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U.S. Blasts Hamas for Breaking Ceasefire and Seizing Israeli Soldier

Update: Hamas' military wing, al Qassam Brigades, has released this statement:

“The Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades has no information on this soldier. We have lost contact with one of our combatant groups, which was fighting in the sector where the soldier went missing and it is possible that our fighters and this soldier were killed,” the group said in a statement
They also say:

"We have no idea about where the Israeli soldier is or what is the situation. "We lost contact with the group who made the suicide mission near Rafah after it was done. "We believe everyone in this group was killed by an Israeli air strike including the Israeli soldier who the Israelis are talking about having disappeared."

[More...]

Yet another version:
"The Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades has no information on this soldier. We have lost contact with the combatant group that took part in the ambush, and we believe its members were killed in the [IDF] strikes. Assuming they managed to capture the soldier during the battle, we believe he may have also been killed."
And another:
"We have lost contact with the group of fighters that took part in the ambush and we believe they were all killed in the (Israeli) bombardment. Assuming that they managed to seize the soldier during combat, we assess that he was also killed in the incident," the statement said.

Original Post

By all accounts except that of Hamas, Hamas broke the latest cease-fire 90 minutes after it began by seizing Israeli soldier, Second Lt. Hadar Goldin. The Obama Administration blasted Hamas for its actions and called for the unconditional release of the soldier.

"We have unequivocally condemned Hamas and the Palestinian factions that were responsible for killing two soldiers, and capturing a third, almost minutes after a ceasefire was announced," Obama said. "That soldier needs to be unconditionally released, as soon as possible."

Under the terms of the cease-fire, Israel was still going to be searching for and dismantling tunnels. The agreement was for Israel to withhold firing into Gaza, not leave Gaza. Via the New York Times:

Under the terms of the temporary truce, Israeli forces were permitted to remain in place inside Gaza to continue destroying the labyrinth of tunnels that Mr. Netanyahu has said were the prime target of the Israeli ground operation. Both sides said they would respond if fired upon.

According to Israel and news reports, 90 minutes after the cease-fire began, Hamas militants, including a suicide bomber, emerged from a tunnel and attacked Israeli soldiers who were working on it, killing two soldiers and then grabbing a third Israeli soldier, dragging him into the tunnel and back to Gaza.

More here.

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon also blamed Hamas for breaking the ceasefire. The U.N. says it has not yet independently verified Israel's claims, but if true:

"This would constitute a grave violation of the cease-fire, and one that is likely to have very serious consequences for the people of Gaza, Israel and beyond....Such moves call into question the credibility of Hamas' assurances to the United Nations.

The Times of Israel has this primer on the tunnels and Hamas.

Hamas blamed Israel for breaking the ceasefire initially claiming its action occurred a few hours before the ceasefire by another group. It has not confirmed the capture of the soldier.

On Twitter, there is a lot of debate as to whether the soldier was "kidnapped" or "captured." If Hamas agreed to the cease-fire knowing Israel had announced it would continue searching for and dismantling tunnels, and that's what the Israeli soldiers were doing when attacked by Hamas, then I don't think "captured" is the right word. He was in a place he was expected to be under the terms of the ceasefire, and he was not on a battlefield or engaged in combat. But since the whole area is a war zone, I don't like the word "kidnapped" either. So I'm using the word "seized."

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  • Display: Sort:
    Look (5.00 / 1) (#21)
    by CaptHowdy on Fri Aug 01, 2014 at 09:00:53 PM EST
    I know its, like, you job to be ridiculous but to suggest I, 1000 channels or not, know more about a cease fire than the people in the tunnels is a reach.  Even for you.

    Let me be clear.  A few threads ago someone said "I am losing my affinity for the State of Israel."

    I never had an affinity for the state of Israel. Never.  I have bad mouthed them since the 70s.  In these threads and elsewhere.  
    I hate a lot of what they do and most of what they say .

    That doesn't change the fact that apparently Hamas broke the cease fire.  And I don't give a rats a$$ what you think of that opinion. Or any opinion for that matter.


    Rats A$$ (none / 0) (#28)
    by squeaky on Fri Aug 01, 2014 at 10:13:06 PM EST
    It is amazing to me that you would think that Bush was lying when he swore that Sadaam had WMD's, yet a even farther right wing lunatic says that Hamas broke the cease fire, and you believe it...

    and a Israeli ex military suggests that maybe the Hamas tunnel people did not know of the cease fire because they were entrenched ready to carry out a prearranged plan, which you de bunk because even you have heard of the cease fire?

    Well my thought is that the ex military person is FOS and is one more white person to bolster the certainty that Hamas broke the cease fire, but it may have been a mistake... hahahahahah..

    Seems to me that no one knows what happened but it did present a nice excuse to bomb and kill lots of women and children.

    Seems to me that the biggest problem Israel has is the Arab birth rate killing the women and children is a great way to level the 5 to 1 disparity of future arab citizens being born v future Israslie's

    I do not know what happened but I certainly do not trust the Israeli version, and am really not sure why you do.

    Parent

    This article includes an (none / 0) (#1)
    by oculus on Fri Aug 01, 2014 at 06:24:52 PM EST
    opinion that perhaps the Hamas in the tunnel were unaware of the ceasefire.

    But more interesting, IMO, is that NYT reporters working in Israel are subject to censorship:

    NYT

    Nothing New (none / 0) (#7)
    by squeaky on Fri Aug 01, 2014 at 07:03:01 PM EST
    Journalists for foreign news organizations must agree in writing to the military censorship system to work in Israel.

    Wiki:

    In 1966, the Censorship Agreement was signed between media representatives and the IDF. The media agreed to abide by the orders of the Military Censor, while the IDF agreed not to misuse its role.

    From Constitutional Rights Foundation:

    When U.S. military units went to Saudi Arabia in the fall of 1990, about 1,000 journalists eventually joined them. The Pentagon set ground rules for the press.

    The Pentagon accredited all American journalists and required them to observe the following battlefield press rules:

    1. No reporters could visit any U.S. military unit or travel outside of Dhahran or Riyadh except in a press pool.

    2. No pool was permitted in the field without an escort, usually a U.S. military public-affairs officer (PAO).

    3. No interviews of U.S. military personnel were permitted without an escort present.

    4. All pool dispatches must first pass through the "military security review system." (PAOs at each pool location reviewed all dispatches and could delete or change any "military sensitive information." Reporters could appeal any censorship to the military pool coordinating office in Dhahran and then to the Pentagon.)
    5. Violations of the above rules could result in arrest, detention, revocation of press credentials, and expulsion from the combat zone.

    Iraq War Embedded Journalists:

    On June 14, 2014, The New York Times published an opinion piece critical of embedded journalism during both the U.S. military occupation of Iraq and the war in Afghanistan. It was written by PVT Chelsea Manning, the former U.S. Army intelligence analyst now serving a 35-year prison sentence for leaking the largest set of classified documents in American history.

    At no point during his 2009-10 deployment in Iraq, Manning wrote, were there more than a dozen American journalists covering military operations--in a country of 31 million people and 117,000 U.S. troops. Manning charged that vetting of reporters by military public affairs officials was used "to screen out those judged likely to produce critical coverage," and that once embedded, journalists tended "to avoid controversial reporting that could raise red flags" out of fear having their access terminated.

    "A result," wrote Manning, "is that the American public's access to the facts is gutted, which leaves them with no way to evaluate the conduct of American officials." Manning noted, "This program of limiting press access was challenged in court in 2013 by a freelance reporter, Wayne Anderson, who claimed to have followed his agreement but to have been terminated after publishing adverse reports about the conflict in Afghanistan. The ruling on his case upheld the military's position that there was no constitutionally protected right to be an embedded journalist."



    Parent
    Even if Hamas (none / 0) (#2)
    by MKS on Fri Aug 01, 2014 at 06:31:33 PM EST
    violated the cease fire, that does not give the Israelis the right to wage a war against civilians in Gaza.