As I read that Israel's defense minister, Ehud Barak, has promised that Israeli forces will retaliate for the Jerusalem bombing and today's rain of rockets coming in from Gaza, I couldn't help wonder why he wasn't retaliating TODAY instead of announcing that he would. Let's cut the talk, let's cut the positioning, let's cut the warnings - just load up the Revenge Battalions and let loose on the likes of Hamas and Islamic Jihad and Fatah. I personally want to see Gaza on fire for days after what Israel has endured over the past two weeks. And I wouldn't spare the nasty parts of the West Bank either.
From the article at Breitbart:
Israel's Ehud Barak on Tuesday warned that the Jewish state had no choice but to respond a day after a bombing in Jerusalem and as Gaza militants rained rockets down on southern Israel.
"We have to respond," the stocky defence minister said at a joint press conference with visiting US Defence Secretary Robert Gates shortly after two Grad rockets slammed into the southern port city of Ashdod.
"Israel will not tolerate these terrorist attacks and we will not allow terror to rise once again," Barak said.
No one was wounded in the strikes which came a day after a bomb ripped through a crowded bus stop in Jerusalem, killing a British tourist and wounding 39 people, in what was the first such bombing in the Holy City since 2004.
Since the weekend, dozens of rockets have hit southern Israel, the vast majority fired by Islamic Jihad's military wing, the Al Quds Brigade, who on Wednesday fired two Grads at Beersheva, which lies 40 kilometres (25 miles) away.
I thoroughly understand that it is the Israeli way to get their intel in order and make the most effective use of their retaliatory strikes but there are days when I just wish they'd unleash holy hell on the pigs from Palestine. In my view, the slaughter of the Fogel family alone deserves a week's worth of bombardment and a contract out on the top leaders of both Hamas and Islamic Jihad.
If I was Prime Minister for a day...I would simply make the announcement that Israel plans to kill every Hamas and Islamic Jihad leader before the end of the month. And I would see that it was done.
Israel vows to respond as Gaza rockets rain down
Israel's Ehud Barak on Tuesday warned that the Jewish state had no choice but to respond a day after a bombing in Jerusalem and as Gaza militants rained rockets down on southern Israel.
"We have to respond," the stocky defence minister said at a joint press conference with visiting US Defence Secretary Robert Gates shortly after two Grad rockets slammed into the southern port city of Ashdod.
"Israel will not tolerate these terrorist attacks and we will not allow terror to rise once again," Barak said.
No one was wounded in the strikes which came a day after a bomb ripped through a crowded bus stop in Jerusalem, killing a British tourist and wounding 39 people, in what was the first such bombing in the Holy City since 2004.
Since the weekend, dozens of rockets have hit southern Israel, the vast majority fired by Islamic Jihad's military wing, the Al Quds Brigade, who on Wednesday fired two Grads at Beersheva, which lies 40 kilometres (25 miles) away.
As tensions spiralled in and around the coastal enclave, Gaza's Hamas rulers had on Wednesday vowed to rein in recalcitrant militant groups and restore the calm.
But by Thursday afternoon, at least 11 rockets and mortars had landed in southern Israel, the army said, two of them ploughing into Ashdod, Israel's fifth largest city with a population of over 200,000.
Until now, Israel's response has been muted, with the army launching a few air strikes and raids which have only caused limited casualties.
But Barak said Israel would respond, and insisted it would choose both the timing and the nature of its response to the rising tide of rockets, while taking care not to become "victims of our own resolution."
"We keep the right -- how, when and in what kind of amount of firepower or munitions -- to respond," he said.
Gates said the United States firmly backed Israel's right to respond to the both the rocket fire and the Jerusalem bomb, which he described as "repugnant acts."
"We underscore Israel, like all nations, has the right of self-defence," he said.
In Gaza, three Palestinians were moderately injured when Israeli artillery opened fire on the Zeitun district in eastern Gaza City, while a militant was lightly wounded during an air strike in northern Gaza targeting a group trying to fire rockets into Israel.
Thursday's rocket fire on Ashdod came a day after the Al Quds Brigades vowed to fire more at cities deep inside the Jewish state as it entered "a new phase" of resistance.
"The Al Quds Brigade has entered a new phase of bombing targets which are further away, where thousands of Israelis live," group spokesman Abu Ahmad told AFP on Wednesday.
And despite Hamas's pledge to rein in militants firing on Israel, Islamic Jihad's leadership insisted it would not stop its "resistance" unless Israel did the same.
"The question of whether or not the resistance will be intensified is tied developments on the ground, and the resistance cannot stop responding if the aggression continues," the group said in a statement.
"Calm leads to calm."
Following the threats issued by Islamic Jihad's military wing, Palestinian security forces arrested five of the group's senior political figures in the West Bank overnight.
In a statement confirming the arrests, Islamic Jihad said it had given Israel a "first warning."
"The message that reached the occupation yesterday is the first warning message," it said. "Today we declare that if the aggression continues, nobody will know how the situation will end. All options are open to protect our people."
Grad rockets are understood to have a range of up to 50 kilometres (30 miles) which could theoretically see them reaching towns immediately south of Tel Aviv.
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