Gaza, Israel & Rockets (merged thread)

[Firn]

The Gaza damage assessment view by satellite done in Feb. 2009 shows were most of the bombing, shelling and heavy ground fighting took place then. One can see both difference and trends with the eastern and northern urban areas and settlements suffering seemingly the brunt of the fighting.

[Firn]

Protective Edge Vs. Cast Lead at Day 22 is a 'snapshot' comparing both operations.

As of late July 29, Israeli fatalities stood at 56.

That’s a fourfold surge from the Cast Lead incursion, which claimed 13 lives, four of them from friendly fire.

....

As for deaths in Gaza from Protective Edge, the latest July 29 data from the Palestinian Ministry of Health cites 1,210 “martyrs.” That marks a drop from the 1,440 reported killed during Cast Lead.

It has also some information about the firepower employed:

As for artillery, IDF gunners by the end of Day 22 fired more than 30,000 rounds, according to an unnamed battalion commander quoted in a July 29 account posted on the military’s official website.

In contrast, the IDF Artillery Corps fired only 7,000 rounds in Cast Lead.

[Firn]

Israeli Firm Provides Power-by-The-Hour Intel in Gaza is from the same site and shows a possibly not-so well-known aspect of the war.

Rami Shmueli, chief executive of RT LTA Systems, said the firm has fielded civilian teams to operate about a dozen SkyStar 180 aerostats, providing tactical intelligence and surveillance data from various points along the Gaza border.

“Without getting into too much detail, much of the imagery coming from Gaza that you see on YouTube and in the media is coming from our products,” he said.

....

Shmueli, a former director of aerostat operations in an elite military intelligence unit, said SkyStar made its operational debut in Gaza in 2006, providing power-by-the-hour video for IDF Southern Command. In Israel’s Cast Lead incursion into Gaza in 2008-2009, RT teams operated two systems.

[davidbfpo]

David's calling Richard Jackson an 'academic' was a mis-characterisation. To understand where Richard Jackson is coming from one needs to note that he describes himself as a pacifist and a Christian. Given the former he is sure to list as many conditions as he can to render a 'just war' impossible and given the latter he presents his case in a sanctimonious and holier-than-thou manner.

So David should have introduced this person's article as follows: "here is the opinion of an obscure Christian pacifist living in New Zealand, for what that's worth".

JMA,

I offered Professor Richard Jackson's viewpoint for SWC to read and maybe discuss. I have met him once, so I know he has a sharp writing style. On the linked wbsite his bio starts with:

In February 2012, I took up the post of Deputy Director of the National Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies, the University of Otago, Dunedin, New Zealand. Prior to this, I was Professor of International Politics at Aberystwyth University in Wales, UK. I study and teach on issues of terrorism, political violence, war, security, peace and conflict resolution. I have published several academic books on these topics...

I have not looked further into his viewpoint, whether he is a Christian or a pacifist to me is a moot point. One thing I will not do is introduce any source with the remarks you use; I will and have noted before on a few sources their origins to enable "reader beware".

[CrowBat]

Come on CrowBat you are smarter than that.

Get emotions out of it and tell me, please: what kind of 'existential threat' is Israel facing?

Is it about to get overrun by a massive US/British-led or Soviet-style conventional military force? Or by the Hamas, PIJ, perhaps these two combined with Fatah? Would even 1,000 'terror tunnels' bring it to collapse? Are Zionists about to get negotiated out of power?

Despite all of this supposed 'fight for survival', the Israelis are free to select and direct the level of threat emitted by the Hamas, as and when this is suiting them - as can be read here:

...
Israel’s ideal outcome would be for Hamas to capitulate to Israel’s demands to disarm and reform into a defanged version of its current self—a troublesome but manageable part of a larger Palestinian political infrastructure. But if Hamas won’t bend, it might break, and that would be the worst possible outcome for Israel, said Aaron David Miller, a former Middle East negotiator now with the Wilson Center.

“Reform or regime change, that’s the central question,” he added. “An unanchored, unmoored, lawless Gaza in the hands of something like ISIS or Islamic Jihad, this proposition would be fundamentally worse than the one we inhabit and inherit now.”

The problem with Netanyahu’s strategy, according to Miller, is that Netanyahu may never be able to achieve the ending to the war he’s looking for. He’s unlikely to get a capitulation by Hamas and he can’t afford to destroy its leadership. He also can’t accept a tie, as the 2012 ceasefire was widely viewed in Israel.
...

What part of this sounds like an 'existential threat' and 'battle for survival'...?

Perhaps you mean a 'battle for survival of Israeli hegemony in the Middle East and on the Capitol...?

BTW, the sarcast in me can't miss the following point:

....
“Right now, Bibi is stuck. He doesn’t have an answer to the question, how do you give the Israeli public the kind of decisive victory that he and others have been talking about?” said Miller. “Bibi is risk-adverse. He wants a way out of this. The problem is, he can’t find one.”
...

...which makes it clear that the Israelis are not only in full control of this circle of violence, but therefore fully responsible for it too, for their own and the deeds of their opponents, and for consequences of both.

[davidbfpo]

Once again the London Review of Books (LRB) has a fascinating commentary, the author is with ICG and makes the political context far clearer IMHO:http://www.lrb.co.uk/v36/n16/nathan-...hamass-chances

[JMA]

Get emotions out of it and tell me, please: what kind of 'existential threat' is Israel facing?

Look we are going nowhere with this. I made a simple statement shared I might add the majority of western nations and get a knee jerk response from you.

Not arguing the obvious with anyone.

[Firn]

Looking back the last thirty years alone it is, despite all of what we know, quite depressing how the relationship between the Palestinians in Gaza and Israelis turned out. An article with interviews, which I read a while ago showed that during the direct Israeli occuption there was a level of social and commercial relations absolutely unthinkable today. For example it was absolutely normal for the kids of some Kibbutz to buy the daily share of fruit and vegetables in Gaza from their Palestinian farmer of choice. Nobody should idealize that past and deny the conflicts there and then, but how things have changed.

Over the last decades both sides have become physically and also mentally seperated. One side is increasingly known to the other only as the enemy.

[davidbfpo]

Firn,

Amidst the recent reporting was an article on the IIRC 300k Palestinians who crossed daily into Israel from Gaza, of late no-one does.

Perhaps the Israeli economy no longer such a labour force, which I suspect was manual work in agriculture and construction.

This report suggests dependency is one objective for Israel, as it hits a wide range of targets:http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worl...-shelling.html

I note there has been no reporting since last week about disorder within Israel, IIRC West Bank Palestinians; I've not spotted anything about the Israel-Arab reaction.

[TheCurmudgeon]

As I look at this problem it seems to me that the UK and the US created this mess. What we are seeing is the inevitable result of one of the last of the colonial mistakes of trying to create a state where one formerly did not exist and without the consent of the local population.

Soon after President Truman took office, he appointed several experts to study the Palestinian issue. In the summer of 1946, Truman established a special cabinet committee under the chairmanship of Dr. Henry F. Grady, an Assistant Secretary of State, who entered into negotiations with a parallel British committee to discuss the future of Palestine. In May 1946, Truman announced his approval of a recommendation to admit 100,000 displaced persons into Palestine and in October publicly declared his support for the creation of a Jewish state. Throughout 1947, the United Nations Special Commission on Palestine examined the Palestinian question and recommended the partition of Palestine into a Jewish and an Arab state. On November 29, 1947 the United Nations adopted Resolution 181 (also known as the Partition Resolution) that would divide Great Britain’s former Palestinian mandate into Jewish and Arab states in May 1948 when the British mandate was scheduled to end. Under the resolution, the area of religious significance surrounding Jerusalem would remain a corpus separatum under international control administered by the United Nations.

What we are seeing now is no different than the future partition of Iraq.

This is a political mess we created. Worse, it was created at a time when the historic solutions to such problems, like the decimation of the local population by the newly created power (or genocide), was just about to be recognized as a crime against humanity. The old days of unlimited sovereignty, where the population was the governments to control by any means necessary, was passing into history. So we created a problem that was now in need of a new solution. Watching "The Gatekeepers" it was clear that the political leadership in Israel had no idea how to deal with the new terrorist threat. They still don't. Emotion now rules the day - an eye for an eye.

Unless we step in and stop this I suspect that we will see another 50 years of war.

[carl]

Unless we step in and stop this I suspect that we will see another 50 years of war.

Oh yeah, given the steely eyed, resolute and decisive nature of our foreign policy we should be able to do bang up job.

[JMA]

Unless we step in and stop this I suspect that we will see another 50 years of war.

OMG you can't be serious.

For the US to attempt anything requiring longer than 4 or 8 years (your presidential election cycle) has proved to be unworkable (other than the Cold War).

Golda Meir had it right:

[TheCurmudgeon]

OMG you can't be serious.

For the US to attempt anything requiring longer than 4 or 8 years (your presidential election cycle) has proved to be unworkable (other than the Cold War).

Golda Meir had it right:

No, I am not serious. Just venting.

As I look at the problem I tried to trace it back to its (modern) source, which seems to be the creation of Israel. It was done with the best of intentions and a total lack of forethought. People believed you could just create a new state with total disregard of the local population. I can't blame them; we still believed it in 2004.

Any of the past solutions to such problems are foreclosed by new moral standards. If Israel believes it can "punish" Hamas into submission it is fooling itself. Short of a Leviathan stepping in and taking control, I would guess that there will be no end to the conflict. Hopefully, I am wrong.

If there is any point to my lament it is that we cannot blame the Israelis or the Palestinians for the current conflict. They did not create the situation. They were thrust into it. The US and Britain created a situation that pitted two groups with a historic distrust built on the absolutes of religion against each other for the same territory. How could anything but war have resulted?

[CrowBat]

...If there is any point to my lament it is that we cannot blame the Israelis or the Palestinians for the current conflict. They did not create the situation. They were thrust into it...

Erm... a nice attempt at being 'balanced', but the bottom line of this conflict is anything but 'balanced'.

Nobody was pushing the Zionists into settlement, and even less so into ethnic cleansing of Arabs from the Palestine, looting and razing hundreds of their villages and even several minor towns, and then establishing a 'new Sparta' that is at war with all of its neighbours ever since. That was their own idea, and they were pushing for it whoever and wherever they could - starting in the UK of the 1910s, and continuing to do so in the USA ever since 1947.

Sure, one can go back and say that pogroms of Jews in Russia of the 19th Cenutry, and especially the Holocaust of the 1930s and 1940s were 'valid' reasons for creation of Israel. However, no genocides are valid reasons for ethnic cleanings, war and state-sponsored terrorism, and as can be seen from so many Jews not living in Israel, people in Europe and elsewhere have learned a little bit since 1945, and the situation is simply different than it was back then.

Sure, the British made a double, counterproductive promise to two different parties at the same time (see MacMahon Correspondence/Arab Uprising and the Balfour Declaration), and thus set their own hair on fire. And sure, successive US administrations blatantly ignored the rights (and the will) of indigenous population, and then simply sided with the Zionists.

But, the motor for all of this was Zionism, i.e. Jewish violence against Arabs (whether as reaction to European violence against Jews or not, that's something we can discuss separately).

Re. 'historic distrust built on the absolutes of religion': although various Austrian experts were warning of 'the power of Islam' already in the 19th Century, and various British experts (including Thomas E Lawrence ['...of Arabia']) did the same in the early 20th Century... somehow I doubt this is what you mean here?

If not, then please realize that religion became a factor in the Arab-Israeli conflict only after the next major Arab defeat (after the one in 1948), namely that of June 1967.

Finally, re. 'how could all of this result with anything but a war'...

Well, all the wars could have been easily prevented - through non-application of idiotic yet typical Western prejudice towards Arabs, just to start with. For example, a conflict could have been averted by respect for treaty between Arab Kingdom of Syria and the Jewish Agency, from 1920, which granted permission for Jewish (i.e. Zionist) settlement on condition of settlers respecting rights of indigenous population. But no: the Kingdom was squashed by the French invasion of Syria (with British, USA etc. looking the other way) and then going on to 'teach democracy' (read: corruption, favourism of minorities etc.) to multi-cultural/ethnic/religious and generally tolerant Syrians.

It could have been prevented through even-handed treatment of Arabs and Israelis ever since. For example:

a) the fact the Zionists not only ethnically cleansed Arabs out of Palestine, but assassinated all the US emissaries reporting about their misdeeds, and most of top US officers fighting 'for Jewish state' in the Palestine during the 1948-1949 War (as soon as these began complaining about corruption, nepotism, mishandling of Arab civilians etc.).... or

b) the fact that the clique around Ben Gurion sabotaged peace negotiations with Egypt through terrorist attacks on US and British representatives in Egypt, in 1954 (see 'Lavon Affair')....

....should have been understood as clear warnings of what kind of regime is coming into being there (in Israel). However, this was completely ignored, and Nasser - who began buying 'Soviet' (actually Czechoslovak) weapons to defend Egypt from such and other sorts of Israeli attacks, and did so because the USA turned down his requests for weapons, was instantly declared a 'Soviet puppet' instead.

Or at least Johnson and Nixon should've done the same after the June 1967 War what Eisenhower did after the October 1956 War, namely force Israelis back within their cease-fire lines.

They didn't. On the contrary: first Johnson and then Nixon launched the policy of wholehearted support for Israel, regardless of consequences - for the USA, the West, and the rest of the World. That needs some 'well substantiated argumentation', and therefore majority of the people in the West are exposed to such bull-####ting propaganda like that Meir's about 'Arab mothers loving their children less than they hate Israelis'...

[TheCurmudgeon]

Erm... a nice attempt at being 'balanced', but the bottom line of this conflict is anything but 'balanced'.

Re. 'historic distrust built on the absolutes of religion': although various Austrian experts were warning of 'the power of Islam' already in the 19th Century, and various British experts (including Thomas E Lawrence ['...of Arabia']) did the same in the early 20th Century... somehow I doubt this is what you mean here?

CrowBat,

I was referring to the initial failure - the "original sin" - if you prefer, of creating a state based on religious identity. I would think that the Europeans, with their own history of religious wars, should have realized how unyielding religion can be. I submit that what followed was predictable as the lines were drawn between us and them, those who God gave the territory to thousands of years ago and those who have been usurpers on that land. Islamist, Christian, Zoroaster, Buddhist, agnostic, or atheist … it makes no difference, they are all usurpers.

Further, the us-versus-them of religion extends naturally to any individual or group not a member of that religion - which includes secular states, like the US and Briatain.

[davidbfpo]

I cite The Curmudgeon in part (Post 59):

As I look at this problem it seems to me that the UK and the US created this mess. What we are seeing is the inevitable result of one of the last of the colonial mistakes of trying to create a state where one formerly did not exist and without the consent of the local population.

I will only briefly comment on the role of the UK. The violent campaign by Jewish extremists / terrorists started in February 1944, with a more widely supported Jewish revolt on the 31st October 1945. The murder of unarmed soldiers in April 1946 hardened opinions, but the British government declined to use 'traditional' responses, such as blowing up houses, collective fines and curfews. The British HQ, in the King David's Hotel, was blown up in July; by January 1947 over three divisions were deployed - amidst an economic crisis at home.

It appears that remaining was unpopular with all in the UK, even Churchill and so instead of being the referee in a thankless task, the problem was handed back to the UN - the mandate was over. In July 1948 two kidnapped soldiers were hung, in reprisal for three Jewish terrorists and their bodies were bobby-trapped. On the 1st August 1948 the mandate ended and the UK had largely gone by the 30th June.

Summary based on a chapter in 'Withdrawal From Empire: A Military View' by General William Jackson (Pub. 1986).

Blame the UK, yes. Was it a mistake to leave? Maybe, but on a quick review we had no wish to remain as the "jam in the middle" as Arab and Jew readied themselves for what was to come. That hardly helps today.

[TheCurmudgeon]

Summary based on a chapter in 'Withdrawal From Empire: A Military View' by General William Jackson (Pub. 1986).

Blame the UK, yes. Was it a mistake to leave? Maybe, but on a quick review we had no wish to remain as the "jam in the middle" as Arab and Jew readied themselves for what was to come. That hardly helps today.

David,

The UK were hardly alone in this. We, the US, were much more responsible for the creation of Israel.

You are perhaps correct that the mental exercise of tyring to determine when events of the present were finally set in the past is a lot like trying to determine the number of angels who can dance on the head of a needle. I like the exercise because it allows me to look at parallels in history. The ones I find are not helpful, largely because the solutions of history are no longer viable.

[davidbfpo]

From the IDF:

IDF forces in the Gaza Strip found a Hamas manual on “Urban Warfare,” which belonged to the Shuja’iya Brigade of Hamas’ military wing, the Al-Qassam Brigades. The manual explains how the civilian population can be used against IDF forces and reveals that Hamas knows the IDF is committed to minimizing harm to civilians.

This Hamas urban warfare manual exposes two truths: (1) The terror group knows full well that the IDF will do what it can to limit civilian casualties. (2) The terror group exploits these efforts by using civilians as human shields against advancing IDF forces.

Link:http://www.idfblog.com/blog/2014/08/...human-shields/

[Firn]

Perhaps just a little economic background, which I personally found quite interesting...

Twenty years ago. In response to a spike in attacks on Jewish civilians and the influx of Soviet and Ethopian Jews Israel changed to a large degree it's economic relationship with Gaza.

ISRAELI-OCCUPIED GAZA STRIP — THE Army checkpoint between the Gaza Strip and pre-1967 Israel remains quiet, the traffic lanes usually choked with busloads of Palestinian workers entering Israel virtually empty.

About 1,200 workers were allowed across Sunday, the only ones since Israel sealed off the occupied territories March 29 following a sharp escalation in Palestinian attacks on Jewish civilians.

But even when the traffic flows again, the 110,000 Palestinians employed in Israel - 30 percent of the Palestinian work force - face an uncertain future.

"My goal is to reduce in stages, as fast as possible, the number of Palestinians working in Israel," Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin declared upon closing the borders. "It is this intermingling which allows them to endanger our security."

The paper Palestinian Labor Flows to the Israeli Economy: A Finished Story? written by Leila Farkash contains a wealth of data.

Until the late 1980s, Palestinian daily commuters to Israel, predominantly male unskilled workers, represented a third of the employed population and generated more than a quarter of the WBGS gross national product (GNP). With the advent of the peace process, however, it appeared that Palestinian labor flows no longer would play the same integrating role.
The number of Palestinian workers going to Israel dropped from a peak of 115,600 in 1992 to less than 36,000 in May 1996.

The absolute numbers don't do justice to the deep intergration, despite (or perhaps because of) the direct occuption between the two entities. For example in the 80s between 40 and 50% of the working Palestinians of Gaza were employed in Israel [Figure 2]. That is an amazingly high amount, of course mostly young and male.

Economic Performance and Reform under Conflict Conditions by the IMF, written in 2003 gives a wider perspective on the Palestinian economy ten years ago. Note once again the importance of the commuters into Israel for the economy, which was considerably higher thirty years ago.

Box 2.1. Palestinian Workers in Israel and Israeli Settlements

The Palestinian economy has for a long time been dependent on employment inside Israel and settlements. Geographical proximity, and the fact that wages are much higher in Israel, makes employment in Israel a very attractive alternative for Palestinian workers to working in the West Bank and Gaza (WBG). Before the Intifada started in late September 2000, 146,000 Palestinians were working in Israel and the settlements (about 22 percent of total Palestinian employment), and average wages for Palestinian workers in Israel have generally been about 70 to 75 percent higher than those in WBG.

This explains the importance of employment in Israel as a source of income for the Palestinian economy. In 1999, laborincome from Israel accounted for about 20 percent of Palestinian GDP.

Israel tried to curb terrorism against it's citiziens and in 1993 greatly reducing the percentage of Palestinian workers in Israel was one of the political means to achieve that goal. While the direct occuption later ended in Gaza the increased overall isolation of a small economy with very little ressources under a corrupt regime helped to create a terrible economic reality for it's population. Those conditions certainly played a big role in the landslide victory of Hamas which installed a new, increasingly corrupt regime which continued to attack Israel in various, sometimes new ways.

Israel also benefited in economic terms from the cheap labour but has increasingly substituted it mostly with workers from Asia. Perhaps later more on the Israeli economy.

[CrowBat]

...I was referring to the initial failure - the "original sin" - if you prefer, of creating a state based on religious identity. I would think that the Europeans, with their own history of religious wars, should have realized how unyielding religion can be...

Frankly, British government included a number of Zionists, or their sympathisers, and these were surely not the least interested in warning about creation of a state based on religious identity.

The rest fell for the same absurd propaganda like most of people ever since. 'Classic' example is that already Herzl knew that Palestine was densely populated and all cultivated land 'occupied', i.e. that the Zionists would have to ethnically cleanse local Arabs in order to create 'Israel'. Yet, knowing Jews of those times (mind: this was shortly after millions of them fled from pogroms in Russia) were not really keen on going to slaughter people and kick them out of their homes, he launched that nonsense about 'a land without a people for a people without a land'...

...I submit that what followed was predictable as the lines were drawn between us and them, those who God gave the territory to thousands of years ago and those who have been usurpers on that land. Islamist, Christian, Zoroaster, Buddhist, agnostic, or atheist … it makes no difference, they are all usurpers.

Some parts yes, others not. What is obvious is that ever more extreme methods of violence are creating ever more extremism. So, the longer this takes, the worse is it going to get.

BTW, another thing that's time and again coming to my mind when there's a talk about this is a parallel between the coming-into-being of the medieval Crusader state, and its fall, back in the 11th-13th Century - and creation of Israel. Back then, namely, the emergence of Crusaders and all of atrocities they committed against local population (no matter if Arabs, Christians, Jews or else), created a similar wave of refugees and calls for counterattacks; indeed, some minor counterattacks etc. Still, it took Arabs nearly two centuries to finally unite (under a Kurdish leader that coupped himself to power) and launch that counterattack...

Makes me wonder how long is it going to take this time...

...IDF forces in the Gaza Strip found a Hamas manual on “Urban Warfare,” which belonged to the Shuja’iya Brigade of Hamas’ military wing, the Al-Qassam Brigades. The manual explains how the civilian population can be used against IDF forces and reveals that Hamas knows the IDF is committed to minimizing harm to civilians.

This Hamas urban warfare manual exposes two truths: (1) The terror group knows full well that the IDF will do what it can to limit civilian casualties. (2) The terror group exploits these efforts by using civilians as human shields against advancing IDF forces.
...

Better hurry and check that - not only for content but for origins too: one can't trust the 'IDF Spokesperson' the least.

And versa-vice: HQ of the IDF and Shin Beth are in densely populated (by civilians of course), neighbourhoods. What do you think would we get to hear if Hamas would target one of these - and miss....?

(Probably the same we've got to hear about Iraqi air strikes on Ramat David and Tel Nov ABs, in June 1967: 'only civilian targets 2-3km outside these air bases were attacked and hit, air bases are not even mentioned...'.)

...Israel tried to curb terrorism against it's citiziens and in 1993 greatly reducing the percentage of Palestinian workers in Israel was one of the political means to achieve that goal....

Another, more subtle reason for this was that the Zionists are hell and bent insistent on separating and distinguishing themselves from 'Arabs' (i.e. Palestinians), proving themselves as 'better' etc.. Given original Jews (not all the Asheknazis) are just as Semitic as Arabs are, that's rather absurd, but one of sad realities in this conflict.

While the direct occuption later ended in Gaza the increased overall isolation of a small economy with very little ressources under a corrupt regime helped to create a terrible economic reality for it's population. Those conditions certainly played a big role in the landslide victory of Hamas which installed a new, increasingly corrupt regime which continued to attack Israel in various, sometimes new ways....

...very much 'truth'. One of major problems was that the Fatah was 'sitting' on any business (in Gaza Strip) that was thriving. For example, Casinos Austria have opened a big casino in the Gaza Strip, back in the early 1990s. Within shortest period of time, this was highly profitable - mainly thanks to income from Israelis and Turks, entire plane-loads of which were arriving to gamble there, every day. Of course, the Fatah was pocketing all the profit (which went well beyond US$100 million per annum, and increasing), and wouldn't let Hamas-members work even as gate-guards (which were anything than that, then we've had our own security service there).

Unsurprisingly, Hamas began threatening with attacks...Fatah explained this with 'Hamas are Islamist extremists'...eventually, we were forced to leave so the casino closed. But, the best part is still waiting its turn: when the fighting started again, that casino was one of first targets of Israeli bombardment...

Israel also benefited in economic terms from the cheap labour but has increasingly substituted it mostly with workers from Asia....

... which are easier to mis-treat/handle too...

Fully in best traditions of this Absurdistan: not few of leading Zionists are describing them as 'cockroaches' and want them all out of Israel...

************

Here some more 'food for thoughts':
Snowden latest: NSA targets Gaza, pumps intelligence to Israel

"According to the latest drop of leaks from NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden, the US spy agency provides financial assistance, weapons and signals intelligence to Israel.

The Intercept reports that Canadian, British and Jordanian signals intelligence is also shared with Israel. This intelligence relates to Palestinian targets, including those in Gaza, according to the documents handed to Snowden confidante Glenn Greenwald.
...

Anonymous Declares Cyber War on Israel, Downs Mossad Site, Many Others

"They're Back. Anonymous has launched a full-frontal assault on the Israeli government's web presence over recent events in Gaza. It's alleged that the attacks escalated after the death of Tayeb Abu Shehada, 22, a Palestinian protestor shot wearing a Guy Fawkes mask.
...

The shooting of Shehada was another of IDF's 'accidents' that are going to be 'investigated', I guess...

Anyway, the link contains a running tally of downed Israeli sites too.