By Nidal al-Mughrabi | Reuters – 5 hrs ago
GAZA (Reuters) - Israel launched a major offensive against Palestinian militants in Gaza on Wednesday, killing the military commander of Hamas in an air strike and threatening an invasion of the enclave that the Islamist group vowed would "open the gates of hell".
The onslaught shattered hopes that a truce mediated on Tuesday by Egypt could pull the two sides back from the brink of war after five days of escalating Palestinian rocket attacks and Israeli strikes at militant targets.
Operation "Pillar of Defence" began with a surgical strike on a car carrying the commander of the military wing of Hamas, the Iranian-armed Islamist movement which controls Gaza and dominates a score of smaller armed groups.
Within minutes of the death of Ahmed Al-Jaabari, big explosions shook Gaza as the Israeli air force struck at selected targets just before sundown, blasting plumes of smoke and debris high above the crowded city.
Panicking civilians ran for cover and the death toll mounted quickly. Ten people including three children were killed, the health ministry said, and about 40 were wounded. Also among the dead were an 11-month-old baby and a woman pregnant with twins.
Army tanks shelled border areas of Gaza in south and the Israeli navy shelled a Hamas security position from the sea.
Source
In the article, you'll notice it's mentioned how Hamas has been firing rockets into Israel for quite a while now. Of course there are calls to stop Israel from defending itself, apparently that's not fair or something. Hamas, the U.N., Russia and Liberals in general, can all go take a long walk off a short pier for all I care. I'm not exactly a huge fan of Israel, I'm not a Christian either. None of that, "stand with Israel or face God's judgement" crap matters to me.
I think the situation over there is deplorable, personally. I also see politics and religion being played out here. They're pretty much the same damn thing, especially over there. Communists, I mean Liberal Democrats, hate America and the Constitution...I mean they hate Conservative Republicans. Conservative Republicans support Israel so Liberal Democrats must hate them by default but that somehow doesn't make them anti-Semitic, which they love to label Conservatives or Libertarians who dare insist we cut off foreign aide to everyone. Whew! That was a lot.
