The talks between Israel and the Palestinians are over and both sides continue to be happy with the present state of perpetual warfare. After the breakdown of talks, rockets were fired a few hours ago from Gaza towards the town of Sderot.
Alarm sirens blared in Sderot on Thursday evening, as three rockets were fired from Gaza Strip toward the area around the southern city.
No injury or damage was initially reported, and the area where the projectiles fell was not immediately detected.
In response, Anonymous group
Op Israel reports that Israel has retaliated with massive airstrikes in Gaza. They report that at least five different locations were targeted, and at least three casualties were reported in Badr, northwest of Gaza City.
Drones, F16's, and Apache helicopters were used in the air strikes according to tweets collected by OpIsrael along with possibly GPS-directed artillery. Ambulances are audible all over the place, which means that the casualty count could climb much higher. At least 15 rockets were fired by Israel according to the Tweets.
Video of the air strikes here:
The latest military action by both sides followed the latest breakdown of peace talks.
Palestinian and Israeli media outlets on Thursday night quoted PA President Mahmoud Abbas as saying, “I would rather become a martyr” than rescind the applications he signed on Tuesday to join 15 UN and other international treaties and conventions. Instead, the Palestinians reportedly issued a long list of new preconditions for resuming talks — demands that Israeli officials privately dismissed immediately.
Palestinian officials presented a long list of demands as preconditions for even resuming talks again.
These preconditions, according to the Ma’an news agency, included a demand for official Israeli agreement to the establishment of a Palestinian state along the pre-1967 lines with East Jerusalem as its capital; the release of 1,200 Palestinian prisoners including convicted terrorist chiefs Marwan Barghouti and Ahmad Saadat; a building freeze in East Jerusalem and the West Bank; granting Israeli citizenship to 15,000 Palestinians under a family reunification program; the termination of Israel’s security blockade of Gaza; permission to bar the IDF from West Bank Area A (areas under full PA control) for entrance to arrest or kill terror operatives; and increased Palestinian control in Area C (areas under full Israeli control).
And one Israeli official threatened to haul Abbas before the ICC as a war criminal.
Israel’s Economy Minister Naftali Bennett (of the right-wing Jewish Home party) warned that, if they did so, Israel would press charges against Abbas in the International Criminal Court for what he said was “the daily funding of terrorism” — a possible reference to salaries paid by the PA to convicted terrorists in Israeli jails.
Another skirmish broke out earlier that afternoon.
An Israeli armored vehicle was hit by small arms fire while operating near the Gaza border fence early Thursday afternoon, the Israel Defense Forces said.
There were no injuries in the incident, which occurred around 1 p.m., but the vehicle suffered damage.
The army said the fire came from a Palestinian sniper and was directed against “security personnel operating adjacent to the security fence in the northern Gaza Strip.”
Both sides continue to be hijacked by religious fanaticism and extremism. The Israeli and Palestinian people are the losers.