Yes, the title is true. Palestinian Islamic terrorists attacked the fuel transfer point in Israel where European Union funded fuel enters Gaza for their own power plant. In other words, the Palestinians shot themselves in the foot yet again. The islamofascists killed two Israeli civilians in the attack.
Israel cut off said fuel unless the security situation improves. We can expect the usual headline soon along the lines of “Israel Unilaterally Cuts Off Gaza’s Fuel Supply. International Community Condemns Israel for ‘Unwarranted Action'”. The media and ‘international community’ will of course forget about this attack after a few days and blame Israel as usual. Same stuff, different day.
From The Khaleej Times
NAHAL OZ, Israel – Palestinian militants on Wednesday attacked an Israeli-controlled border crossing where European Union-funded fuel is piped into the Gaza Strip, killing at least two Israelis, the Israeli army said.
An unconfirmed report by an Israeli emergency service said two Palestinian gunmen also were dead.Earlier, in a separate incident, an Israeli soldier and a Hamas militant were killed in clashes in the Gaza Strip, the Israeli army and Palestinian medical staff said.
Hamas had warned on Tuesday of an “explosion” in the territory if Israel continued its economic blockade. Israel tightened its cordon after Hamas Islamists violently took over the Gaza Strip in June.
Fighters from three movements, not including Hamas, infiltrated the crossing, at Nahal Oz, said a spokesman for one of the groups, the Popular Resistance Committees.
“Terrorists entered Nahal Oz and the fuel depot. They shot at civilians inside. There are two Israelis dead and two wounded,” an Israeli army spokeswoman said.
Western diplomats said Nahal Oz was raided after completion of the latest delivery of EU-funded fuel to the Gaza Strip’s main power plant.
The Zaka emergency service said two Palestinian gunmen were killed as well. Spokesmen for militant groups said attackers withdrew back into the Gaza Strip, under fire from pursuing Israeli helicopters.
It was unclear how much damage, if any, was done to the fuel depot at the crossing. Even if no serious damage was caused, the raid could prompt Israel to block, on security grounds, future deliveries and force the power plant to shut down.
There is another angle to theis story. This time from the AP.
Gaza Fuel Depot Closed After Attack
JERUSALEM (AP) — Israel cut off all fuel supplies to Gaza’s 1.4 million residents Thursday, a day after four Palestinian militants infiltrated the Israeli depot that is the territory’s sole source of fuel, and shot dead two civilian workers.
The brazen daylight raid in southern Israel threatened to set off a new round of fighting in Gaza after a month long lull and could jeopardize recently renewed peace efforts.
Three smaller militant factions claimed they carried out the attack, but the Israeli government held Gaza’s Hamas rulers responsible. It sent tanks, troops and aircraft into the Palestinian territory after the raid, killing at least eight Palestinians, including three civilians. And it warned that more reprisals could be coming.
“We will chose the time and the place to respond. The blame lies on Hamas as the responsible authority there,” Matan Vilnai, Israel’s deputy defense minister, told Israel’s Army Radio.
The Iranian-backed Islamic Jihad, which took part in the attack, called the raid, which was carried out under cover of mortar fire, a “unique and complicated operation.”
Abu Ahmed of Islamic Jihad said the attack was intended to target the fuel depot on which Gazans depend.
The fuel “is dipped in humiliation,” he said, because people wait for it for hours. “If their fuel means humiliation for us, we don’t want it.”
Maj. Tal Levram, an Israeli army spokesman, said the militants apparently were planning to carry out a broader attack on a neighboring Israeli village or to kidnap soldiers, but were thwarted by the arrival of Israeli troops.
Palestinian militants frequently attack the Israeli border, but they rarely succeed in getting through. In another daring daytime raid in June 2006, militants tunneled into Israel, killed two soldiers and captured a third. The soldier, Cpl. Gilad Schalit, remains in captivity in Gaza.
Wednesday’s attack upset more than a month of calm following a broad Israeli military offensive that killed more than 120 Gazans, including dozens of civilians. Since the offensive ended in early March, Egypt has been trying to mediate a cease-fire between Israel and Hamas, and the sides appear to have been honoring an informal truce.
Israel sealed its borders with Gaza after the Islamic militant group seized control of the territory in June, and has reduced the flow of fuel, electricity and basic goods. The sanctions have hit hard and Hamas threatened on Tuesday to blow up Gaza’s borders with Israel and Egypt to relieve the strain.
Israel has taken the threat seriously because Hamas breached the Egyptian border in January, allowing tens of thousands of people to pour into Egypt for more than a week before the border was resealed.
On Thursday, an Israeli think tank reported that Hamas’ military buildup is at its peak, despite the international blockade on Gaza.
The Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center said the Islamic militant Hamas group has organized 20,000 armed forces and acquired longer-range rockets and advanced anti-tank weapons.
It also said Iran and Syria supply Hamas with weapons, technical know-how and training. The major points of the report were not new, but were significant because of the center’s close links to Israel’s defense establishment. Some of the material in the report was based on data from the Shin Bet security agency.
Israel stopped pumping gas on Thursday and at least two Israeli ministers said Israel should cut it off permanently following the attack. However, officials said the flow would be renewed shortly to avert a humanitarian crisis.
Gazans received fuel supplies on Wednesday before the attack.
The infiltration also serves as a reminder that Israel, which is conducting peace talks with the rival Palestinian government of President Mahmoud Abbas, will not be able to implement a deal as long as Hamas rules Gaza. Hamas is not a party to those talks.
Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman Arye Mekel said the raid would not disrupt peace talks. The two sides hope to reach a final peace deal by the end of the year.
“We decided that we will continue to talk and will not let terrorists have a veto voice on the talks with the pragmatic forces,” Mekel said.
Well, if this fuel, provided by “infidels” is such a “humiliation”, then the people of Gaza should be ecstatic that their ‘brothers’ in the islamofascist groups have shut it off. Anyone want to take a bet on how ‘happy’ these people are and how much ‘happier’ they will be next week with no fuel?
The sad part is that Gaza sits nearby enough natural gas to power their own plants with no outside assistance, charity, or jiza. They could even sell part of this resource and pay every one of their people just to live in Gaza. But then, prosperity and a functional nation are not what Palestine is, or was ever, about.
I bolded several sections about weapons and Hamas’s supporters in Iran and its puppet, Syria for one reason: I fully expect another summer of increased terror attacks on Israel from BOTH Hamas and Hezbollah. They are also preparing for reprisals from Israel. The “advanced anti-tank” weapons are most likely AT-14 Kornet or more advanced RPGs like the RPG-7VR, ect. My guess is that Hamas and Hezbollah will try to pull Israeli tanks into Gaza or southern Lebanon and ambush them as a supportive Western Media gleefully reports away. Then these same Islamists will hold up pictures of dead/wounded/dressed up people stating the Israelis intentionally attacked them.
All the while Israel, while most likely winning militarily (again) will face condemnation from the aforementioned “international community”. It is a formula the islamofascists and their masters use… and the West falls for it every time.
Let them fix it themselves. Then after sitting in the dark, wallowing in their own filth for months because they don’t know how to build or fix anything maybe they’ll take a good hard look at themselves. Naaah, they’ll just blame the Jooz!
Just as you said…brace for the blaring headlines blaming Israel for being the big bad meany…
Can I get a “NO BLOOD FOR OIL”?
Anyone?
C’mon…there’s GOT to be a Bush-bashing, protester out there SOMEWHERE?!!!
NO
BLOOD
FOR
OIL!
..hmph, guess we should be quiet if the terrorists do stuff like this, right?
Curt,
The Telegraph article I linked to (RE: natural gas) has a comment section full of Israel bashers who think the people known as “Palestinians” are pure as the wind driven snow while the “evil zionists” are the “oppressors”.
These fools forget (as usual) that the reverse is true. One of the best examples I saw of this was that “Palestinian” homosexuals, who would be stoned to death in Gaza or the West Bank, can meet openly in Israel…. and then have the audacity to call Israel the “oppressor”.
This would be funny, for the pure irony that the main thing these Palestinian terrorists accomplished was to shut down their own power. But, as we all very well know, soon the MSM will be all over Israel for having “provoked” a “humanitarian crisis,” and every news anchor, leftist NGO, and wide swathes of the UN will jump all over Israel for having the gaul to exist.
On a purely technical note; Chris, you don’t like the chances of the Israeli Merkava IV’s with their new TROPHY systems in Gaza or Southern Lebanon? Granted, all Israeli tanks aren’t mark IV’s, and with any military deployment there will of course be plenty of soft-skinned vehicles and infantry for the Palestinians to target. Especially given that the Israeli RoE’s are quite strict.
Machiavelli,
You kind of answered you question. HAMAS/Hezbollah will not target the Mk IVs but instead will go after M113s, APCs, and other softer targets (like medical vehicles). The only problem with the new TROPHY system is, well, it’s new and it may get a trial by fire soon. I have to read up on it more but the US has issues with using APS on our vehicles since most of the systems are explosive in nature. Even if they were not, the incoming warhead usually is. If HAMAS “hugs” the IDF vehicles with “civilians”, or fire over their heads, and causes the TROPHY APS to detonate over said “civilians” heads, we could see a lot of blood on CNN.
Of course, the media will be there to record it all and watch Green Helmet Man save the poor “civilians” (which I put in quotes as they are “involuntary martyrs” at best, willing human shields at worse). And the Western Media falls for it hook, line, and “stinker” without question every time.
Don’t leth be thilly! — Ban Key Moonbat
You see, the Placentinians will end up suffering more, and the world will only blame it on “the joooooos.” They get to attack us, and they get to play the victim, and if we attack them back in self-defense they will accuse us of perpetuating “the cycle of violence,” and the whole World eats it up and screams for more concessions to terror. It’s a win win win situation for them.
It’s not that they are terribly clever as much as it is that the world (including the US as per Foggy Bottom) sides with these buggers against us (and America, as we all know by now).
I don’t care if Mr. Bush would want to stay out of it if he thinks that America’s interests would otherwise be hurt, but for him to side with them in demanding Israel destroy productive Jewish communities, commit ethnic cleansing against ourselves from OUR land in order to cede territory to the savages, divide Israel up so they can have a contiguous terrorist state, divide Jerusalem so we can “share” it with the beasts, and on top of that for him to train their military, give them funding and the weapons which they use to kill us, …well, that’s more than just too much.
And, what does America gain? The Paleostinians still hate America, kill Americans, and align themselves with terrorists including Al Qaeda (with whom I wouldn’t be surprised if they acted as “consultants” on that 9/11 job), while the whole Arab world hates us all, because they envy our freedom and prosperity and want to stamp it out. What a bargain!
Did I miss anything?
/RANT = OFF/
Yonason,
No, I think you pretty much covered all the points I was trying to make and then some.
ChrisG
Thanks, but if you think of anything else… (not like that isn’t enough)
I think I’m beginning to see how my Dad must have felt in the face of Hitler, Japan and then Stalin. My Dad was with the 1st Marines at Quadalcanal, and one of his brothers was at the Bulge. I can’t even begin to imagine what it must have been like in a world in that much Chaos.
The more I learn of the history of that time, the more in awe I am of that generation. Funny thing, our leaders weren’t much different then than they are now, so, G-d willing, maybe we’ll manage to get through this as well. One can hope (as long as one also works for success, or at least doesn’t work against it)
Oh, yes, and I know I was a little redundant, but I repeated some of what you and others said in order to paint what I am able to see of the big picture. I don’t think we can solve any individual problem until we see that the whole process is all wrong. A completely new direction needs to be taken. Until then, we will continue to make the same mistakes, fall into all the same traps, and only make matters worse.
And these people want their own country?
Speaking of attacking oneself, …
http://kstp.com/article/stories/S407036.shtml
I found that over at DrBulldog …
Under our noses, the cancer spreads.
You might want to record the video in case they “have” to take it down soon.
Yonason,
My grandfathers were Army Air Corps (now passed on) and USN Aviation (who later worked on Project Thunderstorm). My wife’s one remaining grandfather was a landing ship commander in the Pacific. Her grandfather made 188 beach landings. 187 under fire, 1 for training.
We have no idea what Hell is. Even being to Iraq, the Hell of Kaserine Pass, Tarawa, Bataan, Wake, Okinawa, D-Day, The Bulge, Market Garden, Kursk, Stalingrad, and many others are beyond my scope of comprehension in the way of losses and plain misery.
Funny you should mention that charter school. I am gathering details for a post on Islamic terrorists WITHIN the USA who have training bases in Virginia and New York. They have been here for almost 30 years. The “Kuffer”/”Kafir” residence (i.e. non-Muslims) are terrified into silence at what is happening around them and the leftist mayor of one such city is not only silent about what is going on in these walled-off camps, but allowing these fools to hold parades in his town as he bashes the President. If a so-called ‘militia’ group had half as much firepower and other violations as these islamofascists do, the BATF and FBI would be all over them.
Here is a hint on the group: What do “The Beltway Sniper”, Richard Reid, and barbarians who killed Danial Pearl have in common besides sharing the same religion?
The answer is a man’s name.
Chris G,
_______________________________
The category is “Terrorists” for $800:
“The Beltway Sniper”, Richard Reid, and barbarians who killed Danial Pearl all have this in common, besides sharing the same religion.
“What are “Converts,” Alex?”
_______________________________
Well, it would be nice if you could get the FBI “interested” in those freaks, whoever they are. I really need to go shopping for a weapon, …or 2.
Coverts is close. The answer however was a man’s name. That man is Sheik Mubarak Ali Gilani who founded and leads the Jamaat ul-Fuqra.
ChrisG
Yeah, I’m pretty sure that the first 2 were converts, though I didn’t think Pearl’s killer was. I havn’t looked at those relationships in the depth you have, and Sheik Mubarak Ali Gilani isn’t in my mental database, but will be now. Now, when I look him up, I find this about him and his Jamaat ul-Fuqra
“The best positioned group to help al-Qaeda launch an attack in the US.”
http://www.newenglishreview.org/custpage.cfm/frm/17855/sec_id/17855
Looks like you have your eye on (one of) the right target(s).
(I say “one of” so as not to exclude the others which are certainly there, but of which we know a lot less.)