MidnightWatcher – Prophecy in Motion

A “cease fire” with Islamic terrorists has never been, and will never be, a permanent peace. If reports of a possible cease-fire deal come to fruition, all this means is that Israel has decided to back down, effectively giving Hamas a chance to once again lock and load …

Update: Israel agrees to truce, but does not lift blockade of Gaza as part of the deal …

Update 2: According to the text of the ceasefire agreement, “Opening the crossings and facilitating the movements of people and transfer of goods and refraining from restricting residents’ free movements and targeting residents in border areas and procedures of implementation shall be dealt with after 24 hours from the start of the ceasefire.” …

The Jerusalem Post – “Israel and Palestinian groups have agreed to a truce to end the Gaza conflict, an Egyptian official told Reuters on Wednesday.

Asked whether a cease-fire deal had been reached, the official said: ‘Yes, and Egypt will announce it.’

There was no immediate official confirmation of the news, which came on the eighth day of intensive Israeli fire on the Gaza Strip and rocket attacks out of the Palestinian territory.

According to Israeli sources, Israel has agreed to a truce in the Gaza Strip, but will not lift its blockade of the Palestinian territory, declining to give further details of any deal.

Shortly before, a Palestinian official with knowledge of Egyptian mediation between the two sides told Reuters that there was a ceasefire agreement to end eight days of fighting in Gaza that has killed more than 140 Palestinians and five Israelis.

Israel’s Channel 2 television said a ceasefire would be announced in Cairo later in the evening by US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

The cease-fire reports followed Israel’s diplomatic and security cabinet meeting on Wednesday discussing the latest cease-fire initiatives with Hamas, as international leaders continued to press for an end to the hostilities in Gaza.

The London-based Al Hayat newspaper, citing Hamas and Islamic Jihad, said Israel wanted a 90-day period to determine ‘good intentions’ of the movement before discussing Gazan demands.” Read more.

Iran Confirms: ‘We Are Proud to Defend Hamas’ Militarily – “Iran has sent financial and military aid to Hamas in Gaza in an attempt to boost the efforts of the terrorist group as it continuously and unremittingly launches attacks against the Jewish state, parliament speaker Ali Larijani said on Wednesday. ‘We are proud to defend the people of Palestine and Hamas … and that our assistance to them has been both financial and military,’ he said without elaborating, in remarks reported by parliament’s website, ICANA.ir, according to AFP.” Read more.

Isaiah 5:20-21, 24, “Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness… who are wise in their own eyes and clever in their own sight… as tongues of fire lick up straw and as dry grass sinks down in the flames, so their roots will decay and their flowers blow away like dust …”

Egyptian Child Preacher Ibrahim Adham: “Oh Zionists, we love death for the sake of Allah, just as much as you love life for the sake of Satan. We long for martyrdom for the sake of Allah just as much as you hate death, oh enemies of Allah. I am just a child, but nevertheless, I pray that Allah will allow me to lead the prayer in the Al-Aqsa Mosque… If it were up to me, I would come to you (Palestinians), and I would fight alongside you in the battlefield, even if I am killed a hundred — nay, a thousand — times.”

• Related: Al-Qaeda: ‘Raise Your Children In The Cult Of Jihad And Martyrdom … Instil In Them A Love For Religion And Death’
• Related: Egypt: Child Preacher Glorifies Death For The Sake Of Allah As Incumbent Upon All Muslims, ‘It Is Your Path For Salvation’
• Related: Hezbollah Cartoon Teaches Children to Throw Stones at Israelis and to Seek Death as Martyrs to Gain Paradise

The Associated Press – “TEL AVIV, Israel — A bomb exploded aboard an Israeli bus near the nation’s military headquarters in Tel Aviv on Wednesday, wounding 27 people, delivering a major blow to diplomatic efforts to forge a truce to end a week of fighting between Israel and Gaza’s militant Hamas rulers. Thousands of Palestinians fled their homes in Gaza fearing Israeli airstrikes.

Hours after the bus blast, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who is shuttling across the region in truce talks, arrived in Cairo and met with Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi, who is mediating between Israel and Hamas to end the fighting that has killed more than 140 Palestinians and five Israelis.

The blast, which left the bus charred and its windows blown out, was the first bombing in Tel Aviv since 2006. It appeared aimed at sparking Israeli fears of a return to the violence of the Palestinian uprising last decade, which killed more than 1,000 Israelis in bombings and shooting attacks and left more than 5,000 Palestinians dead as well. Hamas has carried dozens of suicide bombings that have killed hundreds of Israelis.

Although Hamas did not take responsibility for the attack, it praised the bombing.

‘We consider it a natural response to the occupation crimes and the ongoing massacres against civilians in the Gaza Strip,’ Hamas spokesman Fawzi Barhoum said.” Read more.

Video: Hamas TV After Tel Aviv Bus Bomb: ‘Allah Willing, We Will Soon See Black Body Bags’ – “I pray to Allah the exalted that we see body bags in a short while… Right now in these moments, the mosques in the Gaza Strip — their minarets are loudly sounding cries of ‘Allahu Akbar’ and cries of joy, and the residents of the Gaza Strip are bowing down to Allah for this offering…”

The irrational Prime Minister of Turkey is becoming so invidious, insidious and incitant that even the US could no longer remain silent. We see where Erdogan is willing to take his rhetoric. But the real question now is what is he willing to do about it? …

By Elad Benari, INN – “The United States criticized Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Tuesday, after he once again chose to attack Israel over its counter-terrorist operation in Gaza.

In his latest hateful remarks, Erdogan accused Israel of ‘ethnic cleansing’ in Gaza, saying the Jewish state’s air raids could not be considered self-defense.

‘Israel is committing ethnic cleansing by ignoring peace in this region and violating international law,’ Erdogan said, according to AFP. ‘It is occupying the Palestinian territory step by step.’

He further claimed that Israeli air raids against Gaza could not be deemed self-defense, accusing Western countries of aiding what he called a ‘terrorist state’ by condoning its violence in the Middle East.

‘Sooner or later, Israel will answer for the innocent blood it has shed so far,’ he said.

Erdogan also said that Turkey, Egypt and the Gulf countries, particularly Qatar and Saudi Arabia, had to take their own initiative, accusing the United Nations Security Council of doing nothing to save Gazans.

‘It is against them today, tomorrow it will be us, keep that in mind,’ he said. ‘If we are going to die, let’s go down with decency. Keep that in mind too.’

The United States in turn criticized Erdogan’s harsh words, AFP reported.

‘Some of the extremely harsh rhetoric coming from Turkey we do not consider helpful at all,’ said State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland, according to the report.

‘Of course we don’t agree with some of these very difficult statements that have been coming there. And we’ve made those views clear to the Turks,’ she added.

Nuland said that State Department officials have ‘made clear … to the Turkish government our concerns that this kind of rhetoric is not helpful.’

On Monday, Erdogan called Israel a ‘terrorist state’ that ‘massacres innocent children,’ and accused the United Nations of failing to act over Israel’s Operation Pillar of Defense.

He accused the UN Security Council of ‘turning a blind eye’ to the suffering of Muslims across the world and called for ‘sincere action’ to end Israel’s strikes on Gaza.

The international community is watching ‘as Israel violently massacres innocent children in Gaza,’ Erdogan said in an address to religious leaders of Muslim countries gathered in Istanbul, labeling Israel ‘a terrorist state’.

On Saturday, Erdogan said that Israel was ‘making an international racket’ over civilians killed by Hamas rockets.” Read more.

• Related: Turkish Prime Minister Erdoğan — The Man Who Could Trigger a World War
• Related: Turkey Installing New Military Tech That Will Allow Warplanes and Ships to Target Israel as the Enemy

Palestinian Activists: More Of The Same

By Paul Alster – “Haifa, Israel – There is only one thing worse than the image of a child killed by military conflict, and that is the image of a child killed by military conflict having deliberately been placed in the line of fire.

War is, by definition, a very nasty business, and invariably it is the innocents on all sides who bear a significant cost in lives lost, people maimed and communities traumatized.

But solid evidence now reveals how Hamas and Islamic Jihad in Gaza have been deliberately placing their civilian population in mortal danger, choreographing a number of seemingly gory scenes, as well as releasing images from other conflicts, such as Iraq and Syria, and passing them off as dead Gazan civilians killed by Israeli missiles.

In an attempt to persuade the world that Israel is committing war crimes and to distract attention away from the illegal and immoral use of their own population as human shields, Hamas has resorted to staging a number of fake deaths and scenes of severely injured people right in front of international TV crews.

The BBC recently broadcast a news report showing a man being carried off by four others, seemingly the victim of an Israeli missile strike, only for him to reappear in the same clip a few seconds later wandering around completely unharmed. The same organization’s Jon Donnison yesterday re-tweeted a picture of the dead body of a young girl on a stretcher in Gaza with the headline ‘Heartbreaking,’ only for it to transpire that the girl had sadly been killed three weeks earlier in Syria.

Such is the sometimes chaotic nature of the situation on the ground in Gaza that mistakes can be made, but according to Paul Hirschson, spokesman for Israel’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Hamas has crossed a red line even in the Arab world by promoting the use of images of dead people – children in particular – against the tradition of their religion and the expected respect for the dead.” Read more.

Yes, this is the same Turkey that is held in high regard within the Muslim world as “a useful model for new Arab regimes” who even regards Hamas as a “supporter of democracy [that] is willing to live in peace alongside Israel.” Self-delusion is not only confined to “radical” Islamic clerics and teachers. It also permeates the upper echelon of Islamic society. Fowl, indeed …

“(Reuters) – Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan described Israel on Monday as a ‘terrorist state’ in carrying out its bombardment of Gaza, underlining hostility for Ankara’s former ally since relations between them collapsed in 2010.

His comments came after nearly a week of Palestinian rocket attacks on Israel and Israeli air strikes on the Gaza Strip. An Israeli missile killed at least 11 Palestinian civilians including four children in Gaza on Sunday.

‘Those who associate Islam with terrorism close their eyes in the face of mass killing of Muslims, turn their heads from the massacre of children in Gaza,’ Erdogan told a conference of the Eurasian Islamic Council in Istanbul.

‘For this reason, I say that Israel is a terrorist state, and its acts are terrorist acts,’ he said.

Ties between Israel and Turkey, once Israel’s only Muslim ally, crumbled after Israeli marines stormed an aid ship in 2010 to enforce a naval blockade of the Palestinian-run Gaza Strip. Nine Turks were killed in clashes with activists on board.” Read more.

While Trying to Mediate, Egypt Blames Israel for Gaza Conflict – “In Egypt’s most concerted effort to win more global public support for the Palestinians, advisers to Egypt’s President Mohamed Morsi, a former leader of the Muslim Brotherhood who has been an outspoken supporter of Hamas, invited foreign correspondents in Cairo to a background briefing at which a senior Egyptian official sought to blame Israel for the conflict while at the same time maintaining Egypt’s role as an intermediary pressing both sides for peace.” Read more.

Flashback: Turkey Slams Israel, Hails Hamas as a ‘Supporter of Democracy’ that is ‘Willing to Live in Peace Alongside Israel’ – “Turkish president Abdullah Gul on Sunday said Israel should take advantage of the changes in the Middle East to achieve peace with the Palestinian Authority and the entire Arab world, the Turkey-based Today’s Zaman reported… ‘As the democracy in the Middle East grows, Israel will eventually have to stop the violence in ‘Palestine’’, he was quoted as having said. Gul also claimed that Khaled Mashaal, head of the Hamas terror group, is a supporter of democracy and is willing to live in peace alongside Israel.”Read more.

Tough Choice: The emboldened, post-Arab Spring world of Islam would not take too kindly to an “invasion” of Jews upon a “helpless” Palestinian population. Will Israel back down and risk appearing weak when terror makes a stand, or will Israel demonstrate strength and risk further inflaming an already explosive situation? …

Blood Drunk: Khalid Meshal

By FARES AKRAM, JODI RUDOREN and ALAN COWELL, The New York Times – “GAZA CITY — The top leader of Hamas dared Israel on Monday to launch a ground invasion of Gaza and dismissed diplomatic efforts to broker a cease-fire in the six-day-old conflict, as the Israeli military conducted a new wave of deadly airstrikes on the besieged Palestinian enclave, including a second hit on a 15-story building that houses media outlets. A volley of rockets fired from Gaza into southern Israel included one that hit a vacant school.

Speaking at a news conference in Cairo, where the diplomatic efforts were under way, the Hamas leader, Khaled Meshal, suggested that the Israeli infantry mobilization on the border with Gaza was a bluff on the part of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel.

‘If you wanted to launch it, you would have done it,’ Mr. Meshal told reporters. He accused Israel of using the invasion threat as an attempt to ‘dictate its own terms and force us into silence.’

Rejecting Israel’s contention that Hamas had precipitated the conflict, Mr. Meshal said the burden was on the Israelis. ‘The demand of the people of Gaza is meeting their legimitate demands — for Israel to be restrained from its aggression, assassinations and invasions, and for the siege over Gaza to be ended,’ he said.

Mr. Netanyahu met with top ministers Monday evening and Israeli media said they discussed the next steps in the Gaza conflict, including the possibility of a truce. Israeli officials declined to comment on those reports.

The Hamas Health Ministry said Monday evening that a total of 107 people had been killed since Wednesday morning, when Israeli airstrikes began, following months of Palestinian rocket fire into Israel.” Read more.

Israel Issues Stern Warning To Hamas: We Are Ready To ‘Significantly Expand’ Gaza Offensive If Rocket Attacks Continue – “The Israeli army is ready to ‘significantly expand’ its operation in Gaza, the country’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Sunday as Hamas launched fresh rocket attacks on Tel Aviv. Speaking at the start of the weekly cabinet meeting, Netanyahu said ‘The soldiers are ready for any activity that could take place’.” Read more.

Israel May Be ‘Running Out Of Targets’ in Gaza – “Retired Israeli Defense Force Major General Dan Harel told reporters that Israel is “running out of targets” to strike in Gaza and Israel is “moving quite fast to a turning point,” according to Adam Kredo of The Washington Free Beacon… Israel has launched more than 1,350 strikes (and counting) on Hamas targets in the Gaza Strip since the start of Operation Pillar of Defense.” Read more.