War in Gaza, by Gråulf

I predicted the Israeli ground attack on Gaza would begin last night. I was wrong. The ground assault began this morning, just as I was beginning to believe the Israeli’s had lost their nerve. There really was no choice, because the air attacks had failed to stop Hamas from firing rockets into Israel, and the long delay in launching a ground assault was giving the press too much time to stir up anti-Israel sentiment around the world. If the Israelis had stopped now, and agreed to a ceasefire, Hamas would have claimed that Israel is afraid of them, and they would have claimed it a victory. It remains to be seen how successful the Israeli’s invasion will be.

Over a year ago, Abu Hamza, the head of Islamic Jihad's rocket program, explained that the goal was to draw Israel into a ground conflict inside the Gaza Strip so that his men would have the chance to "kill as many Zionists as possible". Abu Bilal, commander of Islamic Jihad's forces in the Rafah Refugee Camp in southern Gaza admitted that his group's rocket attacks are mostly ineffectual against Israel, except psychologically, and that the group, which operates independently of the dominant Hamas movement, was literally praying for an invasion. "We can't do anything (to hurt the Israelis) but fire the rockets and hope they enter Gaza," he said. "We are praying for the tanks to come so we can show them new things. We have made many preparations for the coming battle and all of our fighters wait for the chance to kill them."

All the Muslim countries in the Middle East will now rust to the United Nations to get the UN to stop Israel, and they will use every means available to them to make Israel appear the aggressor. The UN has already signaled it is more than willing to be the pawn of the Muslims world, and CNN is reporting that an emergency meeting has been called for later this evening.

I am sure that most of the Hamas leaders have already left Gaza, and that Hamas fighters will be hiding behind the civilian population to maximize civilian casualties. I question the innocence of the civilian population. I also question the will of Israel’s current government to order the Israeli army to blow their way through civilians to destroy Hamas, although nothing less will do the job. If the Israeli leadership had the will, they would have invaded Gaza during day one of the conflict, before Hamaz could mobilize. My prediction is that the Israeli’s will limit the ground assaults to specific and limited targets to stop the rocket attacks, and then they will withdraw back across the border.

Gråulf.