PROTECTIVE EDGE

GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip - Escalating their ground offensive, Israeli troops backed by tanks and warplanes battled Hamas militants in a crowded neighborhood of Gaza City on Sunday. 

The fighting, including heavy Israeli tank fire, killed scores of Palestinians, forced thousands to flee their homes and left dozens of homes destroyed.

Palestinian militants have fired 2,000 rockets at Israel in recent days, Kerry added, so many that Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had to interrupt calls with President Obama because there was a siren going off.

An Egyptian-brokered cease-fire was rejected by Hamas last week after the group said it was not consulted over the truce. Egypt's new government is hostile to the Muslim Brotherhood of its last president Mohammed Morsi, who was ousted last year, and by extension to its counterpart in Gaza, Hamas.

Since the conflict began almost two weeks ago, 410 Palestinians have died with 3,000 wounded, according to Gaza Health Ministry spokesman Ashraf al-Kidra. Five Israeli soldiers and two civilians have also been killed.

---

 

The Bible

[Amos 1:7] “So I will send fire upon the wall of Gaza and it will consume her citadels.

[Zephaniah 2:4] For Gaza will be abandoned And Ashkelon a desolation; Ashdod will be driven out at noon and Ekron will be uprooted.

Ashkelon and Ashdod belonged to Philistia, but today these two cities are Israeli. Prophets Amos, Zephaniah and Zechariah spoke figuratively of Gaza inhabitants, rather than about these two cities specifically.  Also Ekron was a Philistine city where Beelzebub worship came from. [2Kings 1:2] And Ahaziah fell through the lattice in his upper chamber which was in Samaria, and became ill. So he sent messengers and said to them, “Go, inquire of Baal-zebub, the god of Ekron, whether I will recover from this sickness.” [3] But the angel of the LORD said to Elijah the Tishbite, “Arise, go up to meet the messengers of the king of Samaria and say to them, ‘Is it because there is no God in Israel that you are going to inquire of Baal-zebub, the god of Ekron?’ [6] They said to him, “A man came up to meet us and said to us, ‘Go, return to the king who sent you and say to him, “Thus says the LORD, ‘Is it because there is no God in Israel that you are sending to inquire of Baal-zebub, the god of Ekron? Therefore you shall not come down from the bed where you have gone up, but shall surely die.’”’”

[2Kings 1:16] Then he said to him, “Thus says the LORD, ‘Because you have sent messengers to inquire of Baal-zebub, the god of Ekron--is it because there is no God in Israel to inquire of His word?--therefore you shall not come down from the bed where you have gone up, but shall surely die.’”

In the New Testament we find this Philistine god again. Jesus was accused of casting out demons by Beelzebul; this name is derived from Baal, which in modern Hebrew means lord, master and husband. 

[Mark 3:22] The scribes who came down from Jerusalem were saying, “He is possessed by Beelzebul,” and “He casts out the demons by the ruler of the demons.”

[Zechariah 9:5] Ashkelon will see it and be afraid. Gaza too will writhe in great pain; also Ekron, for her expectation has been confounded. Moreover, the king will perish from Gaza, and Ashkelon will not be inhabited.

Ashdod is Israel's port city second to Haifa. From the biblical view these cities have been redeemed and thrive under Israel's control. 

Many Palestinian Arabs - Israeli citizens - enjoy peace and prosperity under Israel.  They have noticed that living in peace with Israel has its benefits. Many Muslim Imams know that this entire strip of land we call Israel belongs to the Jews, for so declared no one else but Muhammad in the Koran. The more they educate themselves in a peaceful manner the better they know their prophet and his book. Therefore, Muslims need proper teaching and they do respond accordingly. Other brainwashing teachings also work "wonders" to the point of Muslims blowing themselves up for the false cause.

Gaza in history

Actually Israel did not want Gaza, but it fell into Israeli hands during the six days war in 1967. However, Gaza prior to that, Egypt held the Gaza Strip between 1948 and October 1956 and again from March 1957 to June 1967. From September 1948, until Nasser's dissolution in 1959, the Gaza Strip was officially administered by the All-Palestine Government. Although largely symbolic, the government was recognized by most members of the Arab League. Following its dissolution, Egypt did not annex the Gaza Strip but left it under military rule pending a resolution of the Palestine question. 

The All-Palestine Government was an entity established by the Arab League on 22 September 1948, during the 1948 Arab-Israeli War, purportedly to provide a Palestinian government for Palestine. After the War, the Gaza Strip was the only former-Mandate territory under the jurisdiction of the All-Palestine Government. However, the members of the Government were consequently removed to Cairo, and had little or no influence over events in Gaza.

We are a generation that settles the land, and without the steel helmet and the cannon's fire we will not be able to plant a tree and build a home.

This is from a funeral oration delivered in April 1956 by Moshe Dayan, then chief of the Israel Defense Forces. Dayan, a seminal figure in Israeli history, was honoring a settler killed in a kibbutz near the border with the Gaza Strip, then technically under Egyptian control. The thin slice of land had seen an influx of Palestinian refugees after Israel's 1948 war of independence, as Israeli forces seized and razed myriad Palestinian villages. Neighboring Arab states had fought against Israel's creation.

Israeli Major General in the Reserves Ariel Sharon (2nd R), Lieutenant General Haim Bar Lev (3rd L) and Israeli Defense Minister Moshe Dayan (C) confer October 17, 1973 during the 1973 Middle East War in this handout photo released by the Government Press Office. REUTERS/Government Press Office/Handout

Dayan was sanguine not just about the strength of arms needed to win and protect a homeland for the Jewish people, but about its effects on the Palestinians displaced and dispossessed as a result. "Let us not cast the blame on the murderers today," he said in the same speech, referring to the Palestinians behind the attack on the kibbutz. "Why should we deplore their burning hatred for us? For eight years they have been sitting in the refugee camps in Gaza, and before their eyes we have been transforming the lands and the villages, where they and their fathers dwelt, into our estate."

A decade later, Israel took control of Gaza following the 1967 Arab-Israeli war.

[Source: Washington Post]

One can see that Israel was not about the oppression of Palestinians, for they were oppressed enough. This also explains Hamas's hostility toward the new Egyptian president who suppresses the Muslim Brotherhood, which was sympathetic to Hamas and Gaza. 

At this stage 13 Israeli soldiers are dead and one captured. This will lead to further escalation of violence in the region.