One If by Land, and Two If by Sea*Another Hostile Flotilla Attacked Israel, but This Time by Land

Lebanon staging point. Sign says
"Iran's Garden" (AP)

There are remarkable similarities between the Mavi Marmara flotilla in May 2010 and the Nakba marches from Lebanon, Syria and Gaza on May 15. The Israeli intelligence services seriously underestimated their threats, and IDF soldiers were unprepared for the violent ambush that awaited them. The media portrayed Lebanese, Syrians and Palestinians as unarmed civilians in both cases. The Israeli army's reaction was deemed by some as disproportionate and possibly in violation of international law.  And Lebanon's government copied a page out of Turkey's play book and screamed about Israeli war crimes.

In 2010 it took days for the world to learn the true belligerent nature of the Mavi Marmara's passengers.  They may have been in civilian garb, but they were determined combatants nonetheless. Such was also the case in the Gaza, Maroun al-Ras, and Majdal Shams invasions.

Many of the photographs of the May 15 Nakba incursions have not been published in the media, but they are posted on the news agencies websites for purchase. Almost 200 can be found on Yahoo's news photo website.  [Photos from Reuters and AP are presented here for illustrative and educational purposes and not meant for commercial use.]

Analysis of the pictures provides several important lessons.

All of the Nakba cases involved the illegal invasions of Israeli territory or areas under Israeli sovereignty.  Hamas was behind the attack at the Erez Crossing from Gaza, the Syrian government organized the recruitment and busing of hundreds of Syrian-Palestinians to Majdal Shams on the Golan Heights, and Hizbullah paid for and organized the assault at Maroun al Rus. These were not cases of a lost shepherd or tourist accidently crossing the border.  The IDF had every right to respond to the invasions with force.

Southern Lebanon is predominantly Shi'ite.  The Sunni Palestinians were bused in by the thousands from refugee camps around Lebanon.  "Lebanese activists also took part in the march, which counted Hizbullah among its organizers, the Beirut Daily Star reported on May 16.  Naharnet reported, "The organizers of the rally told AFP that Hizbullah had financed the events."

1. note the flags and the treeline.

Close inspection of photos show Hizbullah's involvement.  One of the men accompanying a wounded man in this AP photo (1) appears to be carrying unfurled Hizbullah banners.  But the picture at the top of this blog makes it very clear. The sign above the assault's staging area in Maroun al Ras bears Iran's symbol and the words "Iran's Garden."   

2. Cutting the fence

Pictures prove the hostile intention of the assaults.  This picture to the left (2) shows a man with wire cutters attempting to cut through the fence between Lebanon and Israel.  He has already passed other wire barriers.  Israeli soldiers stand on the other side of the fence beneath the trees.

The next photo (3) shows the "charge" of the mob to the fence. Israeli soldiers are beneath the trees

3. Charging the line

The next picture (4) shows men attempting to breech the fence and establish a "beachhead."  They're taking cover from Israeli gunfire.  Note the man in the striped brown shirt on the right top.  He later shows up in a Reuters photo (5) wounded on a stretcher hundreds of meters from the treeline, heading up the hill to the staging area of "Iran's Garden."

3b. Charging the fence - continued

4. Attempt at a "beachhead"

5. Brownshirt wounded

6. How it was done on the Syrian front

On the Syrian front, note how the attackers successfully scaled the fences (6) and then proceeded to attack an IDF jeep. (7)
 

7. Attacking an IDF jeep

There were reports that some of the mob on the Lebanese front were killed by Lebanese soldiers, but it appears from the pictures that the Lebanese inflicted a few bruises at best.  To reach the Israeli border, the Maroun al Ras mob actually had to pass a company of Lebanese soldiers.  In picture (8) the soldiers can be seen above the black fold in the larger flag.  In photo (9) the soldiers are successfully blending in with the vegetation. Again, the treeline is Israel, and the Lebanese soldiers just stood there hundreds of meters away.

8. Army company grouped above the black fold of the top flag.

9. How did they get past the army?

10. Naughty, naughty!

There are several almost comical photographs of Lebanese soldiers trying to restrain a few rock-throwers with their batons. (10)  Meanwhile, the mob behind them is attempting to breech the fence.

Is there anyone in Washington still serious about providing weapons to the Lebanese army?

View the pictures of the UN peacekeeping forces along Israel's border with Lebanon and Syria -- UNIFIL and UNDOF -- trying to stop the incursions and protect the peace.  Oh, wait, there are no such pictures because the force mandated to keep peace was nowhere to be seen when Israel's sovereignty and security were under attack.  So much for the idea floating around Washington to meet Israel's security demands in a peace agreement with the Palestinians by providing a foreign peacekeeping force on the West Bank.

·         * "One if by land, and two if by sea" was the signal for warning lanterns posted in a church steeple to warn of the British approaching Boston in 1775, part of the story of Paul Revere’s famous ride.

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The New York Times Goldstones Israel Again. Doubles the Number of Civilian Casualties in Gaza

There in the middle of an article about Justin Bieber's visit to Israel, The New York Times' Isabel Kershner goldstones Israel. 

"Last Thursday, a 16-year-old Israeli boy was critically wounded by an antitank missile fired by Hamas militants at a school bus in [SIC] Gaza.* That triggered days of intense exchanges of fire, during which 18 Palestinians, about half of them civilians, were killed."

So how much is "about half" of 18?  How many dead civilians? Eight? Nine? Ten?

Actually, the real number of civilians killed is five.  It's relatively easy to find out just by looking at Arab sources in English.  And according to Arab sources, four were in close proximity to terrorists firing missiles at Israel.

   ---  Late Breaking: See Ms. Kershner's response below  and a newer second response ---


A list of the 18 dead can be found below and on the site of Muslim News. Next to the names, I identified them as "fighters" or "civilians."  That determination is based on linked articles in the Muslim News, the Palestinian Maan News Agency or Human Rights Watch.

1. Mahmoud Al Manasra, 50, Al Shijaeyya. Civilian
2. Mohammad Al Mahmoum, 25, Rafah.  Fighter
3. Mosab Al Sufi, 18, Rafah.  Fighter
4. Saleh Al Tarabeen, 38, Rafah.  Fighter
5. Khaled Ad-Dabary, 23, Rafah.  Fighter
6. Mo’taz Abu Jame’, Khan Younis.  Fighter
7. Abdullah Al Qarra, Khan Younis.  Fighter
8. Nidal Qdeih, 21, Khan Younis.  Civilian
9. Najah Qdeih, 48, Khan Younis.  Civilian
10. Talal Abu Taha, 55, Khan Younis.  Civilian
11. Raed Shihada, 27, northern Gaza.  Fighter
12. Bilal Al ‘Ar’ir, 23, Al Shijaeyya.  Fighter
13. Mahmoud Al Jaro, 10, Al Shijaeyya.  Civilian
14. Ahmad Ghorab, northern Gaza.  Fighter
15. Mohammad Awaja, Rafah.  Fighter
16. Taiseer Abu Sneima, Rafah.  Fighter
17. Ahmad Al Zeitouniyya, northern Gaza.  Fighter
18. Zuheir Al Bir, Al Zeitoun neighborhood – Gaza.  Fighter

According to Human Rights Watch, "Kamal al-Manasra, a relative of Mahmoud Al Mansara (number 1), who lives next door, and Sami Harazen, said that about 3 p.m. they heard what sounded like a small rocket being launched from somewhere in or near the neighborhood.... 'Two minutes after the rocket, I heard a shell hit my uncle's [Mahmoud's] house,' said Kamal al-Manasra. 'My uncle and his son and brother went over to check on the house, and while they were returning another shell fell on my uncle and killed him.' Harazen gave a similar account, though he believed the Israeli response occurred less than one minute after the rocket launch."

In the case of Nidal (8) and Najah (9) Qdeih, Nidal's uncle Fayez Qdeiah told Human Rights Watch that "he heard three mortars fired by Palestinian armed groups from somewhere nearby."

Human Rights Watch also places another civilian next to a rocket-launching terrorist. "Residents of Shajaiya told Human Rights Watch that members of the armed wing of Islamic Jihad fired mortar rounds from a cemetery in the middle of the neighborhood.... Shortly after the mortar attack, at around 7 p.m., an Israeli strike hit the cemetery but caused no casualties, residents said. About 10 to 15 children from the area ran into the cemetery to look at the strike site. Five minutes later, residents said, a second strike hit the area, killing one of the children, Mahmoud Wael al-Jaro (13), and a member of Islamic Jihad named Bilal al-Areer (12).

View the rocket in the cemetery in this video released by the Israel Defense Forces.

I am thankful for Ms. Kirshner's rapid response:

The school bus in Gaza was obviously an editing error, and I have asked for it to be corrected.

As for the civilian casualty figures, our reporting of the numbers has been based on the information provided by our correspondent in Gaza. I can already see a discrepancy in that your list has all the men killed in Rafah as fighters, whereas he identified three of four killed there on the first day as civilians collecting gravel near the old airport, if I remember rightly.  Anyway we have asked for a thorough check and hope to have results soon.

The Times' reliance on local Palestinian stringers and reporters is a serious problem for the western press in general.  During the second Intifada, it meant that many reports and dispatches were not factual, to say the least.  I responded to The New York Times correspondent:

The listing of the four Rafah men as “fighters” is based on this Maan news report. Notice the pictures of the military funerals, as well. It appears pretty conclusive.

Thursday's Gaza dead laid to rest

Published Friday 08/04/2011 (updated) 09/04/2011 12:00

GAZA CITY (Ma'an) -- Thousands marched in Rafah, Khan Younis and Gaza City after Friday prayers, carrying the bodies of seven men killed by Israeli fire the day before. Six of the dead were Al-Qassam fighters, and a seventh a 50-year-old civilian. In Rafah, Al-Qassam members Saleh At-Tarabeen, 38, Mus’ab As-Sufi, 18, Mohammad Al-Mahmoum, 25, and Khaled Ad-Diyari, 33, were marched from the Abu Yousef An-Najjar Hospital in Rafah, toward their homes, and then to the Ash-Shuhda Cemetery for burial….

We are looking forward to the Times' "thorough check."

* The Times corrected the location of the bus attack: "Last Thursday, a 16-year-old Israeli boy was critically wounded by an antitank missile fired by Hamas militants from Gaza at a school bus in Israel. That triggered days of intense exchanges of fire, during which 18 Palestinians, about half of them civilians, were killed."

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Israel Defense Forces: Skillful in Saving Lives — and if It Must, in Taking Them

This article first appeared in Pajamas Media
by Lenny Ben-David

Almost all Israelis and Israel’s supporters burst their buttons with pride when they saw the reports of the Israel Defense Forces’ emergency army units in Haiti rescuing trapped victims and treating hundreds of wounded.

“Legendary,” “the Rolls Royce of emergency medical care,” and “amazing” were some of the glowing terms used by U.S. network correspondents. Their reports described the efficiency, enthusiasm, speed, planning, and compassion of the 220-member Israeli team.

Unfortunately, the afterglow will quickly die. This week marks the three-month deadline given by the UN General Assembly for Israel’s response to the Goldstone report on the Gaza war, which charged Israel (and nominally, Hamas) for serious violations of international and humanitarian law. Israel will attempt to defend itself, but it knows that little justice or sympathy will be found in the UN’s kangaroo court or in the media that will sully Israel’s reputation and tarnish the tributes Israel earned in Haiti.

How is it, then, that Israel, so skillful in saving lives, stands accused by the UN of “war crimes, crimes against humanity, willful killings, and willfully causing great suffering”? Israel’s critics acerbically ask how Israelis can fly halfway around the world to help victims but not help Palestinians in Gaza an hour away. Some sick commentators even suggested Israeli doctors were harvesting organs.

Something just doesn’t compute with the images from Haiti.

First, let’s look at the background of the IDF team in Haiti. That was my unit. As an IDF reservist, I served as a medic on the medical rescue team, and we trained hard working with the engineers who lifted slabs of cement while we practiced inserting infusions [into each other] and assisting doctors performing emergency operations in the dark, dusty conditions [pictured: that's me during a 1995 exercise in Israel]. Over the years, the unit was dispatched to natural catastrophes in diverse places such as Turkey, India, and Mexico City, and assisted in rescue efforts after the terrorist bombing of the American Embassy in Nairobi, Kenya, in 1998. [Unfortunately, I did not participate in those missions.]

The unit was originally formed after the first Lebanon war when an explosion in November 1983 pancaked a seven-story building in Tyre used by Israeli forces. Seventy-five Israeli soldiers were beneath the rubble, and the IDF was unequipped to rescue them. (Within a year, Hezbollah car bombs in Beirut brought down American and French barracks, killing some 300 soldiers.)

In my unit’s case, we were training for a contingency that we prayed would never come: Scud missiles raining down on Israeli cities. During the Gulf War 19 years ago, my unit was mobilized for the month-long war and bivouacked in an ambulance center. Whenever the sirens wailed, we threw on our chemical warfare gear and ran to the ambulances. Basically, our mission was: “If it’s bleeding, tie a tourniquet; if it’s breathing, stick it with atropine (to treat nerve gas), and then ‘scoop and run’ the victims to the hospital.” Our “front” was the Jerusalem area. No missiles fell in our sector, but 40 did fall, mostly on residential areas of Tel Aviv and Haifa. I will never forget the sense of terror while climbing into my ambulance and watching a Scud pass over my head as it headed toward Israel’s Ben Gurion Airport.
At home my wife responded to the sirens, scurrying the children into the shelter while putting gas masks on the older children and bundling the baby into a special sealed plastic coop. One son, who was in Jerusalem’s Old City at the time of one attack, recalls to this day the whistles and yelps of joy by Palestinians celebrating the fall of Saddam’s missiles on Israel.

Every Israeli over the age of 20 remembers the terror of the missile attacks. The trauma may be old, but it’s deep. The fear, abhorrence, defiance, anger, and shock resurfaced when Hezbollah unleashed its month-long barrage of missiles against northern Israel in the 2006 Lebanon war, and when Hamas fired 8,000 Qassam/Katyusha missiles which finally led to Israel’s 2008 Gaza campaign. Those Lebanese and Gazans who unleashed or gave cover to the savage and indiscriminate attacks against Israeli civilians and then found themselves on the receiving end of Israeli fire will find little relief or sympathy within Israel today.

I recall 20 years ago meeting dozens of Palestinian doctors and nurses from Gaza and the West Bank who were attending an Israeli ulpan for the intensive study of Hebrew. They sought the language to facilitate their on-the-job training in the Israeli hospitals, which accepted them with open arms … until the Palestinians unleashed their intifadas against Israeli civilians.

By nature, Israelis will go the end of the earth — literally — to save lives, and it doesn’t take an earthquake to send Israeli medical teams around the world. Save a Child’s Heart is an Israeli-based group of pediatric heart surgeons who have saved more than 2,000 children with congenital heart defects. The children come from 36 countries, including Iraq, Jordan, Sudan, and the Palestinian Authority. The Israel Forum for International Humanitarian Aid (IsraAID) sent additional medical units to Haiti, besides the vaunted IDF field hospital. The group swung into action after the tsunami in 2004, providing on-the-ground assistance and health care to Sri Lanka. Israeli medical teams teach local African surgeons in Swaziland to perform circumcisions on men to reduce their risk of contracting AIDS, and Israeli eye doctors restore sight to patients in places like Vietnam, Uzbekistan, and Palau.

Frankly, saving lives is a mitzva (commandment) Israelis do as part of their national and religious ethos. But when threatened, such as in the latest rounds of fighting with Iran’s proxies in Gaza and Lebanon, Israelis can respond sternly. Soldiers and their commanders on the way to the front passed through towns and cities which were under fire. Israeli families were fleeing or in shelters. Because of Israel’s collective traumas and the indiscriminate attacks on Israel’s weakest, the IDF will do just what its name suggests — it defends with force, force that is incredibly accurate and lethal. The targets may be terrorist headquarters in a refugee camp, a camouflaged nuclear facility in Syria, or a master terrorist driving in his car.

Yet even in war, those Israeli soldiers uphold a code of saving lives. They abort missions if enemy civilians may be harmed, they hesitate and weigh their actions when enemy combatants are ensconced in civilian schools and hospitals, and they investigate and judge when tragic mistakes are made. This is an army that drops leaflets and calls Gaza residents on their phones, warning them of an imminent attack on Hamas terrorists hiding in their midst. During the Gaza war, the IDF set up its medical unit at the edge of the battlefront to treat Gazan residents; Hamas forbade any resident to make use of the hospital services.

The search and rescue unit was created to respond to attacks upon Israel’s homefront. They train for World Trade Center-type attacks on Israeli cities, or for a major earthquake, or an Iranian nuclear device that could deliver devastation on the scale of Haiti’s earthquake to hundreds of thousands of Israelis.

War may be the cruelest of man’s creations, but the IDF has harnessed its medical rescue unit for peace. If only it could be mobilized permanently for that purpose.

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Gaza and NATO’s Guidelines on Civilian Casualties in Afghanistan

The Rules 41 Nations Are Supposed to Abide By

“Militants deliberately target innocent civilians and it is they who must be held responsible. Militants deliberately force civilians into situations where they are either killed or are at risk of being harmed. Militants’ tactics are to launch attacks from civilian areas, retreat to civilian areas and use civilians as human shields.”

The above quote is not from the Israel Defense Forces’ spokesman’s office in the aftermath of the Gaza operation. It appears in an unclassified NATO document drafted in October 2008, available on the Internet. It is fascinating reading, and indicates that NATO’s International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) has to deal with the same kind of problems Israel faced in Gaza. But in the case of Afghanistan, various members of the media and the NGO community do not work in tandem with the Taliban to demonize NATO and ISAF. [Pictured: ISAF soldiers on the left; IDF soldiers right]

Entitled, “NATO in Afghanistan – Master Narrative,“ the document was prepared for spokesmen “who play a part in explaining the situation in Afghanistan and the International Security Assistance Force.” That force consists of some 56,000 soldiers from 41 nations.

Here are excerpts from the NATO/ISAF document:

* Militants deliberately target innocent civilians with suicide attacks and IEDs (improvised explosive devices).

* Militants forcefully oppose efforts to improve the life of the Afghan people and it is they who must be held responsible for bringing violence to the Afghan people.

* Militants deliberately force civilians into situations where they are either killed or are at risk of being harmed by NATO/ISAF or coalition forces in order to undermine support for NATO/ISAF in Afghanistan and in the International Community.

* Militants’ tactics are to launch attacks from civilian areas, retreat to civilian areas and use civilians as human shields.

* Militants want civilians caught up in the fighting, because they think this will undermine support for NATO/ISAF in Afghanistan and in the international community and weaken the legitimate Afghan government.

* Civilian deaths caused by militants have escalated significantly, reflecting their increasing use of indiscriminate tactics such as suicide bombs and IEDs.

* ISAF Troop Contributing Nations make every effort to minimize the risk of any damage, injury or loss of life to civilians in the course of their operations in Afghanistan. However, ISAF reserves the right to protect its own personnel.

1. Airpower in Afghanistan is used:

- in support of ground forces, with specific need and in specific situations
on positively identified enemy firing positions

- upon request and approval by the ground commander.

2. Airpower is vital to the defence of Afghanistan because:

- it provides speed, maneuverability and range
- the terrain impedes maneuver of troops and supplies
- the remoteness of locations hampers the use of ground forces
- it provides the most precise power projection available.

3. Airpower is employed by ISAF under the strictest possible restrictions—if there is any reason to believe there are civilians present a strike will not occur.

Some Perspective Is Needed

In August 2008, an American C-130 gunship attacked a site in Azizabad believed to be the hideout of a Taliban leader and his men. The Pentagon announced that five civilians were killed, but subsequently, "an investigation by the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) found that some 90 civilians, including 60 children, were among those killed during military operations in the strife-torn nation’s western Herat province.”

In July 2008, an air strike on a wedding party in Afghanistan left 47 dead including 30 children, according to the UN. In November 2008, an air strike in Kandahar Province killed some 35 civilians and injured a further 37. Some 2,100 civilians were killed last year, many at the hands of the Taliban and others because of errant bombs.

War is hell wherever it takes place, and innocent civilians are tragically killed. The “good guys” make the utmost effort to minimize the suffering of innocents.

Israel already demands of its army the highest standards to protect civilians in enemy territory. How well do the 41 nations in the Afghanistan force stand up to their standards? At the very least they should understand what Israel faced – and may face again -- in Gaza.

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Why Hasn't Israel Used Its Artillery in Gaza Yet?

Claims that Israel “massacred” or “slaughtered” innocent Palestinians are bald-faced lies.

Israel takes unprecedented precautions to avoid hurting innocent civilians. Gazan civilians actually received telephone calls from the IDF last week warning of impending attacks. Even master terrorist Nizar Rayyan (pictured right), the Hamas military commander killed in Thursday's air raid on his home, received a warning to evacuate his family. He refused, preferring martyrdom for his family over life. Rayyan once dispatched one of his own sons to carry out a suicide bombing. Few tears are being shed for Rayyan, especially in the Palestinian Authority who Rayyan hated as much as he despised Israel.

All of the attacks on Hamas until now have been carried out by the Israel Air Force, but frankly, it just doesn’t make any sense. All targets within Gaza are within range of Israeli artillery or MLRS rockets. Artillery shells are much cheaper than air-delivered bombs and missiles. Artillery can be directed against targets 24/7 and are not limited by bad weather. Send up a plane to hit a Hamas target in Gaza, and the pilot and a $35 million plane are both at risk.

There is only one reason for artillery not being used: It is not as accurate as an attack from the air. Civilians could be hit.

If Israel meant to “massacre” innocent civilians, it certainly has the means. The IDF can eradicate Hamas fighters and anyone within a mile radius without jeopardizing its soldiers. But Israel has repeatedly put its soldiers in harm's way in order to protect Palestinian civilians. Evidence the 23 IDF soldiers killed in close quarter combat in Jenin during Operation Defensive Shield in 2002. Blasting away at the alleyways of Jenin with artillery or tank fire would have spared their lives but would have killed countless civilians. The military tactics of Russia, Syria or the Palestinians simply do not exist in the IDF playbook.

To recall, during the Chechen war in the 1990s the Russians carpet-bombed Grozny. Russia allegedly fired missiles into the Grozny market and a local maternity ward. The Syrians are known for playing according to “Hama rules” -- named for a Syrian stronghold of Moslem Brotherhood supporters. Hama was pulverized by Syrian tanks and artillery for three weeks in 1982 resulting in the death of anywhere from 7,000 to 30,000 people. Don’t forget Hamas itself. The Islamic organization made suicide bombings a science, targeting buses, pizza shops and restaurants. During its war with Fatah last year, Hamas threw Fatah enemies off of hi-rise apartment buildings; others were spared when they were only "knee-capped." Last week, Hamas gunmen roamed hospital corridors in Gaza executing their enemies.

When Israel launches its ground assault against Hamas, tragically Palestinian civilians will be hurt or killed. Israel’s government, citizens and soldiers will regret each and every one of them.

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Israel Attacks Hamas -- Here Comes the Hamas Propaganda Attack

As late as Friday, many Israeli citizens were pulling out their hair. Hamas rockets were falling like rain on Israeli civilians. What was Israel waiting for? Why was Israel allowing the delivery of supplies into Gaza? Why were Israeli hospitals treating Palestinians hurt by errant Hamas rockets?

Now we have some answers:

• The humanitarian assistance also served to lull Hamas into believing that Israel was going soft.


• The attack on the Jewish Sabbath was also unexpected by Hamas.


• Israeli intelligence was tracking, following, and marking the Hamas leadership, terrorist camps, and rocket crews for months. Hundreds of Hamas soldiers were caught in their bases. It can be assumed that aerial surveillance was able to retrace the steps of rocket crews to observe the locations of rocket warehouses and factories. As a result the Israeli Air Force attacks were remarkably accurate.

Now the Propaganda Counterattack

The blood libels against Israel have already begun. A British defense writer, Sean Rayment, blasted Israel in a Telegraph (UK) blog today, "The attack on the Gaza strip is proof that Israel is addicted to violence. Slaughtering 155 civilians, many of whom are women and children, can not be justified."

An absolute blood libel. No military force in the world is as careful as the Israeli Defense Forces in differentiating combatants from the civilians surrounding them. Note this report from Bloomberg: "Most of the Palestinian dead were members of the Hamas security forces, including police chief Tawfiq Jaber and the head of the organization’s Security and Protection Service, Ismail al-Jabary, said Taher Noono, a spokesman for Hamas. "

Pictures from Gaza indicate this fact. Note these photos of Palestinian security forces hit in their bases. These are uniformed combatants of a force that declared war on Israel, and they are very legitimate targets according to international law.

But now comes the "fauxtography" so prominent in the Lebanon war.

A Washington Post photo essay posted the two pictures above of the Palestinian combatants along with a picture of Palestinian wounded in a Gaza hospital. The picture was accompanied by this caption: Palestinian children and a man wounded in Israeli missile strikes are seen in the emergency area at Shifa hospital in Gaza City, Saturday, Dec. 27, 2008. Israeli warplanes demolished dozens of Hamas security compounds across Gaza on Saturday in unprecedented waves of simultaneous air strikes. Gaza medics said at least 145 people were killed and more than 310 wounded in the single deadliest day in Gaza fighting in recent memory. (AP Photo/Khalil Hamra) (Khalil Hamra - AP)

The children appear healthy. Would the photographer and caption writer, Khalil Hamra, fake a picture?

Yes.

Khalil Hamra is the credited AP photographer for many of the pictures of the International Solidarity Movement activities in Gaza, including those of Rachel Corrie. To recall, Rachel Corrie was an American activist who attempted to stop an Israeli bulldozer from destroying Gazan tunnels in 2003. Corrie slipped under the bulldozer, was killed and became a shaheed of the left. Hamra's pictures include this one of Corrie burning an American flag (left).

A search of Google images shows hundreds of Hamra's pictures of grieving Palestinians as well as Palestinian dead and wounded. His many pictures of Hamas and Islamic Jihad fighters and military exercises suggest that Hamra could almost serve as Hamas' official photographer.

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U.S. Army Analysis of the Lebanon War:Not Easy Reading, but It Helps Explain What Happened

Some Israelis remain angry over the conduct of the Lebanon war in 2006. Reservists believe they were poorly equipped, trained and led. Residents of the north felt they were abandoned and believe today that they’re still not protected from Hizbullah rockets. Many Israelis were hoping that the Winograd Commission report on the Lebanon war would give voice to their concerns. But the Winograd report was so sidetracked by domestic Israeli politics and publicists’ spin that relatively little was distilled from it.

A new study by the U.S. Army's Combined Arms Center, We Were Caught Unprepared: The 2006 Hizbullah-Israeli War by Matt M. Matthews, helps provide a clear picture of what led to the war and of its failures. Matthews also presents his study as a warning to the U.S. Army [blue sections below are excerpts from Matthews’ study]:

After years of conducting successful counterinsurgency operations against the Palestinians, the Israeli military encountered substantial problems in shifting its focus to major combat operations against Hizbullah. As with the IDF prior to the 2006 war, the U.S. Army, at least for the last three years, has focused almost exclusively on irregular warfare. For the IDF, these operations seriously dulled ground maneuver combat skills, particularly among tank crewmen.

Matthews presents analyses of Hizbullah’s development, Israel’s hasty retreat from Lebanon in 2000, and Hizbullah’s planning for the 2006 war. One section cites Hizbullah’s “13 principles of war,” revealed over a decade ago by veteran Israeli analyst Ehud Ya’ari. They were relevant in Lebanon in 2006; they’re relevant today in Gaza, too.

Hizbullah’s principles of war were specifically designed to defeat a relatively fixed, technologically advanced enemy:

1. Avoid the strong, attack the weak—attack and withdrawal!
2. Protecting our fighters is more important than causing enemy casualties!
3. Strike only when success is assured!
4. Surprise is essential to success. If you are spotted, you have failed!
5. Don’t get into a set-piece battle. Slip away like smoke, before the enemy can drive home his advantage!
6. Attaining the goal demands patience, in order to discover the enemy’s weak points!
7. Keep moving; avoid formation of a front line!
8. Keep the enemy on constant alert, at the front and in the rear!
9. The road to the great victory passes through thousands of small victories!
10. Keep up the morale of the fighters; avoid notions of the enemy’s superiority!
11. The media has innumerable guns whose hits are like bullets. Use them in the battle!
12. The population is a treasure—nurture it!
13. Hurt the enemy and then stop before he abandons restraint!

Matthews describes the incredibly complex and unrealistic defense doctrine, “Effects-Based Operations (EBO),” adopted by chief of staff and former Air Force commander Dan Halutz. The doctrine confused Israeli commanders and led inevitably to battlefield failures.

According to [Israeli reserve officer] Ron Tira, the new doctrine inflated the “focus on the cognitive side of war and the media war. Instead of killing the bad guys like in the good old days, they wanted to create a ‘consciousness of victory’ on our side and ‘cognitive perception of defeat’ on the other side.” Commanders need to speak in a simple accessible manner, composed essentially of two things: what do we occupy and what do we blow up. This is understandable.

One of the major problems within the IDF, Tira explained to Matthews, was “the over-zealous embrace of the American effects-based operations (EBO) idea. EBO’s aim is to paralyze the enemy’s operational ability, in contrast to destroying its military force. This is achieved by striking the headquarters, lines of communication, and other critical junctions in the military structure. EBO [was] employed in their most distinct form in the Shock and Awe campaign that opened the 2003 Iraq War. However, the Americans used EBO to prepare the way for their ground maneuvers, and not as an alternative to them.”

Matthews details the massive Hizbullah construction of 600 bunkers across Lebanon. North Korean engineers were involved in the construction, Matthews writes, a possibility suggested by this author last October in a Jerusalem Post article, Mining for Trouble in Lebanon.

Although the Israeli intelligence community believed Hizbullah’s defensive network was based on “Iranian military doctrine,” another source suggests the elaborate system was based on “a defensive guerrilla force organized along North Korean lines.” In fact, the same source concluded that “all the movement’s underground facilities, including arms dumps, food stocks, dispensaries for the wounded, were put in place primarily in 2003–2004 under the supervision of North Korean instructors.” Evidence further suggests that the Iranian Revolutionary Guard was also heavily involved in the construction effort. Intelligence sources concluded that Hizbullah was “believed to be benefiting from assistance provided by North Korean advisers.

It is very apparent that the new Israeli Chief of Staff, Gabi Ashkenazi (pictured), retains much of his tough Golani Brigade esprit de corps. That means he sees the battlefield with boots-on-the-ground and not just from 30,000 feet. Israel’s defense minister and former IDF chief of staff, Ehud Barak, also knows the smell of cordite. Infantry and armored corps reservists are once again being equipped and trained.

Have Israel’s other politicians learned the lessons of the Lebanon war? The on-and-off operations against Hamas in Gaza do not yet provide a clear answer.

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No Invasion, But Not a Case of Crying "Wolf"

The IDF showed it was ready, and it projected the message that it would respond with all necessary force. 'Nuf said.

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Stopping a Mass Invasion of Israel from Gaza

Ha’aretz reports today, “The Israel Defense Forces beefed up troops along the border with Gaza, fearing thousands of Palestinians may march on the border in protest of Israel's economic sanctions. Israel fears that crowds of Palestinians might rush the border, and that large numbers of casualties will result from the army's attempts to stop them. Israel believes” the report continued, “that Hamas is now planning a new action, directed at Israel, to break the siege on the Gaza Strip and draw global attention to the plight of Gaza's impoverished residents.”

LATE BREAKING NEWS: Hamas announced it will hold a 40,000 “human-chain rally” on Monday that will span 31 miles from Rafah in the south to the northern Gaza Strip town of Beit Hanoun. This is dangerous. Will masses break through the fences? Will terrorists use the event as a diversion to sail boats from Gaza to the Israeli coast or emerge from tunnels under the border?

Speaking at the Jerusalem Conference last week, Maj. Gen.(res) Doron Almog, a former commander of Israel’s southern front, related that his troops planned for such a contingency a decade ago.

Israel was faced with a similar threat exactly 20 years ago when the PLO started to outfit a ship, Sol Phryne, and renamed it the al Awda (the Return). Some 200 Palestinian refugees and international “dignitaries” were slated to board the ship and provocatively sail into Haifa, in a voyage reminiscent of the voyage of the Exodus bearing Jewish refugees in 1947. Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir called the voyage ''a declaration of war.'' The voyage had been scheduled to sail on Feb. 9, 1988 from the port of Athens.

The ship never made it. On Feb. 16, 1988 The ship was damaged by a mine attached below the waterline at Limassol, Cyprus, which ripped a huge hole in the ferry's hull. No one was injured.

The timing of the blast was critical. The first Intifada had erupted and Yasser Arafat was attempting to gain control of the violence from afar. “By sabotaging the ship before it ever weighed anchor,” wrote analyst Ehud Ya’ari at the time, “Israel turned what was meant to be a dazzling media extravaganza into a public relations fiasco for the PLO. What's more, Arafat had planned to use the ship both to regain full command of events [the Intifada] and to pull in the 700,000 Arab citizens of Israel, who had clearly expressed their solidarity with the residents of the territories but had stopped short of actively joining in the uprising.”

Will Israel’s leadership have the foresight, the smarts, and the cojones to thwart another Palestinian public relations show?

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