EFL
Israeli militants killed a senior Hamas official and two of his bodyguards Thursday in a strike meant as retaliation for Tuesday’s deadly Jerusalem bus bombing. The targeted attack brought the already tenuous truce between Israeli and Palestinian groups perilously close to destruction.
Two reactions: 1. What truce?
2. If anything should be "perilously close to destruction," it should be Hamas. An Israeli helicopter fired five missiles at a gold-colored station wagon in a crowded Gaza City neighborhood Thursday, killing Hamas senior official Ismail Abu Shanab and two of his bodyguards, the Islamic militant group said.
Hard kill, no collateral damage. Nice work.
A senior Hamas official on Thursday declared the cease-fire previously agreed upon between militant groups dead.
I say again, what truce?
"We consider ourselves free from this make-believe cease-fire," said Hamas official Ibrahim Haniyeh. "The assassination of Abu Shanab ... means that I need new underwear the Zionist enemy has assassinated the truce and the Hamas movement holds the Zionist enemy fully responsible for the consequences of its crime," Ismail al-Haniyah told reporters in Gaza. The three-month unilateral cease-fire was declared June 29. Hamas, vowing retaliation for Thursday’s attack, just two days earlier carried out a homicide bombing in Jerusalem, killing 20 people, but insisted at the time it was still observing the truce.
This must be some bold new definition of "observing the truce" that was previously unknown to the civilized world. |