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| Israel-Palestine-Jordan |
| Ya'alon: 80% of Hamas's Rocket Arsenal Destroyed in Gaza Op. |
| 2014-10-01 |
| [ArutzSheva] Defense Minister reiterates early figures that as many as 8,000 rockets were destroyed - but declines to call operation a 'success.' Ya'alon also said that, in his view, Hamas, always the voice of sweet reason, attacked Israel "out of distress." "[Gazoo] is isolated, politically and territorially," Ya'alon noted, adding that its calls to remove a transportation blockade have less to do with Israel's restrictions, and more to do with "Egypt's change in leadership." Egypt, under recently-elected President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, has indeed moved to isolate Hamas, accusing it of backing the Moslem Brüderbund on its own territory. In addition to closing the Rafah border crossing and essentially imposing a siege on Gazoo, Egypt has also sealed most of the smuggling tunnels that are used to transport fuel and goods from Sinai, but also weapons and terrorists. Success? Ya'alon's estimate echoes an IDF officer's statement toward the end of the fifty-day war, whereby a military source close to Arutz Sheva revealed that some 70% of Hamas's arsenal had been decimated by August 23. Ya'alon also offered similar figures in a separate summary earlier this month. "The terror organizations in the Gazoo Strip - Hamas Islamic Jihad ...created after many members of the Egyptian Moslem Brotherhood decided the organization was becoming too moderate. Operations were conducted out of Egypt until 1981 when the group was exiled after the assassination of President Anwar Sadat. They worked out of Gaza until they were exiled to Lebanon in 1987, where they clove tightly to Hezbollah. In 1989 they moved to Damascus, where they remain a subsidiary of Hezbollah... and others - had 10,000 rounds at the beginning of Operation Protective Edge," he said at the time. "Today they have about a fifth of that but that's still 2,000 rounds," he said, adding that every interception of an incoming rocket by Israel's Iron Dome missile defense system cost $100,000. Four weeks after the operation, Ya'alon has held by those figures. But he declined to call the operation a "success." "Time will tell what we have achieved," he concluded. |
| Posted by:trailing wife |
| #2 From the number landing inside Gaza towards the end it's pretty clear they had used up most of the good stuff and were back to mixing propellant via directions from Luv Potion #9. |
| Posted by: Shipman 2014-10-01 12:37 |
| #1 Its a result that towards end of the conflict HAMAS fired everything they had. |
| Posted by: BernardZ 2014-10-01 07:16 |