Gaza crisis: Israel intensifies aerial attack

[busybeeburns]

 

Gaza crisis: Israel intensifies aerial attack

 

Israel's aerial bombardment of Gaza has intensified after it authorised the call-up of 30,000 army reservists, amid reports of a possible ground offensive.

 

Israel said it fired at more than 130 targets in Gaza overnight, saying militants fired 11 rockets from Gaza.

 

On Thursday rockets were fired 70km (45 miles) north of Gaza towards Tel Aviv.

 

Fighting has intensified since Israel killed Ahmed Jabari, the military leader of the Islamist group that controls the territory, on Wednesday.

 

At least 18 Palestinians in Gaza have been killed in Israeli airstrikes, including children, and three Israelis have been killed by Palestinian rocket fire into southern Israel.

 

Egyptian PM Hisham Qandil is to travel to Gaza later in a show of support. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said his country's offensive action would be suspended during the three-hour visit, as long as no rockets were fired from Gaza.

 

Israeli trucks have transported tanks and other armoured vehicles towards Gaza

 

Explosions continued in Gaza throughout Thursday night as Israel stepped up its air bombardment, with huge blasts rocking Gaza City as dawn broke on Friday.

 

Palestinian militants have continued to fire rockets at Israeli cities: by Thursday night, Hamas said it had fired more than 350 rockets from Gaza, of which Israel said 130 had been intercepted by its Iron Dome missile defence system.

 

In Tel Aviv on Thursday, residents took cover after air raid sirens alerted them to a missile threat for the first time since Iraq targeted the city with Scud missiles during the Gulf War in 1991. One missile landed in an uninhabited area while another is thought to have landed in the sea.

 

The armed wing of Islamic Jihad said it had fired an Iranian-built, Fajr-5 rocket - which has an estimated range of 75km.

 

 

Israeli Defence Minister Ehud Barak said targeting Tel Aviv would "exact a price that the other side will have to pay".

 

Early on Friday, Israel's army said leaflets had been dropped over several locations in the Gaza Strip on Thursday, warning residents "to stay away from Hamas, and other terror organizations".

 

"Before action, the IDF disperses warning leaflets calling all civilians to evacuate the area. This happened [on Thursday]," the army tweeted.

 

There were reports of buses of Israeli troops - and trucks loaded with tanks and armoured personnel carriers - heading towards the coastal enclave.

 

Israeli television stations said the build-up suggested an incursion was planned, but military officials said no decision had been made.

 

The Hamas Prime Minister in Gaza, Ismail Haniyeh, condemned what he called Israel's "ferocious assault" against the territory.

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Anonymous hacker group attacks Israeli websites

 

Anonymous announced its attacks via Twitter

 

Anonymous hacker group attacks Israeli websites

 

Hacking group Anonymous has launched a series of cyber attacks against websites in Israel.

 

Data bombardments briefly knocked some sites offline and led to others being defaced with pro-Palestinian messages.

 

The OpIsrael campaign was launched by the hacking collective in retaliation for attacks on Gaza.

 

The cyber attacks come as the Israeli army updates its web campaign adding "achievements" and "badges" for regular visitors.

 

Anonymous said it had launched the OpIsrael campaign following threats by the Israeli government to cut all Gaza's telecommunication links. This, said the group in a statement posted to the AnonRelations website, "crossed a line in the sand".

 

"We are ANONYMOUS and NO ONE shuts down the Internet on our watch," it said.

 

The group warned the Israeli government not to cut off telecom and web links and urged it to end military operations in Gaza. If the attacks did not end, Israel would feel the group's "full and unbridled wrath".

 

Hours after the statement was launched, Anonymous posted a list of 87 sites it claimed had been defaced or attacked as part of OpIsrael. Many of the sites had their homepages replaced with messages in support of Hamas and the Palestinians.

 

Anonymous also produced a package of information for people in Gaza detailing alternative ways for them to communicate if net and other telecommunication links were cut.

 

At the same time as the Anonymous attacks were being carried out, the Israeli Defence Force re-started tools on its blog that reward people for repeat visits and interacting with the site.

 

Called IDF Ranks, the tools add a "game" element to the blog and reward repeat visitors with points. When visitors have amassed enough points they get a virtual military rank.

 

A visitor who goes to the site 10 times gets a "consistent" badge and someone who does lots of searches gets rewarded with the "research officer" rank.

 

The army said the rank system was turned off briefly as its social media sites had received very heavy traffic. On Wednesday, it began a live feed about its military operation against Hamas in the Gaza Strip.

 

Similarly, Hamas has been giving running commentaries on its mortar and rocket attacks on Israeli targets via Twitter.

 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-20356757

[Ducky_]

Craig Murray isn't happy.

 

The ex 'diplomat' is so incensed by our state broadcasters Zionist coverage, that he refers to it as Beyond Belief ****s.