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Thursday 10 May 2018

Inflammation (more than anyone else!) | head shot (The wind-down is a carve-out for everybody)

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epa editor's choice 08 May 2018: #Protest #BurningBus #DanielOrtega #Managua #Nicaragua #epaphotos Photo epa-efe / Jorge Torres: image via epa photos @epaphotos, 8 May 2018


70 שנים להקמת צהל. עוד רגע מתחיל האירוע המרכזי. עד לרגע האחרון עוד מנקים כסאות. ליברמן מצטלם עם הנספחים הצבאיים. ואלוף אחד. לא בדרגה - בהפלות. גיורא אפשטיין ה"אייס" שהפיל 17 מטוסי אויב. יותר מכל אחד אחר.
70 years since the establishment of the IDF. In another moment the main event begins. Until the last minute, they are still cleaning chairs. Lieberman is photographed with the military attaché. And one champion - not in rank but in abortion. Giora Epstein, The "Ace" that shot down 17 enemy planes. More than anyone else.: image via nir dvori @ndvori,  7 May 2018

the main event begins! nothing halfway! more than anyone else!




תמונה מדהימה של ירי הנמ הסורי על מטוסי חיל האוויר. הושמדו סוללות SA-17, SA-22, SA-5 ו-SA-2 שירו לעבר המטוסים
An amazing picture of the Syrian air force firing at the IAF. SA-17, SA-22, SA-5 and SA-5 batteries were destroyed while firing at the aircraft: image via nir dvori @ndvori, 8.41 PM 9 May 2018




Israeli tanks take position near the Syrian border in the Golan Heights on May 9, 2018.: photo by Jalaa Marey/AFP, 9 May 2018


Israeli tanks take position near the Syrian border in the Golan Heights on May 9, 2018.: photo by Jalaa Marey/AFP, 9 May 2018

Iranian forces fire rockets at Israeli military in first direct attack ever, Israel’s army says: Loveday Morris, The Washington Post, 9.54 PM 9 May 2018

Confrontation between Israel and Iranian forces in Syria sharply escalated early Thursday morning as Israel said Iran launched a barrage of 20 missiles toward its positions in the Golan Heights.

Heavy military jet activity, explosions and air-defense fire could be heard throughout the night in the area. An Israeli military spokesman said the rockets were fired by Iran’s Quds Force, a special forces unit affiliated with Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps, marking the first time Iranian forces have ever fired directly on Israeli troops.  

The Israeli military said several of the rockets had been intercepted by Israel’s missile defense system, and sparks could be seen as they broke up in the sky.

No one was injured on the Israeli side, the military said.

The Syrian state news agency, however, reported that it was Israel that had fired on targets near the town of Quneitra, located just east of the Golan Heights. Syrian air defenses had responded, it said. It later reported a “new wave” of attacks.

The Israeli miliary said it “views this event with great severity and remains prepared for a wide variety of scenarios.”

Air-raid sirens sounded in the Golan Heights shortly after midnight. In nearby Tiberias, on the edge of the Sea of Galilee, explosions could be heard above the music of bars entertaining busloads of tourists. The explosions were followed by sporadic fire into the early morning hours.

With Syria’s civil war raging just across the border, Israeli residents of the Golan Heights have become used to the air-raid sirens and errant fire. But recent days have been different, and war jitters have spread across Israel. 

On Wednesday, it had seemed like business as usual on the Golan, a plateau that rises dramatically behind the Sea of Galilee, captured from Syria by Israel in the 1967 war. 

Children went to school and wineries welcomed groups of tourists. 

But Israel trucked in tanks and additional air defense batteries, and the military chief of staff touched down in a helicopter to tour the area to assess the army’s readiness. 

On Tuesday, an airstrike attributed to Israel reportedly killed eight Iranian soldiers after Israel said it had detected unusual Iranian troop movements across the border and had intelligence about a possible attack from Syrian soil. 

Iran had threatened to retaliate against Israel after an airstrike in April that killed seven Iranian soldiers at a base in Syria.

President Trump’s decision on Tuesday to pull the United States out of the nuclear deal with Iran has given Tehran less reason to exercise caution in confronting Israel, analysts said.

“U.S. withdrawal has accelerated the escalation between Israel and Iran,” said Ofer Zalzberg, and analyst at International Crisis Group. “Iran faces less restraint in terms of the timing for a retaliation,” he said, adding that Iran probably had been waiting for the U.S. decision before formulating its next move. 

While Trump was in Washington announcing the withdrawal, Golan residents were being told Tuesday to open up their bomb shelters — the first time the army has instructed them to do so during seven years of civil war in nearby Syria. 

At Kibbutz Ein Zivan, a few miles from the Syrian border, David Spelman had pulled up a text on his phone sent from the regional council just minutes after Trump finished speaking. It instructed residents to be “watchful and prepared.” 

A populace with a pioneering spirit, Golan residents seemed accustomed to being on the fringe, close to Israel’s enemies. The Golan Heights was officially annexed by Israel in 1981, but that action has not been internationally recognized. 

“You have different level of worries, but people are pretty seasoned here,” said Spelman, a former regional council member who has lived on the kibbutz since it was established in 1968. 

“There are certain points of time that you have to face things head on, and Netanyahu is doing it,” he said of Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu. 

“It’s a really tense time,” said one regional council official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss preparations. “We are telling the citizens to still have regular life; children are going to school. But our job and the army’s job and people involved in security, it’s 24 hours. It’s something a little more this time.” 

At a winery on Ein Zivan, American tourists said Wednesday they were unaware that the U.S. government had told its employees to stay away from the Golan until the situation stabilizes. 

“Seems like much ado about nothing,” one said after a tasting. 

Amid warnings of a potential attack, some 62 percent of Israelis think a war is imminent, according to a poll commissioned Wednesday by Israel’s Hadashot news channel. 

“Iran will retaliate through proxies, sooner or later, against Israeli military sites in the north,” Gary Samore, a former White House coordinator for arms control and weapons of mass destruction, said at a security conference in Herzliya, Israel.

But he said that no side is interested in a full-scale conflict, and there is debate in Iran over how to proceed. He said Iranian President Hassan Rouhani wants to avoid confrontation because he is trying to preserve the nuclear deal with world powers. But Iranian military commanders want to retaliate for the death of Iranian soldiers.

Rouhani said his government remains committed to a nuclear deal with Europe, Russia and China, despite the U.S. decision to withdraw, but is also ready to ramp up uranium enrichment if the agreement no longer produces benefits. 

Netanyahu had been a leading advocate of a U.S. withdrawal, but his military chiefs had been more cautious. He met with Russian President Vladimir Putin Wednesday in Moscow. Russia, which is backing Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s forces alongside Iran, is seen as key in preventing ­Iranian-Israeli tensions from escalating.

Israel, determined not to let Iran expand its military presence in Syria, has struck over the border at least 100 times during the war, extending its targets from suspected arms convoys to Iranian-linked military bases.

“Iran is not fully inside. It has not yet succeeded in building what it wants to build there, and now is the time for Israel to push back,” said Chagai Tzuriel, director general of Israel’s Intelligence Ministry.

Ruth Eglash in Herzliya, Israel, contributed to this report.


Iranian forces in Syria have fired about 20 rockets and missiles at Israeli army positions in the Golan Heights, IDF says: image via AFP news agency @AFP, 8 May 201

None

Raw: Iranian Lawmakers Burn Paper US Flag


70 שנים להקמת צהל. עוד רגע מתחיל האירוע המרכזי. עד לרגע האחרון עוד מנקים כסאות. ליברמן מצטלם עם הנספחים הצבאיים. ואלוף אחד. לא בדרגה - בהפלות. גיורא אפשטיין ה"אייס" שהפיל 17 מטוסי אויב. יותר מכל אחד אחר.
70 years since the establishment of the IDF. In another moment the main event begins. Until the last minute, they are still cleaning chairs. Lieberman is photographed with the military attaché. And one champion - not in rank but in abortion. Giora Epstein, The "Ace" that shot down 17 enemy planes. More than anyone else.: image via nir dvori @ndvori,  7 May 2018


70 שנים להקמת צהל. עוד רגע מתחיל האירוע המרכזי. עד לרגע האחרון עוד מנקים כסאות. ליברמן מצטלם עם הנספחים הצבאיים. ואלוף אחד. לא בדרגה - בהפלות. גיורא אפשטיין ה"אייס" שהפיל 17 מטוסי אויב. יותר מכל אחד אחר.
70 years since the establishment of the IDF. In another moment the main event begins. Until the last minute, they are still cleaning chairs. Lieberman is photographed with the military attaché. And one champion - not in rank but in abortion. Giora Epstein, The "Ace" that shot down 17 enemy planes. More than anyone else.: image via nir dvori @ndvori,  7 May 2018


70 שנים להקמת צהל. עוד רגע מתחיל האירוע המרכזי. עד לרגע האחרון עוד מנקים כסאות. ליברמן מצטלם עם הנספחים הצבאיים. ואלוף אחד. לא בדרגה - בהפלות. גיורא אפשטיין ה"אייס" שהפיל 17 מטוסי אויב. יותר מכל אחד אחר.
70 years since the establishment of the IDF. In another moment the main event begins. Until the last minute, they are still cleaning chairs. Lieberman is photographed with the military attaché. And one champion - not in rank but in abortion. Giora Epstein, The "Ace" that shot down 17 enemy planes. More than anyone else.: image via nir dvori @ndvori,  7 May 2018


בלון תבערה. ניסיון חדש ממולא הליום וחפץ בוער קשור מתחתיו בחבל. הפעם פגע בשדות מפלסים
Molotov cocktail. A new contraption filled with helium and a burning object tied up at he end of a rope. This one landed in an empty field.: image via nir dvori @ndvori, 7 May 2018


אימון משותף לצבאות ארה"ב וירדן. לראשונה תירגלו 8000 חיילים התמודדות עם התקפה כימית וביולוגית. מה הם יודעים שישראל לא. כאן הוחלט שאין יותר איום כימי ולא 
צריך לרענן ערכות מגן.
Joint training for the US and Jordanian armies. For the first time, 8,000 soldiers have been trained to deal with a chemical and biological attack.  What do they kniow that Israel does not know already?: image via nir dvori @ndvori, 7 May 2018
 

Several but not all of the Iranian rockets were intercepted by Israeli defences, an Israel Defense Forces (IDF) spokesman, Lt Col Jonathan Conricus, told reporters.

“At approximately 12.10, 10 minutes past midnight, forces belonging to the Iranian Quds Force fired approximately 20 projectiles – most of them are probably rockets but that is yet to be determined – towards the forward line of IDF positions in the Golan Heights,” he said.

“So far we are not aware of any casualties, any IDF casualties,” he said. A preliminary assessment found there was minimal damage, he added.

The occupied Golan Heights has been on high alert since Donald Trump confirmed he was pulling the US out of the Iran nuclear deal.

“The IDF views this Iranian attack very severely,” Conricus said. “This event is not over.”

In the early hours of Thursday morning, the IDF’s Arabic-language Twitter account said its military was “moving” against Iranian targets in Syria and warned Damascus not to intervene.

The Syrian capital was shaken with explosions as jets flew overheard before dawn, with residents posting videos online of what appeared to be air defence missiles running bright streaks through the night sky and reporting loud sounds that rocked their buildings.

Syrian state media said its anti-air batteries were responding to a “new wave of Israeli missiles and is dropping them one by one”. However, it added, missiles struck radar, air defence positions and ammunition warehouses. Explosives fired from Israel also hit southern Syria’s Quneitra province, adjacent to the Golan Heights, it said. There were no reported casualties.

Iran did not immediately comment.

The Israeli newspaper Haaretz quoted an unidentified security official as saying Israel’s attacks inside Syria were the most extensive since the two nations signed a disengagement agreement after the October war of 1973.

Israel has warned it will not permit Tehran to establish a permanent military presence in Syria, accusing Iran of moving drones and missiles into its Arab neighbour. Iranian forces have been sent to aid the Syrian government in a devastating seven-year civil war against insurgents.

Donald Trump's move to exit the 2015 nuclear agreement with Iran was welcomed by Israel but has stoked fears of a regional flare-up.

Just minutes before Trump was due to speak on Tuesday, the IDF said it had identified “irregular activity of Iranian forces in Syria” and had decided to unlock and ready bomb shelters in the Golan, where it shares a frontier with Syria.

“Additionally, defence systems have been deployed and IDF troops are on high alert for an attack,” it said. “The IDF is prepared for various scenarios and warns that any aggression against Israel will be met with a severe response.”

Hours after Trump’s announcement, Syrian state media said that its air defences had brought down two Israeli missiles. The Syrian Observatory monitoring group, which tracks the conflict, said that attack killed 15 people, including eight Iranians. Israel did not comment on the strikes.

In February, Israel said it had downed an armed Iranian drone that penetrated its airspace. Since then Israel’s air force is believed to have struck Iranian targets operating in Syria several times, including a 9 April strike on the country's largest airbase, killing seven Iranians. Tehran has vowed revenge.

The Quds Force is an external arm of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps, which Israel’s intelligence community said was tasked with a retaliatory attack.

Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, one of the biggest critics of the Iran deal and close Trump ally, told his cabinet on Sunday he was “determined to block Iran’s aggression against us even if this means a struggle”.

“Better now than later,” he said. “We do not want escalation but we are prepared for any scenario.”

Trump’s daughter, Ivanka Trump, and her husband, Jared Kushner, are due to arrive in Israel in the next few days for the opening of the US embassy in Jerusalem. The US president’s decision in December to recognise the city as Israel's capital has infuriated Palestinians and reverberated across the region.

The occupied Golan Heights is a plateau captured from Syria in 1967 by Israel in a move not recognised by the international community.


#UPDATE Israel says it has hit dozens of Iranian military targets in Syria, including the origin of a rocket attack on the Israeli army in the Golan Heights @AFP map locating reported air strikes on May 10: image via AFP news agency @AFP, 9 May 2018




3 comments:

TC said...

"Israel has claimed it hit nearly all Iranian infrastructure in Syria during airstrikes..." and so on.

"Israel’s [attack] was the most significant strike in Syria since the 1973 Yom Kippur war. The confrontation follows a months-long shadow war campaign during which Israel has been accused of repeated air assaults in Syria, the latest of which was reported on Tuesday night.

"Its military said on Thursday it had attacked dozens of targets included weapons storage, logistics sites and intelligence centres used by Iranian forces...

"The Israeli defence minister, Avigdor Lieberman, told a security conference: 'We hit nearly all the Iranian infrastructure in Syria … They need to remember the saying that if it rains on us, it’ll storm on them. I hope we’ve finished this episode and everyone understood.'"

... so if you're interested in any of this (I'm sure you're not) you'll know by now that a massive jewgasm went on all through the night in Syria, swarming unleashed demons, the predictable bottled-up id release, as was written long ago and foretold & c. ... you KNEW drumpf would get played like this - begging for it.

his nobel prize will be awaiting him in the microwave when he returns from swatting himself on the back over being taller than little fatty, with those teeny tiny hands.

Mose23 said...

I sense the hand of Pence somewhere in this quarterwit drive to Mediggo.

Just been watching one of Bibi's boys straight up lying on Channel 4 news.

TC said...

Only doing their jobs. Resolute cretinism biding its time; utter mendacity on the permanent offensive.

Almost feels, one might say, concerted... strategic?