2 Israeli civilians killed in attack by Gaza infiltrators

[oberliner]

Two Israeli civilians were shot dead Wednesday afternoon when four Palestinian terrorists infiltrated from the Gaza Strip into southern Israel.

Two other Israelis were wounded in the attack at the filling depot close to the Karni border terminal, near Kibbutz Nahal Oz. The Israeli emergency service Zaka said two Palestinian terrorists had been killed in an exchange of fire with Israeli security forces.

"Terrorists entered Nahal Oz and the fuel depot. They shot at civilians inside. There are two Israelis dead and two wounded," an IDF spokeswoman said.

Channel 2 TV said the infiltrators set fuel depots afire.

The extent of damage to the facility was unclear, but the attack threatened to exacerbate Gaza's already delicate humanitarian situation . Plumes of smoke billowed up from the depot, the sole conduit of fuel to Gaza's 1.4 million residents.

http://haaretz.com/hasen/spages/973351.html

[Vegasaurus]

1. What foolish, foolish idiots

destroy the very source of their own fuel? Could they get any dumber?

Hamas et al want aid and fuel and electricity, and then try to (or succeed in) kill the very people providing them with this aid and service.

If killing Israelis is more important than their own humanitarian crisis, Israel should cut them off completely, and let them try to get aid and fuel elsewhere (only no one else wants to provide it).

[pelsar]

2. I"ve been told here...

that even the "wrong resistance" is better than no resistance...

guess we have here an example of the "wrong resistance". Moving out of Gaza sure makes things a lot clearer as to where their priorities lie.....a definite preference to killing israelis over bettering the lives of their own......

as of today, since the depot is now out of action, we can honestly say that its the Gazans (Hamas the elected govt) that is now keeping fuel and limiting electricity from flowing to the civilian population...and i believe that when israel does it, it considered a war crime. So i guess were now pretty clear that some of the gazans are committing war crimes or cimes of humanity or collective punishment against gazans.

explain to me again why we should risk our lives to give the gazans fuel and supplies when they attack us for it? (and hamas, the local govt does nothing....)

[Scurrilous]

3. Local security officer: Palestinians warned of infiltration

<snip>

"Palestinian fuel coordinators alerted Israelis manning the Nahal Oz fueling terminal that Palestinian terrorists had infiltrated Israel prior to the terror attack that left two Israeli civilians dead, Sha'ar Hanegev Regional Council chief security officer Yoav Peled said Wednesday.

"It is in the Palestinians' interest that fuel continue to be transferred into the Gaza Strip, so they gave the Israeli side, the guys that worked there, information about the infiltration, and warned them," Peled said.

According to Peled, the drivers of the fuel trucks that were at the terminal during the time of the attack managed to flee unharmed, but two Israeli employees were murdered while attempting to escape. The two were shot at very close range while one of them was in a truck and the other was standing just outside the vehicle."

<snip>

"The security officer of the Sdot Negev Regional Council, Rafi Babian, who arrived at the scene minutes after the infiltration, said "it is a clear Palestinian interest to receive fuel; they say they want to operate their hospital. Now I believe that the transfer of fuel will cease over the next few days."

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/973363.html

[Vegasaurus]

4. This is hysterical

(or pathetic)

"It is in the Palestinians' interest that fuel continue to be transferred into the Gaza Strip, so they gave the Israeli side, the guys that worked there, information about the infiltration, and warned them," Peled said.

So they "warned" the Israelis, but still wan their fuel, after they bombed their own source, and killed two Israelis?

This is so pathetic it is almost funny.

[bemildred]

5. Despite proximity to Gaza, site of terror attack was unguarded

The fuel depot at Nahal Oz, near the Karni crossing, the site of Wednesday's terrorist attack in which two Israeli civilians were killed, did not have guards, despite its proximity to the Gaza border and the presence there of civilians.

The IDF only had troops along the border fence, who failed to prevent the terrorists' infiltration. IDF sources said that Dor Alon, the company that operates the terminal, probably did not post guards at the site to save money, even though the IDF had demanded it.

---

Earlier Wednesday, a PRC spokesman Abu Mujahed said that, "the goal of the attack was to kidnap Israeli soldiers and break the siege on the Gaza Strip." Abu Mujahed was speaking in an interview with Al-Jazeera.

Abducted Israel Defense forces soldier Gilad Shalit was kidnapped in a similar cross-border raid in June 2006.

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/973491.html

[Vegasaurus]

7. If the Palestinians want fuel and aid from their sworn enemy

they ought to stop blowing up their own sources of fuel and aid.

[bemildred]

8. Apparently that isn't what they want. nt

[Vegasaurus]

11. Then I suggest they seek that food, aid and fuel from elsewhere

It is the only thing that makes an iota of sense.

[bemildred]

12. I expect they would like to be able to do that a lot. nt

[Vegasaurus]

13. Egypt built a ten foot high cement wall

to keep them out.

The other Arab nations aren't doing a damn thing.

[bemildred]

14. And your point would be what? nt

[bemildred]

15. "This fuel [from Israel] is dipped in humiliation," he said,

"because people wait for it for hours. If their fuel means humiliation for us, we don't want it."

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/973852.html

[Vegasaurus]

16. Again, if they don't want it

(or can't stop blowing people up who are trying to help them by providing it), they should get their fuel from somewhere else.

Notice how no one is lining up to provide the Palestinians with food and aid though.

[bemildred]

17. Actually, plenty of people are lining up to give the Palestinians aid.

The problem is getting it into Gaza, or the West Bank, as the case may be.

[Vegasaurus]

18. I mean the Egyptians or other Arab countries

stepping up to provide the electricity or fuel. They can get it in right through their own crossing, but they have a ten foot concrete wall at Rafah, and seem to want nothing at all to do with the Palestinian "problem" either.

[bemildred]

19. Egypt to become main Gaza electricity supplier: report

---

"Egypt has decided to implement a project aiming to increase its provision of electricity to the Gaza Strip from 17 to 150 megawatts, in order to give relief to the Palestinians," the pro-government newspaper said.

It did not say when this would start.

The impoverished Strip, home to some 1.5 million Palestinians, is currently at the mercy of the Jewish state for its energy supplies and has been submitted to electricity cuts and a tight blockade since Hamas seized power last June.

A senior official from Egypt's electricity ministry, cited by the daily, said the Islamic Development Bank had agreed a loan of 32.5 million dollars to finance the project which would link the Egyptian town of El-Arish, in Sinai, with Gaza.

http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5iuG_RWztn85jRsIFm4A4FkGewvUA

[azurnoir]

9. The crossing was not guarded

that is just weird, in a way.

[bemildred]

10. That's a good word for it.

"Cognitive disconnect" comes to mind too. That and the fact the infiltration worked, but that has happened before a few times before.

[bemildred]

6. Israel responds to attack

At least 9 dead in Gaza shelling and airstrikes; Palestinian raid killed 2 at cross-border fuel depot.

At least 20 Israeli tanks rushed into northern Gaza in the wake of the mid-afternoon attacks at the Nahal Oz terminal, the only conduit for gasoline shipped into the coastal strip. Subsequent Israeli shelling and airstrikes killed at least nine Palestinians, officials in Gaza said.

The radical Palestinian faction Islamic Jihad, along with Mujahedin Brigades and the Popular Resistance Committees, claimed responsibility for the attack. Hamas, the militant group that controls Gaza, did not claim a role, but Hamas spokesman Fawzi Barhoum later praised the attacks as "heroic."

---

Israeli forces on patrol nearby responded to the scene and killed two of the attackers, but at least two others escaped back into Gaza. An airstrike on a car fleeing the scene is believed to have killed two attackers, the army said.

http://www.detnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080410/NATION/804100338/1020/NATION

[bemildred]

21. Palestinians: Child, two militants killed in clashes with IDF troops in Gaza

GAZA CITY ? The Israel Defense Forces launched air strikes and waged a ground raid in Gaza Friday, trading fire with gunmen in clashes that killed seven Palestinians, including a 12-year-old boy, Palestinians said.

The deaths drove the Palestinian death toll to 15 in Israeli strikes retaliating for a militant attack Wednesday that that killed two Israeli civilians at a vital Gaza fuel terminal. Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has pledged to keep hitting Hamas so that it cannot continue to operate against Israeli civilians as it does.

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/974044.html

[Vegasaurus]

22. Why don't the militants and terrorists just STOP killing Israelis

and then there will be no response?

So easy a baby could understand.

[bemildred]

23. I have heard that there is some sort of political dispute behind all this violence. nt

[bemildred]

20. IDF inquiry into Nahal Oz raid highlights security failures

A preliminary IDF inquiry into the Palestinian raid on the Nahal Oz fuel depot on Wednesday has revealed serious failures in the way some of the forces were deployed and operated during the attack. Two Israeli civilian truck drivers were shot dead at the depot by four Palestinian terrorists. Two of the terrorists were killed by the IDF.

The fuel depot at Nahal Oz, near the Karni crossing, is about 50 meters east of the Gaza border fence and about 300 meters from the Palestinian terminal, on the western side of the fence.

The four terrorists ran more than 200 meters across an open area west of the fence, but nobody noticed them, despite the series of observation posts staked out in the area. The terrorists cut the fence and passed into the Israeli side, very close to an unmanned IDF guardpost. Two of them climbed over the 2.5 meter wall surrounding the depot. The two others waited between the border fence and the wall, poised to fire RPG rockets at IDF soldiers, if they arrived.

The IDF received its first warning of the raid only from the electronic fence, which was touched. At the same time, the Palestinian working on the Gaza side of the terminal telephoned his Israeli counterpart and warned him of the attack.

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/974042.html