After a sudden increase in Hamas missiles fired into Israel over the last few days (442 at last count), Israel has struck back hard. The IDF announced the operation yesterday:
In the past hour, the IDF targeted Ahmed Jabri, the head of Hamas’ military wing, in the Gaza Strip. Jabri was a senior Hamas operative who served in the upper echelon of the Hamas’ command and was directly responsible for executing terror attacks against the State of Israel in the past number of years.
The purpose of this operation was to severely impair the command and control chain of the Hamas leadership, as well as its terrorist infrastructure. This was a surgical operation in cooperation with the Israeli Security Agency, that was implemented on the basis of concrete intelligence and using advanced capabilities.
They announced their intent, and very quickly succeeded in taking Jabri out. Carl in Jerusalem wins the prize for the best summation.
And late tonight the conflict escalated further:
Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak signaled that Israel is ready to escalate its military operations against Gaza after at least one long-range missile was fired at Tel Aviv by Palestinian militants.
The missile attack and the volume of fire in general toward Israel “is an escalation and there will be a price to pay,” Barak said on Channel 2 television yesterday. It was the first such attack on Israel’s commercial hub since Iraqi missiles in 1991 during the Gulf War.
Now compare that reaction with our lack of response to the assault on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi…
