Netanyahu: Israel has bombed more than 1,000 sites in Gaza since start of operation
At Sunday’s cabinet meeting, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the Israeli Air Force has struck more than 1,000 targets in Gaza since the start of Operation Pillar of Defense. According to Netanyahu, Israeli attacks have inflicted a heavy toll on Hamas and other organizations, significantly harming their ability to launch rockets against Israel.
IAF aborts airstrikes in an effort to protect civilians
During the height of Operation Pillar of Defense, IAF pilots are always on the lookout for innocent civilians, ready to abort vital operations in an effort to save lives
Date: 16/11/2012, 2:23 PM Author: Yael Livnat and Yiftach Carmeli
Like in all operations, the IDF has taken the utmost care to protect uninvolved civilians during Operation Pillar of Defense, even while rockets have continued to fall on Israel. In addition to the large number of flyers the IDF has dropped prior to striking an area, air strikes are often aborted when civilians are found in the area.
Yesterday saw one such occurrence- an air strike on an underground launch site was aborted due to the discovery of civilians in the area.
Since Wednesday (November 14th) afternoon, the IAF has struck ammunitions warehouses and rocket launch sites used by terrorist organizations in the Gaza Strip, all in response to the incessant rocket fire directed at Israel. Yesterday, in the early hours of the morning, a squadron of intelligence collecting aircraft took the sky. Through sophisticated observation equipment and cameras the pilots were able to identify a rocket launch, and Air Force aircraft were sent to strike the area. But things didn't go as planned. "We saw that innocent civilians were approaching the area of the underground launch site," said Lt. Omer, a source within the intelligence squadron who took part in the operation. "We immediately contacted the forces and instructed them to abort the strike."
The strike was aborted immediately, thanks to the experience of IDF forces. This is one of many similar stories from Operation Pillar of Defense. It has long been one of the IDF's top priorities to minimize civilian casualties during IDF operations.
The task is not an easy one, as Hamas has intentionally used the civilian areas of Gaza as staging grounds for their attacks on Israel. Knowing that the IDF wishes to avoid civilian casualties, Hamas places its own civilians in the line of fire in order to hide and protect its own operations. Women and children, victims of the Hamas human shield tactics, usually ignore warning signals to evacuate buildings prior to an IDF strike. The victims remain in the house with Hamas members, knowing ahead of time that the IDF will not target civilians. Many innocent bystanders are killed as a result of Hamas’ abuse of its own civilians. Instead of keeping its citizens out of harm’s way, Hamas encourages and even forces its population to join the violent resistance against Israel.
