Conflict In The Middle East.

[gryphon]

Tel Aviv is now getting bombed. Places I went to when I was in israel have been bombed. My cousins are getting bomb shelters ready and practicing drills with their kids.

[Natalka]

So sad this has all come to this....

http://news.nationalpost.com/2012/11...ty-since-1991/

[DaveP]

Israel is mobilising. This could get very bad.

[gryphon]

Jerusalem is getting bombed now.

[DaveP]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-20365074

[gryphon]

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/17/wo...gaza.html?_r=0

GAZA — Masked gunmen in Gaza summarily executed a man here on Friday as a suspected collaborator with Israel on the third day of its deadly aerial bombardments, shooting him multiple times and leaving his body beneath a billboard featuring a Hamas fighter holding a rocket.
The executed man, identified as Ashraf Ouaida, had a poster hung around his neck accusing him of cooperating with the Israelis in the killing of 15 Palestinian leaders.
Wael Mohammed, a taxi driver who was standing on the steps of the Aman Mosque in the Sheikh Radwan neighborhood of Gaza City, said that around 11:45 a.m. he saw a Jeep pull up on Al Jalla Street, from which two masked men dragged Mr. Ouaida to the dirt circle under the Hamas billboard.
“They took him out from the Jeep with his hands cuffed behind his back, they pushed him under the poster and fired three gunshots at his head from the back,” Mr. Mohammed said. “He was still alive. Then they set his cuffs free and turned him upside down and fired on him again.”
One of the gunmen, Mr. Mohammed said, hung a poster in which Hamas’s Al-Qassam Brigades claimed responsibility and cited Mr. Ouaida’s alleged crimes.
By noon, at least 100 men and boys, some carrying prayer mats, had gathered around Mr. Ouaida’s body, covering his bloodied head with a plastic sheet. He was wearing blue pants and a black zip-up sweatshirt and his feet were bare, and one dusty sandal sat by his hand. Another 15 minutes elapsed before an ambulance took him away.
The brazen nature of the execution suggested that Hamas, which governs Gaza, intended it as a blunt message to other possible collaborators with Israel, which is believed to have an extensive network of informants here as part of its underlying battle with the group. But the shooting evoked mixed feelings.
“There were kids and children on the street,” said the witness, Mr. Mohammed. “They should have executed him in a far place.”
A spokeswoman for the Independent Commission for Human Rights, the Palestinian Authority’s watchdog agency that monitors prosecutions of suspected collaborators with Israel, said the group had no record of Mr. Ouaida having ever been arrested or sentenced to death.
Even if he had been, she noted, such an execution should be carried out by the government after a trial, not handled summarily on the street.

[gryphon]

http://www.jpost.com/DiplomacyAndPol...aspx?id=292162

European Union foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton and German Chancellor Angela Merkel both issued strong statements in support of Israel’s right to defend itself on Friday.
Ashton added that she hoped Egyptian Prime Minister Hesham Kandil’s visit to Gaza on Friday morning would calm the situation.
“The rocket attacks by Hamas and other factions in Gaza, which began this current crisis are totally unacceptable for any government and must stop,” she said.
“Israel has the right to protect its population from these kind of attacks. I urge Israel to ensure that its response is proportionate,” she said.

“I am deeply concerned at the escalating violence in Israel and the Gaza Strip and deplore the loss of civilian lives on both sides,” Ashton said.
Ashton added that she had spoken with leaders in the region, including Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon and the office of Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi, as to how best to de-escalate the situation.
“In my discussions, I made the point that we must move forward in finding a solution to the Middle East conflict so that million of people in the region can finally live in peace and security,” she said.
A German government spokesman said on Friday that Merkel is "very worried" about an escalation of violence in the Middle East and calls on Hamas to immediately stop shooting rockets from Gaza into Israel."
"Hamas in Gaza is responsible for the outbreak of violence," spokesman Georg Streiter told a news conference. "There is no justification for the shooting of rockets at Israel, which has led to massive suffering of the civilian population.
"The Chancellor urges those responsible in the Gaza Strip to immediately stop firing on Israel. At the same time she calls on the Egyptian government to use its influence on Hamas to limit the violence and bring it to an end."
Streiter said the Israeli government had the "right and obligation" to protect its population.
UN human rights chief urges Hamas, Israel to step back from brink
UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay denounced Israel's aerial attacks on Gaza as well as rockets fired by Hamas into southern Israel and called on both sides on Friday to step back from the brink.
"She's appalled that once again civilians are losing their lives... She urges both sides to pull back from an increasingly dangerous confrontation," her spokesman Rupert Colville told a news briefing in Geneva.
"The High Commissioner has repeatedly and unequivocally condemned the indiscriminate firing of rockets from the Gaza Strip into southern Israel and is deeply concerned by the recent major upsurge in the number of rocket attacks and that they are now being aimed at a major city such as Tel Aviv," he said.
"She is also extremely concerned by the sharp increase in aerial attacks by Israeli forces on the heavily populated Gaza Strip in the past two days," he said.

[princessjen]

So glad I live in Canada.

[gryphon]

http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/...el_663502.html

Two major Israeli newspapers are reporting that rockets fired from Egypt have hit Israel.

"Terrorists in the Sinai Peninsula launched rockets into Israel Friday night," reports the Jerusalem Post. "The rockets fell near an Israeli village on the southern border, causing some damage, but no injuries."

The Israeli daily Haaretz reports, "Rockets fired from direction of Egypt toward Eshkol Regional Council."

It appears no damage was reported in connection with the rocket fire from Egypt. Earlier today, the Egyptian prime minister visited Gaza to express solidarity with the Palestinians there.

This new front comes a day after a rocket landed near Tel Aviv and on the same day Israel's capital Jerusalem was the target of rocket fire. Those attacks were courtesy of Hamas in the Gaza Strip.

"After Tel Aviv metropolitan area, capital under fire too: An air raid siren was sounded in Jerusalem and surrounding communities early Friday evening. After residents reported hearing blast sounds, security forces confirmed that one rocket had landed in the Gush Etzion area near a Palestinian village," Ynet reports.

"There were no reports of injuries or damage. This was the first air raid siren sounded in the area since the IDF launched Operation Pillar of Defense in the Gaza Strip. Air raid sirens were sounded in southern communities throughout the day and a barrage of missiles hit the area."

[DaveP]

From Egypt? Crap. This is just getting worsre.

[Patty Smyth]

forget it

[DaveP]

The act that started it this week.

That didn't start it, the conflict began a week earlier.

http://www.theatlantic.com/internati...nflict/265374/

[Patty Smyth]

forget it

[Andit]

Warning, somewhat twisted and offensive (as comedians are wont to be), but there are funny moments:

[i_forget]

we appreciate twisted and offensive here....but he talks too fast