Israel Matzav

Hamas continues to fire rockets during Egyptian PM's visit

Hamas is continuing to fire rockets on Israel during the visit of Egyptian Prime Minister Hesham Kandil. Israel had offered to suspend fire during Kandil's visit, but apparently Hamas concluded that Israel would do so unilaterally to avoid an incident anyway, and so Hamas continues to fire.

Ofir Gendelman, a spokesman for Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu wrote on his Twitter account that, "Hamas does not respect the Egyptian PM's visit to Gaza and violates the temporary cease fire that Israel agreed to during the visit."

Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh, who has been in hiding since the targeted killing of Hamas military chief Ahmed Jabari on Wednesday, publicly welcomed Kandil on Friday and accompanied him on a visit to a hospital in Gaza.

All of which shows that Haniyeh believes - probably correctly - that the IAF will not go after him in Kandil's presence. I'm sure they're in Haniyeh's bunker in Shifa and that Kandil will leave alone.

Meanwhile, the pan-Arabic daily al-Hayat reports that Egypt warned Hamas not to escalate tensions with Israel.

Citing the pan-Arab paper, Israel Radio quoted an Egyptian source as saying that while Israel was not obligated to a cease-fire, Cairo had not expected such a harsh response.

"We were shocked when Israel assassinated Hamas military commander Ahmed Jabari," the unnammed source told al-Hayat.

Yes. For too long, our government has been cowering in fear of what the 'international community' would say. This is long overdue. 

Labels: Egypt, Hamas rockets, Operation Pillar of Defense

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 11:14 AM