an area's population to have the democratic right to determine what kind of country they live in, would it.