Israel Escalates Air Strikes Against Gaza Strip

[European blood]

Two grad-type rockets fired from the Gaza Strip struck empty fields inside Israel today, doing no damage and causing no casualties, but becoming headline news in a number of Israeli media outlets.

Israel responded, as they always do, with a massive escalation of their ongoing air strikes against the strip, destroying a number of as-yet-unidentified targets in the tiny enclave in what they called a “retaliatory” measure.

So far no group has claimed responsibility for the rockets, but the Hamas faction has been trying to negotiate deals among smaller groups to refrain from launching such strikes. This has been rejected by the would-be al-Qaeda affiliate in the strip, however, which sees Hamas’ government as illegitimate.

The latest escalation comes just one day after Israel’s Public Security Minister called for a full-scale invasion of the Gaza Strip to prevent future missile strikes, and will likely spawn yet more calls for such an attack.

http://news.antiwar.com/2011/08/03/i...st-gaza-strip/

[Hevneren]

Frankly, I don't think Israel really needs any excuses to stamp out the Palestinians in Gaza. They seem hell-bent on doing so, and they know that no matter how much international condemnation they'll get, they'll always get backed up by the US government. Meanwhile, any news will have to be filtered through the Israeli "Defence" Force, because Israel doesn't allow international news media to report freely during IDF's military operations.