CEASEFIRE
This is just a quick update on yesterday's blog. At 11:30PM last night a ceasefire between Israel and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad went into effect. Apart from a few rockets fired by the PIJ in the minutes after that time, the ceasefire is holding. There has been no exchange of fire for over 9 hours now and the Home Front Command is beginning to lift restrictions on residents of the Gaza Envelope towns and settlements. Life is slowly returning to normal. One of the first restrictions to be lifted is the opening of the Gaza border, but only for humanitarian supplies. The roads in and out of the envelope are now open and the train services will begin at midday today. Residents of the Gaza Envelope are now being allowed to leave the immediate vicinity of their bomb shelters.
Minutes before the ceasefire was to come into effect Israel came under a barrage of rockets, including longer range missiles fired at Beersheva. Anticipating this Israel had fighter jets in the air ready to respond if necessary and they did. In the 10 minutes before the ceasefire they carried out a massive attack on PIJ targets, including some large warehouses storing weapons and ammunition. The Israeli attack however stopped exactly at 11:30 PM.
In the 3 days of Operation Breaking Dawn, the PIJ fired 1100 rockets towards Israel, but around 200 of which landed inside the Gaza Strip (1). Most of the rockets that made it into Israel fell into open spaces or were shot down by the Iron Dome defense system, which reported a 95% success rate. Two or three homes and two factories scored a direct hit but there were no serious injuries as a result. A number of people sustained light injuries, mainly as a result of falls when running to shelter, and one 60-yr-old man died of a heart attack.
Gazan sources claim that 35 people were killed in the Gaza Strip, 26 of them being civilians. Israel claims that of those 26, 11 were killed by Israeli airstrikes and more 15 were killed by PIJ rockets that failed to reach Israel. Israel took extreme care to avoid civilian casualties, warning nearby residents of imminent attacks and even calling off attacks when children were seen in the target area. No civilian infrastructure was harmed. Israel killed three of the top PIJ leaders, and earlier captured one, leaving the chain of command in disarray. Hamas did not join in the fighting.
I hope that this is the end of Operation Breaking Dawn. I hope that the message has been received. Israel will no longer tolerate threats and the constant rain of rockets and other weapons in its territory. We have had enough. Instead of responding to attacks, we will now be much more proactive, and will initiate action, as we did this time, to prevent concrete threats to our security.
Thank you for all your prayers. It truly is a miracle that there were so few casualties and also that the confrontation has ended so quickly, after just 3 days. Please keep praying as the situation is tense and fragile on all fronts.
“For the day of the Lord upon all the nations is near;
As you have done, it shall be done to you;
Your reprisal shall return upon your own head.
16 For as you drank on My holy mountain,
So shall all the nations drink continually;
Yes, they shall drink, and swallow,
And they shall be as though they had never been.
17 “But on Mount Zion there shall be deliverance,
And there shall be holiness;
The house of Jacob shall possess their possessions.
18 The house of Jacob shall be a fire,
And the house of Joseph a flame;
But the house of Esau shall be stubble;
They shall kindle them and devour them,
And no survivor shall remain of the house of Esau,”
For the Lord has spoken.
19 The South shall possess the mountains of Esau,
And the Lowland shall possess Philistia.
They shall possess the fields of Ephraim
And the fields of Samaria.
Benjamin shall possess Gilead.
20 And the captives of this host of the children of Israel
Shall possess the land of the Canaanites
As far as Zarephath.
The captives of Jerusalem who are in Sepharad
Shall possess the cities of the South.
21 Then saviors shall come to Mount Zion
To judge the mountains of Esau,
And the kingdom shall be the Lord’s.
Obadiah 1: 15-21
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