Iron Dome

Israel will launch this November the operation Iron Dome, aiming to intercept short-range missiles launched from Gaza and Lebanon.

Source: http://www.jewpi.com/sign-in-operation-iron-dome/

Israeli Forces Attack Aid Flotilla, 10 Killed

Forces board Gaza-bound ship from helicopter

Voice of America

31 May 2010

Photo: AP

Palestinian fishermen prepare their boat ahead of the expected arrival of a flotilla of hundreds of pro-Palestinian activists trying to sail into the Gaza Strip, in Gaza city, 28 May 2010

Organizers from the Free Gaza Movement and a Turkish human rights group say the convoy, which includes three cargo ships and three passenger boats, is carrying medical supplies as well as cement and other building materials, which Israel has banned from entering Gaza due to security concerns.Israeli media say Israel's navy has attacked a six-ship aid convoy carrying pro-Palestinian activists to the Gaza Strip, killing at least 10 people.

A private Israeli television station said Israeli forces intercepted the flotilla early Monday and fired on at least one of the vessels.

Turkey's NTV television aired images from the ships of several people who were said to be wounded.

Israel has warned it will not allow the flotilla to reach Gaza, which has been under a blockade by Israel and Egypt since 2007 when Palestinian militant group Hamas seized control of the territory.

Three Israeli missile boats left their base in Haifa late Sunday to prevent the ships from entering the 32-kilometer exclusion zone Israel enforces along Gaza's Mediterranean Sea coast.

The aid ships, carrying more than 600 pro-Palestinian activists and 10,000 tons of supplies, left for Gaza on Sunday and defied a radio warning from the Israeli navy not to approach the region. An Israeli official said the navy told them they were approaching a blockaded area and asked them to go to the Israeli port of Ashdod or turn back.

The activists say the construction supplies are intended to help Gazans rebuild homes destroyed during Israel's military offensive in the Islamist-controlled territory early last year.

U.N. officials and international aid groups say Israel's three-year blockade on Gaza has devastated the local economy and failed to weaken Hamas grip on power.

Some information for this report provided by AP, AFP and Reuters.

For the moment, only the news. And a very short comment:

Israel is a sovereign country. Entering its space when the permission denied is provocation. Will it change somehow the situation from the area, eventually leading to the end of the blockade?

A simple question: What Turkey will do if a Kurdish illegal party will win - democratically - the elections?

Israel launches overnight air raids on Gaza

AFP

GAZA CITY — The Israeli military launched aerial raids overnight in the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip, but no one was injured or killed in the sorties, witnesses and officials said Friday.

Israeli officials said the three raids, targeting a residential area in the north of the Palestinian enclave and two in the south, were in response to an earlier missile attack by Palestinian militants.

"Our planes attacked terrorist installations in the north of the region and two tunnels located in the south which could serve for attacks against Israel," an Israeli defence spokesman said, confirming the raids.

On Thursday evening, "a rocket fired from the north of the Gaza Strip fell in the Ashkelon region without causing any injuries," south of Tel Aviv, the spokesman told AFP.

The Ansar al Sunna group claimed responsibility for the attack, in a statement.

Israel launched a devastating assault on the Hamas-run Gaza Strip in December 2008 aimed at halting rocket fire. Some 1,400 Palestinians and 13 Israelis were killed in the 22-day war.

La Piovra, Iranian style

A very small part of the Iranian smuggling ring in Europe is apparently seized. Another one, more extended, is currently developed in Gaza.

The connections are complicated and not easy to understand and detect at the first sight.

To be continued.

Gaza's smuggling tunnels open again

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/palestinianauthority/4310772/Gazas-smuggling-tunnels-open-again.html

On Sunday, January 18, within hours of the ceasefire beginning, at least 18 rockets were fired into the south of Israel.

Israel declares ceasefire in Gaza

The three-weeks operations are to halt, the Israeli cabinet decided unilateraly.