This morning’s round up of the Israel vs Hamas conflict

Israel endured around 120 rocket attacks yesterday from Gaza, with Iron Dome intercepting 23 and letting the rest crash in open areas with no damage, according to Israel National News.

Hamas, on the other hand, was clearly on the worst end of the stick with 27 people killed in Israeli airstrikes and 100 more wounded.

One of those killed was a senior terrorist with Islamic Jihad.

Because of the continuous barrage of rockets, Netanyahu gave the order overnight to widen the operation against Hamas:

“The state of Israel is in the midst of a campaign to bring back peace and security to our citizens,” he said. “We will not stand for rocket fire on our cities and communities; therefore I gave instructions to widen in a meaningful way the IDF operation against the Hamas terrorists and against the terrorists of the other terror organizations in Gaza.

“I did so only after all of the attempts that were made to restore quiet went unheeded, and Hamas opted for escalation. We do not go gleefully into battle, but the security of our citizens and children comes before everything else. We will do all that is necessary so that the calm that we have experienced here in recent years continues.”

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In other news, the White House in a rare statement condemned the barrage of rocket fire from the Gaza Strip and said Israel has a right to defend itself from these attacks:

“We strongly condemn the continuing rocket fire inside of Israel and the deliberate targeting of civilians by terrorist organizations in Gaza,” White House spokesman Josh Earnest said in a statement.

“No country can accept rocket fire aimed at civilians and we support Israel’s right to defend itself against these vicious attacks,” he added.

Britain also joined in on the same condemnations.

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On the flip side, both Jordan and Iran are condemning Israel’s Operation Protective Edge, with Jordan calling it barbaric and threatening to revoke their 1994 peace treaty with Israel if these airstrikes aren’t halted.

Iran is calling it savage aggression by the Zionists and is calling for the West to urge Israel to halt their air campaign to prevent a human catastrophe.

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Also, if you haven’t heard yet, there is a new IOS app (iPhone, iPad) called Red Alert that alerts you when the sirens go off in Israel. I had to put my phone in do not disturb mode last night just to keep it from waking me. The rockets began firing like clockwork at 8am Israeli time (1am ET) with at least 6 sirens going off in the first 8am hour.


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