Asheri Murdered: Mashaal Targeted For Assassination

Update: Israel claims to have arrested over 60 Hamas officials - Hamas is threatening Israel for attacking the political wing of the party.

Detainees included such senior figures as Finance Minister Omar Abdel Azek, Labor Minister Mohammed Barghouti, and parliament member Mohamemd Abu Teir.

PA Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh convened an emergency meeting of government members in Gaza early Thursday morning. An unofficial response said that, ""Israel is targeting Hamas' political wing, which wasn't involved in the kidnapping [of IDF Cpl. Gilad Shalit]."

"Israel is heading in the wrong direction, and will pay for it," the response continued.

Update: SkyNews has video from Jerusalem including Israeli bomb runs.

Michelle Malkin has the latest on the murder of Israeli settler Eliyahu Asheri. Allah has more. Meanwhile, Israel is claiming to be targeting Hamas Politburo chief Khaled Mashaal, believed to be in Damascus, for assassination.

Earlier, Justice Minister Haim Ramon said that Mashaal, was a target for assassination due to his ordering of the kidnapping of Shalit.

"He is definitely in our sights ... he is a target," Ramon told Army Radio. "Khaled Mashaal, as some who is overseeing, actually commanding the terror acts, is definitely a target."

There are also reports that militants in Gaza fired a chemical weapon.

GAZA (Reuters) - A spokesman for gunmen in the Gaza Strip said they had fired a rocket tipped with a chemical warhead at Israel early on Thursday.

The Israeli army had no immediate comment on the claim by the spokesman from the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, an armed wing of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas's Fatah movement.

The offensive is said to be widening. And some number of Palestinian cabinet ministers are being held by Israel.

GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip (AP) - Israeli forces rounded up Palestinian cabinet ministers and legislators from the Islamic Hamas, increasing pressure on militants to release a captured Israeli soldier and witnesses said tanks moved into northern Gaza, widening Israel's largest military operation in the year since Israel pulled out of the seaside territory.

Update: A good overview of events here - unfortunately, the end of the article is pathetic.

Gazans have not begun to think how they are going to get through the coming weeks and months without electricity. The wrecked plant was only fully on line for three years and it will cost about £8m to buy and install new transformers.

There may be an interim solution. Israel provides about 40% of electricity in the Gaza Strip. It used to supply it all and may do so again, meaning that Israel's electricity company could make a handsome profit from the army's destruction.

Israeli ground forces have reportedly entered northern Gaza, intensifying an assault on the territory sparked by the capture of a soldier by militants.
Palestinian witnesses said Israeli tanks had crossed the border into Gaza near the town of Beit Hanoun.

Of course, it's our fault:

Palestinian Prime Minister Ismail Haniya, of the governing Hamas party, criticised Washington for giving approval to the Israeli incursion.

Mr Haniya said Washington had "given the green light to aggression" and called on the United Nations to step in to prevent an escalation in violence.

Comments

[Imhere]

I think everyone was saddened by this news.
But why is it a nagging feeling that there will never be peace in the middle east?

[Peg C.]

I love a good bombing video but that Brit accent is like fingernails on a blackboard. Why do all the Brit female journos sound like that?? Sky News is the worst.