Hamas has released a new animated video depicting the moment Gilad Shalit was kidnapped on June 25, 2006
The video, which was published on a website affiliated with Hamas’ military wing, shows an Israeli tank, security cameras on the border fence with the Gaza Strip and an unmanned aerial vehicle circling the air.
In the video, the tank carrying Shalit explodes. At the end the words: “The illusion is shattering” appear in Arabic.
The website’s homepage shows a toolbar with the years that have passed – 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010. Text near the 2010 reads: “Four years on, we still have Gilad.” The date of the kidnapping also appears on the site.
By the way, the YouTube video is from the Ezzedeen01 channel. Subscribers includeHammas4ever, and GiladShalit. These channels are operating freely, despite the obvious support of terrorism and hatred. The latter even contains a death threat against another YouTube user.
My new mission in this world is to find? out who you are, and where you live. I SWEAR TO MY G-D ABOVE, I’M GOING TO CUT YOUR F****ING HEAD OFF
Help me report them.
Updates (Israel time; most recent at top)
10:35PM: Here is a cartoon I found on the Hamas website forum, which seems similar to the one described in the previous update (similar, but not the same, since the octopus is not carrying an Israeli flag with a Nazi swastika).
10:30PM: The Israeli embassy has sent a complaint to the Al-Watani al-Youm (the National Today) newspaper of Egypt’s ruling party, regarding an antisemitic cartoon.
Al-Watani al-Youm (the National Today) published a cartoon on June 15 showing an aid ship apparently bound for Gaza being grabbed by an octopus carrying an Israeli flag with a Nazi swastika in place of the Star of David symbol.
The weekly is the mouthpiece of President Hosni Mubarak’s National Democratic Party.
And why did Israel specifically decide to protest this cartoon, as opposed to all the other ones published in Egyptian papers?
“The Israeli Embassy chose to comment on this caricature specifically because of the comparison between Israel and Nazism,” spokeswoman Shani Cooper-Zubida told Reuters.
“There are a lot of anti-Semitic comments and caricatures in the Egyptian media that we prefer not to comment on. This one didn’t present legitimate opposition to Israeli policy, but defamation,” she said in an e-mailed response.
As if all the others ones are “legitimate opposition to Israeli policy”?
Meanwhile, accompanying the Ha’aretz report is this photo with a caption spelling out the obvious.
In case you are not familiar with the Israeli flag. Or a swastika.
7:48PM: Will they or won’t they? Once again, it seems as though the Iranian ship will not sail to Gaza, but this time organizers are blaming Egypt.
Organizers of an Iranian aid ship said Sunday that they will not set sail to Gaza because Egypt refused permission to enter the Suez Canal.
The Iranian Red Crescent said the boat was loaded and ready to depart from the southern port of Bandar Abbas when Egypt refused the boat passage, in a statement to French news wire AFP.
Egypt, however, has denied that it prevented the mission. Speaking to AFP, a Suez Canal official said, “Under an international treaty, the canal is obligated to let any ship through, whether it is Iranian or not.”
He added, “We have not received any instructions to ban the Iranian aid ships from using the Suez Canal.”
It is the second time the cancellation of the voyage has been announced. At a press conference Thursday, an Iranian official said that the voyage was aborted due to restrictions imposed by Israel.
A member of the Popular Front’s military wing was killed by IDF fire in the eastern part of Gaza City Monday, Palestinian sources in the Strip said.
Another three people sustained wounds in the incident, the Palestinians said.
The army said that an Air Force aircraft targeted a Palestinian who fired mortar shells at an IDF force operating near the Gaza border fence, on the Israeli side.
IDF officials said that a hit was identified and added that a military vehicle was damaged by the Palestinian fire.
Medical sources in Gaza said that the dead and injured Palestinians were brought to a local hospital. The killed man was apparently a member of the Abu-Ali Mustafah Brigades of the Popular Front. The group said its members fired at Israel before coming under attack.
Earlier Monday, a mortar shell was fired from the northern Gaza Strip and landed between two kibbutzim in the Shaar Hanegev regional Council.
No injuries or damages were report in the attack.
5:00PM: US Vice President Joe Biden tells of his encounter with former Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir and hearing about Israel’s “secret weapon.”
A top Hamas leader has warned Israel to expect more Gaza-bound pro-Palestinian flotillas over the next two months, including vessels “from the Gulf”. Mahmoud Zahar, often seen as the dominant figure in Hamas’s political leadership in Gaza, said that he had been informed by “people … from the Gulf states” that “after the Mondial [World Cup] at least eight ships will come from the Gulf”.
I appreciate them waiting until after the World Cup because quite frankly, it is hard to concentrate on the games when “breaking news” alerts appear on the television screen.
Meanwhile, old wart nose had a lot more to say, including what seems to be a confirmation that the flotilla organizers and “activists” have links with Hamas.
"I don't understand why FIFA won't consider using my wart as a game ball"
Dr Zahar did not name the states involved but when asked if they included Iran he replied: “Why not?” It is over four weeks since a Turkish-led flotilla was halted by a lethal Israeli commando raid which led to the deaths of nine activists and provoked an international outcry.
In an interview with The Independent, the Hamas leader also accused the Israeli government of reneging on a prisoner swap agreement which he insisted could have led to the release of captive Israeli soldier Gilad Schalit. “Up to this moment, the Israeli intention is not to have an agreement,” he claimed.
Dr Zahar said that those in Hamas’s military wing presumed to be holding Sgt Schalit were still refusing to allow the Red Cross or any other independent humanitarian organisation to visit him, “I asked that to the people concerned and they said to me it [a visit] was impossible.” Asked whether it was believable that the Red Cross would use a humanitarian visit to pass details of the abducted sergeant’s whereabouts to Israel, he said: “I trust nobody.”
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Claiming that there would be more flotillas “than in your expectations”, he said that he also expected further vessels to set out for Gaza during Ramadan, the Muslim month of fasting, which begins this year on 11 August. On the possibility that Egypt might prevent a flotilla from the Gulf passing through the Suez Canal en route to Gaza, he said; “They have the right in international law to go as the Israelis go. Egypt will never be able to stop such a campaign.” And on the possibility that Iran might sponsor a vessel or vessels, he said: “I ask you about morality. Where is your morality if Iran is going to give food and drugs? What justifies preventing that? Give me the basis [for that] from your bible.”
The Hamas co-founder was bitterly critical of Western policy towards Hamas and Gaza over the four and half years since the Islamic faction won the last Palestinian elections. “Why did the Western people boycott Hamas after the election?” he asked. “Because they want a new Karzai in Palestine”. He was equally contemptuous of Western support for the blockade imposed by Israel when Hamas seized control in a short but bloody civil war with its Fatah rivals and coalition partners in June 2007. He claimed the closure of Gaza conformed to Western definitions of “terrorism” by using “violence” to change the attitudes of its victims. “I am asking you, why did you accept this process four years ago?”
But he appeared to derive considerable satisfaction from recent pressure put by the international Quartet of the US, UN, EU and Russia on Israel to relax the blockade – “a big change” which he attributed to popular discontent within the Western states that he claimed was exemplified by the flotillas. Lamenting that the change of heart had followed what he said were 2,000 Palestinian deaths in “two wars” against Gaza – one after the seizure of Sgt Gilad Schalit in 2006 and the other the winter offensive of 2008-09, he said: “Everybody is fed up with this policy. The politicians in the West don’t have a heart, they have a dry morality. But the people – and this was proved drastically – were ready to sacrifice their lives [to force a change of policy].”
Asked whether there had been close ties between Hamas and the main Turkish organisation involved in organising the flotilla, he replied derisively. “It’s a big mistake to have such a linkage with Turkey, which is Muslim? A linkage between Turkey which is Muslim and Israel which is Jewish is honey but one between Muslim and Muslim is a mistake, a crime?”
But Dr Zahar, who survived an Israeli assassination attempt which killed his son in 2003, was as uncompromising as ever in rejecting the three pre-conditions imposed by the Quartet for ending its boycott of contacts with Hamas – recognition of Israel, adherence to past agreements with Israel and renuciation of violence. “What is the real border of Israel? What about the occupation of Jerusalem what about the occupation of the Golan Heights? I ask Israelis to renounce violence,” he said. “I ask your country and then the Americans to renounce violence in Afghanistan and Iraq and Pakistan and then we are going to speak about renouncing violence.”
He also roundly blamed Fatah – which he said had a past history of “100 per cent” corruption – for the lack of progress in talks on reconciliation between the two factions. He said Fatah needed to rescind what he claimed was its “refusal” to recognise the 2006 election result.
Dr Zahar strongly defended the executions of those identified as collaborators, or “spies” for Israel, while acknowledging that “not many” ex-collaborators offered an amnesty which is due to end next month had come forward. He sought to brush aside persistent criticisms that the regime in Gaza – as well as the Fatah dominated one in the West Bank – had acted repressively against politicial opponents. He also said that Hamas had eliminated kidnapping of foreigners since its success in freeing the BBC correspondent Alan Johnston.
1:15PM: It has been revealed that three Israeli Arabs “inspired by global jihad” were indicted for the 2009 murder of an Israeli taxi driver.
Yefim Weinstein, a 54-year-old taxi driver from Upper Nazareth, was found dead near Kibbutz Kfar Hahoresh in November 2009. Weinstein’s body was found after passersby noticed his cab on the side of Route 75, between Nahalal and Nazareth, near the entrance to the kibbutz.
The alleged murderer, a Nazareth resident, and two friends who allegedly helped him flee the murder scene, were part of a cell of seven men who police said were tied to global jihad. The three were arrested during a joint operation between the police and the Shin Bet security service.
According to police, the seven-man cell regularly watched al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden’s speeches online and had wanted to join the fight against Jewish and Christian “infidels.”
The indictment states that the suspects, all of whom are between 19 and 26 years old, were also allegedly involved in several other attacks against Jewish and Christian targets over recent years.
The group was exposed after two of its seven members were arrested in Somalia and extradited to Israel after they allegedly planned to fight against United States soldiers stationed there.
Police said that during questioning over the Somalia incident, the two revealed their involvement in the Nazareth cell.
Police said the men admitted that they had decided to murder a Jew and that their victim would be a taxi driver. Police added that the men said they ordered a taxi from “Ben Gurion Taxis” in Upper Nazareth. Weinstein was the driver sent to pick them up late one night in November.
Police said the suspect apparently asked Weinstein to pull over at the side of the road near the Kibbutz Kfar Harosh, and then he shot him.
According to police, the investigation also revealed that in 2008, the group attempted a similar murder. They allegedly ordered a pizza from Domino’s Pizza, and when the delivery man arrived at their destination, three of the group members allegedly attacked him, stabbed him and tied him up. The victim of that incident survived.
The group is also suspected of torching several tourist buses and throwing Molotov cocktails at a store belonging to a Christian resident of Nazareth.
12:04PM: Tel Aviv (#19, up from #24 in 2009) and Jerusalem (#22, up from #27 in 2009) feature on a list of the world’s most expensive cities (unfortunately).
12:00PM: When the extent of suffering is not as bad as you make out, just recycle old photos.
Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Monday announced that Israel will no longer use Turkish airspace, according to an Anatolian state-run news agency report.
The report quoted Erdogan telling reporters in Canada that Turkey imposed a ban on flights after the May 31 Israeli raid on a Gaza-bound aid flotilla. He did not elaborate on whether the ban includes civilian flights.
9:04AM: Sarah Palin has criticized US President Barack Obama for “selling out” Israel.
The former John McCain running mate addressed a paying audience of several hundred people in Norfolk and accused Obama of selling out ally Israel over its naval blockade of Gaza and treating Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu shabbily.
A law school graduate, David Lange transitioned from work in the oil and hi-tech industries into fulltime Israel advocacy. He is a respected commentator and Middle East analyst who has often been cited by the mainstream media
A law school graduate, David Lange transitioned from work in the oil and hi-tech industries into fulltime Israel advocacy. He is a respected commentator and Middle East analyst who has often been cited by the mainstream media
