IAF AIRSTRIKE KILLS GAZA ROCKET CREW

Airstrike Kills Islamic Jihad Rocket Crew in Gaza - Yuval Azoulay and Avi Issacharoff
Three Palestinian Islamic Jihad members were killed Saturday in an Israel Air Force strike east of Gaza City as the men were on their way to launch Kassam rockets at Israel. According to the Shin Bet security service, the group had fired the rocket that cost Osher Twito, 8, of Sderot, his leg last month.

On Friday, Hamas militants directed machine-gun fire at an Israeli helicopter, hitting one of the aircraft's panels. The aircraft returned to base and did not make an emergency landing. According to reports, Hamas is in possession of more than 10 Russian-made KPV-14.5 heavy machine guns. Hamas spokesman Abu Obeida said the machine guns were confiscated from Fatah during the Hamas takeover of Gaza last year. (Ha'aretz)

REST IN PIECES

Airstrike Kills Five Hamas Militants in Gaza - Ali Waked
Five members of Hamas' military wing, the Izz al-Din al-Qassam brigades, were killed Wednesday after an IDF aircraft fired missiles at a vehicle west of the Gaza town of Khan Yunis, local sources reported. Several people were wounded in the strike. (Ynet News)

Israeli forces strike in Gaza, West Bank (JTA)
Israeli forces killed at least seven Palestinian gunmen in the Gaza Strip and West Bank.  Israel's Air Force bombed a vehicle carrying a Hamas rocket commander and four comrades in the southern Gaza town of Khan Younis early Wednesday. All five were killed. Two other gunmen were wounded.

Palestinians said an Islamic Jihad gunman died in an Israeli missile strike near Bureij, in central Gaza. But military officials said there had been no Israeli actions in the area.

In the West Bank city of Nablus on Wednesday, undercover Israeli commandos killed two Al-Aksa Brigades gunmen. There were no Israeli casualties in the incident.

ISRAELI PILOTS TO FLY WITH ERECTIONS?

IAF weights impotence drug for pilots (JTA)
Israel's Air Force may turn to an anti-impotence drug to improve its pilots' performance. Bamachane, the official journal of the Israeli armed forces, reported this week that tests are under way to determine whether Tadalafil could help fighter pilots cope with the low oxygen levels at high altitudes. Tadalafil is an active ingredient in Cialis, which counteracts erectile dysfunction.

GOT 6

Hamas compound bombing kills 6 (JTA)
Israel's Air Force bombed a Hamas compound in the Gaza Strip, killing six gunmen.

Tuesday's airstrike in Khan Younis appeared to be in response to the Dimona suicide bombing, for which the Palestinian Islamist group claimed responsibility.

Along with the gunmen killed in the attack, three others were wounded. Palestinian sources said the gunmen were at prayer at the time. Israeli military sources said this was not a factor in the planning.

Fearing further airstrikes, Hamas ordered its men out of other positions throughout Gaza.

PALESTINIAN COGNITIVE DISSONANCE

Escalation in Gaza (LGF)

Israellycool has been liveblogging the escalation in Palestinian rocket attacks from Gaza that has prompted increasing levels of retaliation from Israel. Today the IAF took out the Hamas Interior Ministry building: Israel flattens Hamas ministry in Gaza Strip.

GAZA (Reuters) - Israel bombed the Hamas-run Interior Ministry in Gaza and closed border crossings with the strip on Friday, sharply escalating what it called a campaign to halt Palestinian rocket attacks.

The four-story ministry complex in Gaza City was empty at the time but one woman was killed and at least 30 others nearby were wounded in the air strike, medical officials said.

“It felt like an earthquake,” said Umm Fahmi, a woman who lives across from the blast site.

“My house did not only shake, it jumped from its foundations and back down.How could they drop such a bomb in a residential area on top of people’s heads?” she said, peering through the dust at the concrete and steel remains of the security complex.

I’ll take a crack at answering that one! Perhaps it has something to do with the constant barrages of rockets coming from your neighborhoods into Israel, and the non-stop genocidal hatred and incitement?

Ya think?

VIDEO: TERRORISTS BITE THE DUST

Earlier today, I blogged about Israel's killing several Islamic Jihad terrorists/rocketeers in Gaza. You can now watch it on video.

ISRAEL KILLS ISLAMIC JIHAD LEADERS

IDF Targets Islamic Jihad Terrorists in Gaza - Yuval Azoulay
Early Tuesday, IDF aircraft killed three Islamic Jihad gunmen, including a senior commander, in northern Gaza. In a pair of airstrikes Monday night, IDF aircraft struck two cars in Gaza City, killing six Islamic Jihad militants, including Majed Harazin, the group's overall commander in Gaza and the West Bank and a master rocket maker. Also Tuesday, Islamic Jihad announced that its commander in the northern West Bank had been killed by an undercover IDF unit in the village of Kabatiyeh. (Ha'aretz)

Airstrikes kill 10 Gaza terrorists (JTA)
Israeli airstrikes killed 10 Islamic Jihad terrorists in the Gaza Strip. Signaling a stepped-up offensive against the Palestinian faction that has carried out most of the recent cross-border rocket launches from Gaza, Israel's air force killed 10 Islamic Jihad members in two airstrikes on Monday night and Tuesday morning.

One attack destroyed a car carrying Islamic Jihad's most senior field commander in Gaza. Five of his comrades died with him. In the second strike, four Islamic Jihad men were killed as they left a mosque.

Islamic Jihad responded by vowing to renew suicide bombings in Israel. Israeli security sources dismissed the threat, saying that the absence of recent suicide bombings was a result of effective counter-measures rather than any restraint by Islamic Jihad or other Palestinian terrorist groups.

At least 15 rockets and mortar bombs were fired from Gaza at Israeli targets Tuesday. There were no reports of damage or injuries.

PALI ROCKET HITS ISRAELI HOME, WOMAN WOUNDED

Palestinian Rocket Hits Israeli Home, Woman Wounded - Shmulik Hadad
An Israeli woman was moderately injured on Thursday after a Kassam rocket fired by Palestinians in Gaza crashed through the roof of her home in Sderot, causing extensive damage. The Mujahideen Brigades, a military wing of Fatah, claimed responsibility. (Ynet News)

See also The Rocket Threat from Gaza, 2001-2007 - Reuven Erlich
Palestinian rocket fire at Israel from Gaza began in 2001. As of the end of November 2007, there have been a total of 2,383 identified rocket hits in Israel. Rocket fire has been directly responsible for the deaths of ten Israeli civilians , nine of them Sderot residents. In addition, 433 individuals have been wounded. Mortar fire has been responsible for the deaths of ten individuals, eight civilians and two IDF soldiers. Of the 150 wounded, 80 were civilians and 70 soldiers. More than 190,000 Israelis now live under the potential threat of daily rocket and mortar attacks. (Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center)

Airstrike Kills Islamic Jihad Rocket Crew in Gaza - Avi Issacharoff and Yuval Azoulay

An Israel Air Force strike killed three Palestinian militants in Gaza City on Thursday after they were detected firing a Kassam rocket at Israel. Islamic Jihad said one of the dead was Sami Tafesh, a commander of its rocket crews. (Ha'aretz)

IAF'S NEW GAZA RETALIATION POLICY

IAF Strike Signals New Tit-for-Tat Policy (INN)
(IsraelNN.com) The attack on a Hamas terrorist position in Khan Yunis Wednesday afternoon which killed two was the first sign of a new IDF policy regarding Gaza terrorists. Military sources told Maariv/NRG that from now on, the IAF will attack a random Hamas target in Gaza every time a mortar shell or rocket hits an Israeli community, and will no longer limit itself to striking the terrorists who launched the rockets. They said that the IDF has now established that Hamas is behind all of the terror emanating from Gaza and will thus retaliate against Hamas targets regardless of which organization takes credit for terror attacks.

VIDEO: IDF HITS PALI ROCKET CELL IN GAZA

Video: IDF Hits Palestinian Rocket Cell in Gaza - Hanan Greenberg
The IDF Tuesday released a video of a Palestinian terror cell in Gaza preparing to launch Kassam rockets towards Israel last week. After army intelligence makes a positive identification and confirms the men are not civilians, the IDF attacks the cell, killing all four cell members and destroying the rocket launchers.

Israel Air Force chief Maj. Gen. Eliezer Shkedi said that the air strikes were effective in targeting 1-3% of the cells. "We have to hurt those who manufacture the Kassams, issue the orders, transport the cells, and develop the explosives...everything else related to this industry. We cannot ignore the other 97%." (Ynet News)

U.S. DELAYED ISRAELI RAID ON SYRIAN NUKES

Condoleezza Rice opposed Israel's attack on Syrian nuclear site (Times UK)
A MYSTERIOUS Israeli military strike on a suspected nuclear site in Syria last month was opposed by Condoleezza Rice, the American secretary of state, because she feared it would destabilise the region, according to a report this weekend.

Rice persuaded the Israelis to delay their operation, but not to call it off, after US officials were presented with "jaw-dropping" evidence of Syrian nuclear activity, the report said...

According to ABC News, Rice led the opposition inside the Bush administration to the Israeli strike, persuading them to shelve initial plans to hit the Syrian facility in the week of July 14.

Turkish FM to discuss Syria in J'lem (JPost)
Turkish Foreign Minister Ali Babacan is scheduled to arrive in Israel on Sunday following a brief visit to Damascus. High on his agenda in Jerusalem will be Israel's air strike on Syria last month and the American Jewish community's stand on whether the World War I killing of Armenians constituted genocide.

Babacan arrived in Damascus on Saturday, and was scheduled to hold talks during his visit there with President Bashar Assad and Foreign Minister Farouk Shara.

His visit to Damascus came as ABC News quoted American officials over the weekend as saying that the IAF raid on Syria was planned for several months and was postponed a number of times due to heavy US pressure.

According to the report, Israel presented US officials with satellite imagery which clearly showed North Korean nuclear technology in a Syrian facility.

According to a US source, Washington officials were astonished by the imagery and by the fact US intelligence had not picked up on the facility previously.

"Israel tends to be very thorough about its intelligence coverage, particularly when it takes a major military step, so they would not have acted without data from several sources," said ABC News military consultant Tony Cordesman.

A different source told ABC News that Israel had planned the strike as early as July 14, and in confidential meetings with high-ranking US officials, debated the appropriate response.

Several officials supported Israel's decision to strike, although others, led by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, firmly opposed it and offered to publicly condemn Syria for operating a nuclear facility instead.

US officials who initially opposed the raid, according to ABC , apparently feared the negative influence it might have over the whole region.

Consequently, officials in Washington persuaded Israel to push back the raid, but in September, Israel feared that information about the facility might be leaked to the press, and went ahead with the strike, despite objections by Washington.

DID ISRAEL USE "ELECTRONIC WARFARE" IN SYRIAN RAID?

Israeli raid caused electronic disruption over wide areas of Syria (World Tribune)
The lid of secrecy covering the Sept. 6 Israeli air strike into Syria remains tight but one new theory emerging amid the speculation is that the Israeli conducted an electronic warfare exercise in preparation for future strikes or an attack on Iran.

Authoritative reports from the Middle East stated that the Israel operation included extensive electronic warfare jamming by aircraft. The Israeli were testing the capabilities of Russian-made air defenses, including both radar and missiles located near Damascus and south of Homs near the Lebanese northern border.

The raid was unprecedented in the blanket of jamming and electronic disruption that it caused over wide areas of Syria enroute to the target point, a base near the Euphrates River.
The jamming also affected parts of Lebanon and Israel but Syria was able to get a small amount of sensor information from one of its electronic eavesdropping stations and spot the Israeli infiltration.

The raid was part of a U.S. “masint” operation according to this theory, referring to the military practice known as measurement and signature intelligence that is designed to learn the chrematistics and capabilities of all weapons in a region that emanate electronic signals. The masint signatures are needed for targeting and for defeating air defense threats.

The daring raid would gain valuable intelligence needed for future strikes by both Israel and the United States in the region.

The U.S. military is considering attacks on both Syria and Iran to counter infiltration by insurgents and terrorists into Iraq, including the Iranian paramilitaries. Israel could use the data for its battle against Hizbullah and possibly a future strike on Iranian nuclear facilities.

SEE ALSO: Report: Iran Worried Over Syrian Air Defense Failure - Yossi Melman (Ha'aretz)
Iran is concerned over the failure of Syria's air defense systems to detect the Israel Air Force non-stealth aircraft that reportedly carried out an attack inside Syria last month, Aviation Week reported Wednesday. According to the report, Israel used highly advanced equipment to jam Syria's defenses, thus neutralizing the defense missile systems which rely on it. Iran is especially concerned over the failure of Syria's Russian-made radar systems. Iran is slated to purchase more Russian radar equipment to protect its nuclear facilities in a future deal worth $750 million.

See also Why Syria's Air Defenses Failed to Detect Israelis - David A. Fulghum (Aviation Week)

RUSSIANS SEND SYRIA NEW RADAR SYSTEM TO FOIL IDF

Report: Israeli Jets Foiled Russian Radar in Syria - Uzi Mahnaimi (Sunday Times-UK)
The Russians have sent technicians to upgrade Syria's air defense system after Israel foiled it using stealth technology to remain invisible during an airstrike. The Israeli air force used a sophisticated electronic warfare system operated by F-15I jets and a fleet of specialist electronic warfare aircraft over the Mediterranean during the attack on a suspected nuclear facility near Dayr az-Zawr on September 6. They transmitted signals that jammed the Russian-made radar and the Syrian army's communications.

ISRAEL KILLS ONE OF BBC JOURNO'S KIDNAPPERS

BBC Journalist's Kidnapper Killed in Gaza Raid - Conal Urquhart
One of the kidnappers of the BBC journalist Alan Johnston was killed Wednesday when an Israeli missile hit the vehicle he was traveling in. Muqtassar Khatab, who appeared in a video making demands for the release of Johnston, was one of five members of the Army of Islam killed in the air strike in Gaza City. The Army of Islam held Johnston for three months. (Guardian-UK)

DID ISRAEL ATTACK IRANIAN TARGETS IN SYRIA?

'IAF and ground troops attacked Iranian targets in Syria' (JPost)
Israel's alleged incursion into Syrian skies last week included a strike on what was likely to have been Iranian arms transferred to the country, CNN reported on Tuesday afternoon. According to the news network, a ground operation was also part of the overall foray. Neither Jerusalem nor Damascus has confirmed the report.

CNN claimed that the operation, largely aerial but also had comprised of ground components, left "a great hole in the desert." Although CNN did not cite a specific source, the network gave credence to "US government officials." The report said the IAF targets were likely to be weaponry delivered by Syria which was intended for the use of Hizbullah.

Keeping with its policy of not commenting on the alleged flyover of Syrian territory, senior officials in the Prime Minister's Office refused to comment on the CNN report.

Further, the report said the US was pleased with the alleged sortie, which it said, sent a "clear message" to the region.

IDF FOILS BID TO KIDNAP SOLDIER

IDF Foils Bid to Kidnap Soldier - Avi Issacharoff
The Israel Air Force killed six Palestinian militants from Islamic Jihad and the Fatah-affiliated Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades Thursday in a missile strike on their vehicle as it approached the security fence in central Gaza. "The planned attack included the taking over of an IDF post and the abduction of an IDF soldier," an army statement said. Also Thursday, three Palestinian militants from Hamas and Islamic Jihad were killed and six others wounded in an IDF strike in southern Gaza. IDF troops backed by tanks and bulldozers moved a kilometer inside Gaza to strike at Palestinian militants.

Also Thursday, IDF undercover troops arrested a senior Islamic Jihad militant in the West Bank city of Jenin. Ahmed Salah was armed with an assault rifle and two suicide belts when he was arrested. He put up no resistance, and led troops to his vehicle, in which some 30 explosive devices were found. (Ha'aretz)

SYRIA FIRES ON ISRAELI WARPLANE

Syria fires on Israeli warplane (JTA)
Syria fired at Israeli military aircraft Syria said entered its airspace.

The incident occurred in the wee hours Thursday morning, according to the Syrian military, which said several Israeli planes flew over the country near the Turkish-Syrian border and dropped some ammunition. Other Syrian sources said four or five planes dropped fuel tanks in the Syrian desert.

The Israel Defense Forces declined to respond to the report, saying, "It is not our custom to respond to these kinds of reports." But sources told Israeli media it appeared the IDF committed an "operational mishap."

Israel's air force regular trains in Turkey, raising the possibility that a warplane or warplanes had gone off course. Israel also conducts regular reconnaissance flights over Syria.

Tensions between Israel and Syria have been high throughout the summer, with both armies conducting significant military exercises along their disputed border and leaders of the two countries trading threats.

"We warn the Israeli enemy government against this flagrant aggressive act and retain the right to respond in an appropriate way," a Syrian government spokesman said Thursday.

"The Israeli enemy aircraft infiltrated into the Arab Syrian territory through the northern border, coming from the Mediterranean heading toward the eastern region, breaking the sound barrier," he said. "Air defense units confronted them and forced them to leave after they dropped some ammunition in deserted areas without causing any human or material damage."

IDF: GAZA AIR STRIKE FOILED MASSIVE TERRORIST ATTACK

IDF: Gaza air strike foiled massive terrorist attack (JPost)
A massive terror attack was foiled Saturday night when an IAF air strike on two vehicles near the southern Gaza Strip's border with Egypt killed two Palestinians, including an Islamic Jihad operative, and wounded 21 others, the IDF said.

The army said that one of the vehicles was carrying Islamic Jihad operatives and was filled with explosive devices including suicide bomb belts.

The group, said the IDF, was on its way to carry out a huge terror attack against Israelis.

Islamic Jihad said some of its members were in at least one of the two vehicles hit in the IAF strike near the Rafah Crossing - a Mercedes saloon and a pickup truck parked alongside. Eyewitnesses said several blasts came from the pickup after the attack, suggesting that it had been carrying explosives. Three of those wounded were Islamic Jihad operatives and were in serious condition.

Islamic Jihad claimed responsibility for firing a rocket into a Sderot neighborhood shortly before the air strike, but it was not clear if they were the same group hit by the IAF strike. Two more rockets were fired at the western Negev on Saturday night. No casualties or damage were reported as a result of Kassam attacks.

GOT 3

Israel kills 3 top militants (JTA)
Israel's air force killed three Islamic Jihad militants in a missile strike on a car south of Gaza City. The Israel Defense Forces confirmed the strike, Ha'aretz reported. Islamic Jihad said three of its senior commanders were killed in the attack, including Omar al-Khatib, who had survived an Israeli air strike on Tuesday. Khalil Daifi and Ahmed Abd Al-el were also killed.

GOT A FEW

Airstrike Kills Islamic Jihad Warlord in Gaza - Sakher Abu El Oun
Ziad al-Ghnam, general commander of the Islamic Jihad's Al-Quds Brigades, Raid al-Ghnam, an engineer commander, and local commander Mohammed al-Raai were killed in an Israeli airstrike in Khan Yunis in southern Gaza, the Brigades said on Sunday. Israel accused Ziad al-Ghnam of orchestrating a string of anti-Israeli attacks, including the killing of a pregnant woman and her four daughters in May 2004 in Gaza. The army said Raai placed a roadside bomb and fired a rocket-propelled grenade during a May 2004 attack on the buffer zone between Gaza and Egypt in which five Israeli soldiers were killed. (AFP/Yahoo)

See also Fatah Terrorist Killed in West Bank - Avi Issacharoff
Israel Defense Forces troops operating in Jenin Monday killed Mohammed Abu al-Heija, 25, a leader of the Al Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades and a deputy of Zakariya Zubeidi, one of the top commanders of the Fatah-linked armed group. (Ha'aretz)