In Spite Of The Ceasefire, Troops Remain On High Alert In Israel

In spite of the ceasefire brokered by Egypt between Israel and Hamas, tensions remain high and with good reason. More than 20 rockets have been launched at towns in southern Israel after the ceasefire and sporadic small arms firefights took place along the border.

Below, rockets being fired from Gaza into Israel.

The latest clash occurred earlier today (23 Nov) when a group of seemingly innocent civilians opened fired on an IDF patrol that was monitoring the border. The “civilians” ran and hid inside a farmer’s house. The IDF did not engage in order not to hurt the farmers.

Reservists are still on high alert. In the video below, young soldiers entertaining the reservists that are still waiting at a ready.

Israel hasn’t engaged Hamas targets after the ceasefire was set, but in response to the 20 rockets Israel did  hit the locations where the rockets were fired from.

As opposed to Hamas and Islamic Jihad random fire of rockets, Israel hits with pinpoint accuracy the targets. In the video below, the Hamas “police” HQ is hit.

http://youtu.be/GMpLihEWvFc

Morale is high on the ground. Everyone is ready to go all the way. The lives of millions of people are at the mercy of the terrorists. Conditions are less than perfect but people endure and are willing.

The IDF is a “popular” military force. Everyone serves in Israel. A minimum of 3 years for the men and 2 for the women. However, the main force in case of a war is the reservists. Everyone enters the reserve force upon discharge from active duty. Until age 50 you serve 20-40 days a year, every year, either training, on missions or guarding the borders. In cases of war or conflicts, the reservists can be recalled en-masse, like in this case. These are normal people, teachers, doctors, mechanics, sales people… They leave their families to go back and defend the country, a country that is surrounded by hostile countries.

The Iron Dome continues to provide protection against a lot of the rockets fired from Gaza, however it’s not the perfect solution.

In the past these kind of ceasefires only served to help Hamas and other terrorist organizations in Gaza (such as Al Qaida) rearm themselves and start fresh with their barrages of rockets. The media won’t talk about this, but the Sinai area is crawling with AQ and Iranian backed forces supplying Gaza with not only rockets, but modern weapons (rifles, RPGs, etc), ammo and men. Yes, like in Iraq, a lot of jihadis (mostly Iranian backed) come and infil into Gaza.

This is a temporary and sketchy ceasefire. It will get violent again. It will not stop until we, Israel, or the world does something to deal with Hamas – an organization that in its very manifesto does not recognize Israel and call for its extermination. Since the world will not do anything, in fact quite the opposite, send “help” to Gaza (usually in the form of more armament), we’ll have to do it ourselves.

There is no possible peace here, they don’t want peace. We are ready for it, be it peace or war.