{"id":193266,"date":"2009-01-03T17:47:00","date_gmt":"2009-01-03T22:47:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/2009\/01\/03\/gaza-update-7\/"},"modified":"2009-01-03T17:47:00","modified_gmt":"2009-01-03T22:47:00","slug":"gaza-update-7","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/2009\/01\/03\/gaza-update-7\/","title":{"rendered":"Gaza Update"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I guess that the lede here is the deaths of <a href=\"http:\/\/english.aljazeera.net\/news\/middleeast\/2009\/01\/200911133527449783.html\">Nizar Rayyan<\/a>, who appears to be the most senior member of Hamas&#8217; military wing, and <a href=\"http:\/\/edition.cnn.com\/2009\/WORLD\/meast\/01\/03\/israel.gaza\/\">Azkariah al-Jamal<\/a>, leader of their rocket forces.<\/p>\n<p>While al-Jamal was hit in his car, Rayyan was hit at his home, where he was staying with his 4(!) wives and 10 children, who were also killed in the strike.<sup>*<\/sup><\/p>\n<p>I can&#8217;t say that I&#8217;ll shed a tear over Rayaan or al-Jamal, though the deaths of family members is unfortunate.<\/p>\n<p>Israel is <a href=\"http:\/\/www.bloomberg.com\/apps\/news?pid=20601087&amp;sid=a1Vu.BNmmm7o&amp;refer=home\">still resisting calls for a truce<\/a>, and there are <a href=\"http:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/wp-dyn\/content\/article\/2009\/01\/02\/AR2009010200706.html\">increasing indications that Israel is preparing for a ground assault<\/a> (also <a href=\"http:\/\/www.cnn.com\/2009\/WORLD\/meast\/01\/02\/israel.gaza\/index.html?eref=rss_topstories\">here<\/a>)<\/p>\n<p>In the world of the more surreal aspects of the war, there is a <a href=\"http:\/\/www.aviationweek.com\/aw\/blogs\/defense\/index.jsp?plckController=Blog&amp;plckScript=blogScript&amp;plckElementId=blogDest&amp;plckBlogPage=BlogViewPost&amp;plckPostId=Blog%3A27ec4a53-dcc8-42d0-bd3a-01329aef79a7Post%3Addb285bb-b860-42fa-a3c8-3131412a766a\">PR campaign between Israel and Hamas being conducted on YouTube<\/a>, and in the reports of Israeli cell phone warnings to civilians in advance of strikes, we have another report confirming this activity, along with <a href=\"http:\/\/blog.wired.com\/defense\/2009\/01\/israel-calls-th.html\">reports that Hamas is sending text message threats<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Again, let me state that I really want to hear the War Nerd&#8217;s perspective on all this, because his lack of moral dimension on his commentary provides more military insight.<\/p>\n<p><sup>*<\/sup><span style=\"font-size:78%;\">Reports are that he refused to go to ground, a stupidity that should be restricted to military leaders, and that he refused to allow his family to go elsewhere, which is wrong, and cowardly, on <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: bold;font-size:78%;\" >many<\/span><span style=\"font-size:78%;\"> levels.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I guess that the lede here is the deaths of Nizar Rayyan, who appears to be the most senior member of Hamas&#8217; military wing, and Azkariah al-Jamal, leader of their rocket forces. While al-Jamal was hit in his car, Rayyan was hit at his home, where he was staying with his 4(!) wives and 10 &hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1159,1098],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-193266","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-israel","category-war"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/193266"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=193266"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/193266\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=193266"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=193266"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=193266"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}