The SAAF Forum

Why no more daily updates? Not PC any more I think...world opinion is changing rapidly imo.

I post as soon as I receive them.

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How come every time my ship comes in, I'm at the airport?

Not sure about world opinion changing. The truce appears to be holding but people still see Hanas for what they are and what they stand for.

Personally I think ISIS trying to eradicate the Yazidi is very much in the public eye with ISIS fast becoming a very serious and deadly threat to everyone.

On the topic of ISIS .... as part of the US rebuilding the Iraqi army, the USA supplied Iraq with around 140 M1 Abrams tanks ... reports are that ISIS have now captured some of these tanks.

The M1 is a mean machine, can you imagine the public outcry if friendly forces are hammered by these US supplied weapons ... no wonder Obama wants to airstrike them back into the stone-age

http://www.dailysabah.com/mideast/2014/07/03/isiss-weapon-inventory-grows

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Brent Best

I think IS might find maintaining and fuelling the M1's turbine engine a bit challenging.

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A plan is simply a basis for change.

Not if they keep advancing at the rate they have been! Couple of Tornados could sort the tank ownership once and for all.

That would be something never imagined. RAF taking out modern American tanks.

OPERATION PROTECTIVE EDGE – Update Wednesday 20 August 2014, 10h00

** Israel and the Palestinians began talks in Cairo on Monday to try and end the conflict in Gaza and lift the blockade on the coastal enclave.

** Hamas breached the ceasefire at 4.00pm yesterday when at least 15 rockets were fired across the Gaza border into Israel. Six rockets were shot down by the Iron Dome; and in total during the day, 50 rockets were fired at Israel.

** Early this morning, Azzam al-Ahmad, head of the Palestinian delegation to the Cairo truce talks blamed Israel for the breakdown in talks. "The Israeli delegation left the talks at 4:00 p.m. which proves that Israel planned ahead of time for their failure," he said.

** Hamas claimed it launched a J-80 rocket at the Ben Gurion Airport.

** Chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat called on the United Nations Security Council and the international community on Tuesday to set a time frame for an Israeli pullout. "Today we demand officially from the international community and the UN Security Council to adopt a resolution that would set a time-frame for the withdrawal of Israeli troops from territories occupied in 1967," he said at a news conference in Moscow.

** A spokesman for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu today rejected Palestinian charges that Israel was to blame for a breakdown in ceasefire talks in Cairo, saying rocket fire from Gaza "made continuation of talks impossible."

** Hamas leader Mousa Abu Marzouk charged this morning, after Gaza truce talks collapsed in a spasm of violence, that Israel had targeted the group's armed wing leader Mohammed Deif in one of its air strikes yesterday in the coastal territory. Israeli media said Israel had been targeting another leading Hamas militant in charge of rocket fire, but did not know whether or not he had survived the attack.

** Hamas has called on the residents of the Gaza Strip to attend the funerals of the wife and child of Mohammed Deif, Hamas' armed wing leader. The three-story home of the al-Dalou family was reportedly hit by 5 missiles on Tuesday night, Palestinian news agency Ma'an reported. Palestinian health officials said three people were killed in a strike on a house in Gaza City, including a three-year-old girl and a woman, that Hamas leader Mousa Abu Marzouk said were Deif's wife and child.

** United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon issued a statement condemning the breach of the ceasefire, adding he was "gravely disappointed by the return to hostilities" and urging the sides not to allow matters to escalate.

** The IDF has summoned anew 2,000 reservists in light of the renewed hostilities along the Gaza frontier, Army Radio reported on Monday. There is still no word as to whether the army plans on a massive enlistment of reservists.

** Likud MK Danny Danon, the former deputy defence minister who was dismissed from his post during the initial stages of Operation Protective Edge due to his criticism of Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, told Channel 2 on Wednesday that Israel "has a do-over" and needs to exploit it in order to "defeat Hamas." Danon said, "There is a price to pay in any conflict. The price is steep, but we have no choice. The Middle East is a rough neighbourhood."

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How come every time my ship comes in, I'm at the airport?

BREAKING NEWS : BBC News

Gaza: Israel kills three top Hamas commanders.

"An Israeli air strike on a house in Gaza has killed three senior Hamas military commanders, [Hamas] militants say. They were among at least 19 killed, a day after Hamas's military chief Mohammed Deif reportedly survived a strike that killed his wife and child".

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-28876821

OPERATION PROTECTIVE EDGE – Update Thursday 21 August 2014, 14h00

** Statement from PM Netanyahu: Operation Protective Edge has not ended, not even for a moment, because this is a continuing campaign and I am not speaking only about recent weeks. Our struggle against the terrorist organizations is long and has continued for many years - against Hezbollah, Al-Qaida, Islamic Jihad and Hamas in Gaza, which is part of an Islamic terrorist network the newest member of which is a murderous gang, another terrorist organization, ISIS in Iraq and Syria, and it has also attacked Lebanon. Hamas leaders are primary and legitimate military targets in Operation Protective Edge.

** The prime minister also said there is no crisis in US-Israeli relations, noting that he had spoken with President Barack Obama four times during Operation Protective Edge and often with US Secretary of State John Kerry.

** It's business as usual at Ben Gurion Airport, as Hamas' threats loom in the background: The group had previously said it would aim attacks at the airport today and advised international airlines against flying in. According to a Hamas commander, Ben Gurion is supposed to be the "target of attack" for the day.

** Three Hamas senior commanders — Mohammed Abu Shamaleh, Mohammed Barhoum and Raed al-Attar — were killed in the Israeli airstrike near the southern town of Rafah early this morning. Israel Radio’s Gal Berger said that Hamas’s military wing has few commanders, and that the assassinations are a heavy blow to the terror organization.

** A Palestinian flag bearing the words “Boycott, Divest, Sanction” was flown from the Manhattan bridge on Wednesday evening by pro-Palestinian activists, according to a local NY media report.

** Ynet News reports that Wednesday saw the most heavy rocket barrages on Israel since Operation Protective Edge began 44 days ago. According to the report, 168 rockets were launched from Gaza throughout the day, beating the previous (dubious) record of 154 on the 5th day of the operation.

** A member of Canada’s largest opposition party has left its ranks over what she said was party leader Thomas Mulcair’s excessively pro-Israel position on the conflict between Israel and Hamas. Sana Hassainia of the New Democratic Party said she coud no longer accept Mulcair’s position that “Israel has the right to defend themselves against a people that are completely powerless,” CTV reports. She will remain in parliament as an independent.

** The British Ambassador to the UN Security Council, Mark Lyall Grant, said council members are discussing a possible resolution that would call for a sustainable ceasefire in Gaza. Jordan has circulated such a resolution, but Jordanian Ambassador Dina Kawar told reporters yesterday that “we’re taking our time to talk to the Americans, to the Europeans” because “the whole idea is to have a Security Council that’s effective.”

** The Qatari government has threatened to expel the Hamas political bureau chief, Khaled Mashaal, if the Palestinian Islamist group agreed to the Egyptian cease-fire proposal. Hamas has insisted that Qatar be given a seat at the negotiating table in Cairo. But Egypt has adamantly refused to permit Qatar to participate in the cease-fire talks. Cairo wants a Qatari apology for the government's policies toward Egypt since the military coup against the Muslim Brotherhood brought Abdel Fattah al-Sisi to power.

** The PA announced on Tuesday that Hamas terrorists have launched a campaign against Fatah activists in the Gaza Strip during Operation Protective Edge. Hamas gunmen reportedly shot several Fatah activists in the legs and took other measures against them after they violated a directive by Hamas not to leave their homes during the conflict.

** 91-year-old Henk Zanoli returned his Righteous Among the Nations medal to Israel after six members of his Palestinian family were killed in a bombing in Gaza. Zanoli, a lawyer, wrote to Ambassador Hayim Davon that “...for me to hold on to the honour granted by the State of Israel under these circumstances, will be both an insult to the memory of my courageous mother who risked her life and that of her children fighting against suppression and for the preservation of human life as well as an insult to those in my family, four generations on, who lost no less than six of their relatives in Gaza at the hands of the State of Israel.”

** Hamas says it fired rockets at off-shore Israeli gas well about 30 km (19 miles) off the coast of Gaza on Wednesday in the first apparent attack of its kind. The Israeli military said no missiles had struck any gas platforms at sea.

** Also yesterday, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas met with Jordan's King Abdullah in Amman to discuss the latest developments in Gaza after the collapse of the latest ceasefire saw the resumption of hostilities. President Abbas, whose Fatah party was reconciled with Hamas in April and is part of the Palestinian delegation in Cairo, said it was his upmost priority to stop the fighting and bloodshed in the Gaza Strip.

** French President Francois Hollande called on Israel and the Palestinians to resume truce talks after the Gaza ceasefire collapsed. "We are at a critical point. France supports the Egyptian mediation," Hollande told Le Monde. "Gaza can no longer remain like it is. The objective must be a demilitarization and a lifting of the blockade."

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How come every time my ship comes in, I'm at the airport?

OPERATION PROTECTIVE EDGE – Update Friday 22 August 2014, 14h00

** Salah al-Aruri, a senior official from the Islamist terror militia Hamas admitted on Wednesday what Hamas has long denied, that its operatives were behind the kidnapping and murder last June of Israeli teens Nafatli Fraenkel, Gil-Ad Shaer and Eyal Yifrah in the West Bank. In his announcement, which came during a conference of Islamic clerics in Turkey, al-Aruri praised what he described as the "heroic action of the Kassam Brigades who kidnapped three settlers in Hebron."

** Karen Or, an organization for assisting blind and special needs children in Jerusalem which the International Christian Embassy Jerusalem (ICEJ) has been sponsoring for many years, was targeted by hackers this week. The organization's website was defaced with jihadist songs and images of the fighting in Gaza, as well as pictures which purported to show wounded Palestinian children in Gaza but which were later proven to be taken from the conflict in Syria.

** An Islamic Jihad official says Israel will be forced to return to the negotiation table following what he calls the failed attempt to assassinate Hamas military leader Muhammad Deif. Khaled al-Batash says Palestinian factions would be willing to return to Cairo for ceasefire talks.

** While tunnels used by Gaza's dominant Hamas militants to infiltrate Israel were a priority target of an Israeli offensive in the Palestinian enclave, many smuggling conduits into Egypt have skirted detection. That has allowed transports of weapons, building materials, medicine and food to continue to and from the small, coastal territory that is subject to blockade by both Israel and Egypt, tunnel operators say and Egyptian security sources acknowledge.

** Terrorists in Gaza fired a 107 mm rocket at the Kerem Shalom crossing for goods, the Defence Ministry said yesterday. The attack came despite the fact that the crossing is used by Israel to send hundreds of trucks of humanitarian goods and fuel per day. Since the beginning of the war, more than 5,000 trucks carrying tens of thousands of tons of humanitarian goods, including medical equipment, food, fuel, gas, and other goods have crossed via Kerem Shalom into Gaza.

** At least 50 rockets and mortars have so far today been fired on southern Israel, with one landing near a preschool, following violent yesterday which saw over 100 rockets launched. The IDF hit over 30 Gaza targets in response, and two were killed.

** Today Hamas militants killed seven Palestinians suspected of collaborating with Israel in a public execution in a central Gaza square on Friday, according to witnesses and al-Majd, a pro-Hamas website. The victims, their heads covered and hands tied, were shot dead by masked gunmen dressed in black in front of a crowd of worshippers outside a mosque after prayers.Another 11 people suspected of collaborating with Israel were killed by gunmen at an abandoned police station in Gaza earlier today, Hamas security officials said.

** After the killing of three of its senior commanders by Israel, Hamas vowed early today that it would be “strengthened” in its quest “to lift the siege on Gaza” and “liberate Jerusalem and Palestine from the neo-Nazi occupier who destroys houses and kills women and children.”

** Officials said late Wednesday that an Israeli-owned commercial ship has unloaded its cargo at a port in California after being delayed for days by a group of pro-Palestinian protesters.

** The death toll from Syria's civil war has risen to more than 191,000 people killed between March 2011 and April 2014, reported the United Nations. The figure is the first issued by the UN's human rights office since July 2013, when it documented more than 100,000 killed.

** The sophistication, wealth and military might of Islamic State militants represent a major threat to the United States that may surpass that once posed by al Qaeda, US military leaders said yesterday. "They are an imminent threat to every interest we have, whether it's in Iraq or anywhere else," said Defence Secretary Chuck Hagel.

** With Egyptian efforts to end the Gaza war collapsing, Britain, France and Germany are discussing a possible Security Council resolution calling for a sustainable ceasefire and an international monitoring mission to ensure its implementation, UN diplomats said yesterday.

** Head of the PA Sports Authority and Deputy Secretary of the Fatah Central Committee Jibril Rajoub:
"I'm telling everyone: Fatah has decided that our relations with the Israelis are relations between enemies. There is no kind of coordination between the Israelis and us. Everyone can be certain that any form of mutual coordination ended a day after they declared war on the National Unity Government... OK, brother, here is the occupation, am I stopping you from slaughtering a settlement? No one is stopping anyone. Don't lie and tell me: 'the [PA] Security Forces and Mahmoud Abbas,' and so on [stop you]. Drop it, OK? No one is stopping anyone. Our political decision is resistance in the occupied territories in order to bring an end to the occupation [using] all forms of resistance."
[Awdah independent Palestinian TV channel, Aug. 13, 2014]

NOTE WELL – This is from Fatah, not Hamas.

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How come every time my ship comes in, I'm at the airport?

OPERATION PROTECTIVE EDGE – Update Monday 25 August 2014, 10h00

** A rocket fired from Lebanese territory hit northern Israel late Saturday, on the 47th day of a war against the Islamist terror movement Hamas in the Gaza Strip. A Lebanese security source said the rocket was fired from Dheira, three kilometres (nearly two miles) from the border with Israel.

** An Israeli air strike destroyed a 13-story residential tower block in the center of Gaza City on Saturday and initial reports said 17 people were wounded, the Israeli army and Gaza health officials said. The multi-story building housed an enormous Hamas command centre, IDF sources said, and added that only combatants were inside at the time of the air strike.

** Palestinian sources have reported that the man in charge of money transfers for Hamas in Gaza Mohammed al-Ghoul, who also moonlighted as the Hamas Justice Minister, was killed Sunday afternoon by an IDF rocket that hit his car. The surgical strike in northern Gaza has been confirmed by the IDF, following Palestinian reports. In the enclosed video, circulating in Arab reports of al-Ghoul’s ruined car, the Hamas leader’s charred body can clearly be seen. And wads of U.S dollars can be seen being picked up from inside the burning car, money that was on its way to pay Hamas jihadists.

** Ofir Gendleman, the Prime Minister’s spokesman to the Arab world, said that the Hamas Interior Ministry has requested again Sunday morning that residents not heed IDF warnings to evacuate areas used by Hamas to fire rockets into Israel.

** IAF airstrikes Sunday night destroyed an office building in Rafah that housed an office of Hamas’s Interior Ministry, according to AP. The seven-story Zourab building was levelled and the strikes caused severe damage to nearby shops, homes and cars. Another strike hit a nearby shopping centre with dozens of shops, sparking a fire that gutted the two-story building.

** Yesterday the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defence Committee authorized the government's request to call up another 10,000 reservists. In addition, the committee extended the "special situation on the home front" until September 2 and called for the Finance Ministry to finalize by that date the amount of compensation for damages, direct and indirect, that residents of the south will receive.

** Also yesterday, the Defence Ministry decided to close down the Erez border crossing into Gaza after mortar fire seriously injured two people and moderately wounded a third person. The Erez crossing had remained open throughout Operation Protective Edge in order to transport injured Palestinians to Israel for treatment.

** In an interview with Yahoo News in Cairo, Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal said that Hamas does not try to target civilians. "We do not target civilians, and we try most of the time to aim at military targets and Israeli bases. But we admit that we have a problem. We do not have sophisticated weapons. We do not have the weapons available to our enemy … so aiming is difficult. We do promise you, though, that we will try in the future and we will warn people … We have given warnings to Israeli civilians. We promise that if we get more precise weapons, we will only target military targets."

** If no long-term arrangement is reached “within a few days” in Cairo, “on Israel’s terms,” reported Channel 10, then the army will move “to the next stage… a renewed ground offensive.” This could take the form of incursions “in one or more areas… designed to harm Hamas” with the troops then “coming back out.”

** On Saturday senior Hamas official Musa Abu Marzouk said his organization has signed a paper supporting any Palestinian initiative to join the International Criminal Court. Izzat Rishq, another Hamas official, confirmed the document was signed. Abbas has, as of late, said he intends to ask the courts to look into possible war crime committed by Israel.

** Tayeb Abdel Rahim, the secretary-general of the PA presidency, condemned Hamas-led executions of suspected collaborators with Israel, calling them unlawful and "offensive to our people and our families." He added that the group's claims that the public killings of 18 suspects on Friday were done "in accordance with the law" were "absolutely not true" and sadi they were done in cold blood.

** Once again, a member of the Fatah movement which is touted as a “peace partner” for Israel has called for violence against Israel. "I support a powerful response by the resistance, but one that inflicts casualties, especially in the occupation army... because this is the best way to influence them," said Tawfiq Tirawi, a member of the Fatah Central Committee, in an interview with the Lebanese Al-Mayadeen TV.

** Haaretz’s Amos Harel noted that despite the killing of top Hamas commanders, and shortages of long-range missiles with no way to replenish them, Gaza is still in the fight for the long haul, with enough short range rockets and mortars to continue to make life hellish for southern residents in an ongoing war of attrition.

** Apple co-founder and legendary technologist Steve Wozniak arrived in Israel over the weekend to attend a conference on education and technology, the Times of Israel reported, despite the ongoing conflict with Hamas. He joined joining the education and science ministers, as well as mayors, MKs and other leaders, at a conference in Holon.

** UNICEF released a statement on the deaths of children in Israel and Gaza during the conflict, which reads:
The death of a four year old Israeli child in a rocket attack yesterday and the reported deaths of two Palestinian children in Gaza in an airstrike this morning, add to those of 478 other Palestinian children killed in attacks in Gaza over the last month. The deaths of children on all sides constitute further tragic evidence of the terrible impact the conflict is having on children and their families on all sides.

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How come every time my ship comes in, I'm at the airport?