A shocking event always generates ink, and one hopes that ink in turn generates light not heat. Not in this round in I/P.
As we all hope we know, a series of attacks, occurred on Thursday in Southern Israel which involved some terrorists and IDF. That is probably correct.
On Friday, there were a series of airborne attacks on Gaza by the IAF/IDF. That is also probably correct.
After that, it gets shockingly thin, and in surprising want in some cases of any sourcing for the statements of fact in the English language papers I can read.
Here what has also been reported, apparently, is kind of odd if true. Ha'aretz' time line reports that half an hour after the first attack on the bus, missiles were fired into Israel from Egypt. Thereafter, Egypt files a formal diplomatic complaint against Israel for killing at least three Egyptian officers and wounding seven others, in a border area which events may have happened in Israel and may have happened in Egypt. Ma'an reported that the attack occured south of Rafah.
The next day, there are reports of missiles fired from Gaza, either thirty, in Ha'aretz without attribution, but in an article identifying four of such missiles, or twelve in JPost, or twenty four in Ma'an, or other numbers. Israel is reported to have attacked Gaza with either missiles or drones. Thusfar, the reports from IDF say the missiles were all aimed a military targets, but the Gazan reports either say they hit nothing that caused injury here and here and here, and another hit a refugee camp right in the electrical generator, another in a different refugee camp, another hit a cement plant, another hit a car carried three people including another child reported here,, one of whose burial was reportehere.
Both Hamas toward the bottom of this Al Jhazeera article, and PRC here have denied responsibility for Thursday's attacks.
Although a number of the attackers on Thursday were killed, I have not seen any article in fact identifying any of them or purporting to do so. I do find this peculiar as the Israelis have identified specific persons slain in their Gaza counterattacks, including one in northern Gaza who was allegedly riding a motorcycle at the time he was slain, but not the actual doers who died and are therefore available to be identified.
In the process Hamas has revoked whatever truce existed.
There have been reports that if PRC was involved, they were because of their affiliation both with Hamas, and with Hezbollah, the latter being interesting given its more nearly Shi'ite orientation.
Statements from the Israeli government have said that this is not over and that both they are attacking the ones who attacked them, and that they are also attacking those who may have' influence' with the ones who attacked them, whatever that latter one means.
Theories are on the loose everywhere, which I do not feel it responsible to link to.
The only piece of good news I have seen is off topic but important, that about six thousand of the ten thousand Palestinians who went missing in the Syrian attacks on Latakia have apparently been found by UN authorities reported here.
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One of the peculiarities of this attack on Thursday possibly worth mentioning, given the manner in which attacks with Missiles from Gaza have been reported in the same sources is the substantially different M.O. Historically in these papers in recent times, all the descriptions of Gazan hostility have been of people within Gaza, shooting missiles usually from highly visible places at locations in Israel, many of which have been empty, with none hit and little or nothing damaged. This one is materially different, involving the terrorists, whoever they were, coming in allegedly out of Gaza through tunnels, two hundred kilometers through Egypt to to the place of crossing, along the border, and then a substantial distance into Israel, using not missiles but carried weapons and prepared buried explosives in a number of different locations, and then apparently away, those not killed or wounded. Such an endeavor is sufficiently complex that some serious time may have been involved in its planning and preparation, very different from 'get missiles, find a clear spot, and shoot missiles'.
My own view at this point is that we still don't know who did the original attack, but that the response fired missiles and perhaps drones in heavily packed urban areas resulting in the death or wounding of not an insubstantial number of children too young to be plotters or terrorists. Plain civilians described as being in nearby buildings have also been hit.
Without more information, we cannot responsibly infer the identity of the guilty, although "unidentified terrorists' and IDF both have a good bit to answer to, whatever their intentions may be. Anything specific enough to draw a formal diplomatic protest from Egypt within forty eight hours, especially if the subject of the protest occured in Egypt, is a serious matter.
Separately, I am also unhappily surprised at the amount of reporting giving specific information, which specific information is not accompanied by attribution. No IDF sources named, and often IDF not named either. In a matter where, at least one hopes, the facts and their source and accuracy are essential to understand all of what happened here and why.
I encourage Kossacks, in a calm and responsible manner and WITH Links to information sources supplied, to add what can be to this narrative, recognizing that some may not be available until Saturday evening. Another reason to have patience.