President Jimmy Carter: "How To Fix It": Ending this war in Gaza begins with recognizing Hamas

[Uncle Joe]

38. Netanyahu's mass retribution turning a tragic crime into an act of war is what escalated both

rocket fire and other forms of violence.

Of the 3055 rockets fired at Israel in 2014, 2936 came in June and especially July as Netanyahu went off the deep end with his mass draconian reprisals.

The lowest number was May just before Fatah and Hamas signed their unity agreement on June 2nd.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Palestinian_rocket_attacks_on_Israel,_2014

This is a partial table that summarises the content of the article below.
Month Missiles launched Effect of missiles Retaliation by Israel
Rockets Mortars Killed Injured Killed Injured
January 22 4
February 9
March 65 1 1 1
April 19 5
May 4 3
June 62 3 6
July 2,874 15 6 34 1,122 7,800
Total 3,055 31 6 41 1,123 7,800

May was the lowest month of 2014 for rocket fire, Fatah and Hamas signed their unity agreement June 2nd they were scheduled to have elections and this incensed Netanyahu, he was looking for an excuse for war. He didn't want the Palestinians united in peace with the threat of them becoming a democracy.

Ten days later, the three teenagers were kidnapped and killed in the West Bank town of Hebron, Netanyahu continuously escalated the violence with his mass retribution actions, he used this incident as a pretext for war.

Either Netanyahu totally lost his mind with his unbalanced reprisal actions or this was just a cynical premeditated ploy of his to turn a criminal tragedy into an act of war which would kill approximately just shy of 2000 people on both sides.

Just read the Wikipedia entry on the sequence of events, josh, there is much more on the link.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2014_kidnapping_and_murder_of_Israeli_teenagers

On 12 June 2014, three Israeli teenagers were kidnapped in Gush Etzion, in the West Bank, as they were hitchhiking to their homes.[2] The three teens were Naftali Fraenkel (16, from Nof Ayalon), Gilad Shaer (16, from Talmon), and Eyal Yifrah (19, from Elad).[3][4] Gilad Shaer called a police emergency hotline to report the kidnapping.[5] The emergency call recording, initially under a gag order, was leaked to the public.[5] After Gilad Shaer's whispered message "They kidnapped me", the taped call also recorded shouting in Arabic from the kidnappers and several volleys of automatic gunfire.[5][6]
IDF's Nahal Brigade conducting a search in the Hebron area

The Israel Defense Forces initiated Operation Brother's Keeper in search of the three teenagers.[7] As part of the operation, in the following 11 days Israel arrested around 350 Palestinians,[8][9][10] including nearly all of Hamas' West Bank leaders.[11] Five Palestinians were killed during the military operation.[12][13][14][15]

On 15 June, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that the teens had been kidnapped by Hamas,[2][16] which Hamas denied.[2] Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas maintained that as of 22 June there was no evidence that Hamas was behind the kidnapping.[17]

On 25 July, BBC correspondent Jon Donnison tweeted that Israeli police spokesman Mickey Rosenfeld admitted that the kidnappings did not occur on the orders of, or with the knowledge of the Hamas leadership, and that the crime was the action of a "lone cell".[18][19][20] Sheera Frenkel had reported similar views from Israel and Palestinian sources some ten days earlier.[21][22] Mickey Rosenfeld later denied having used the words "lone cell".[22]

On 26 June, the Israel Security Agency released the identities of two Hamas suspects in the kidnapping.[23] Both ISA and Palestinian authorities said that the two men have been missing since the night of the kidnapping, and the ISA stated that both had engaged in terrorism, been arrested, and served time in the past, and were considered suspects immediately after the kidnapping. A senior Palestinian intelligence official said off the record that their disappearance constituted clear evidence the two suspects have links with the abduction.[24]

On 30 June, search teams found the bodies of the three missing teenagers in a field north-west of Hebron.[25][26] They had apparently been killed shortly after their abduction.[27] Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed a tough response to the killings.[28]

Opinions were divided among Israel's security services as to whether or not the two had direct ties to Hamas.[29] Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu stated that Hamas killed the teenagers.[28] On 26 June, the Israel Security Agency identified two Hamas members as key suspects in the kidnapping, whom Palestinian police noted, had gone missing since the night of the kidnapping.[23][30][31] High-ranking members of Hamas denied that the group had any involvement or foreknowledge of the incident.[10] The two named suspects hail from the Qawasameh clan which is notorious for consistently acting against Hamas's policies and its attempts to reach an entente with Israel.[32] Hamas political chief Khaled Meshal said that he could neither confirm nor deny the kidnapping of the three Israelis, and he congratulated the abductors, because 'our prisoners must be freed from the prisons of the occupation.'[33]

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Day 8

20 June. Throughout the week, the arrest of Hamas leaders went quietly as they acceded to their detention, but by Friday sporadic popular resistance began to emerge.[94] Three Palestinians were wounded in a raid on Qalandiya refugee camp, near Jerusalem, while another five[95] were wounded in clashes at the Dheisheh refugee camp by Bethlehem, whose Ibdaa cultural center was wrecked, cheques and money from its safe, together with five computers, confiscated.[96] Four of the victims were reportedly run over by an Israeli jeep.[95][97] During a clash near the Qalandiya checkpoint in Ramallah, in which handmade grenades were hurled at Israeli soldiers who felt their lives were threatened and returned live fire at Palestinian crowds that confronted them, Mustafa Hosni Aslan (22) received a gunshot wound to his head, and was pronounced clinically dead. He died on 25 June.[98][99][100] Live fire was used according to the IDF in response to Molotov cocktails, pipe bombs, one makeshift grenade, firecrackers, and stones being thrown at soldiers at the camps.[101] In Dura's Haninia neighbourhood, after a night-long raid, involving many clashes with local youths, to detain a person Israelis consider to be a terrorist, as troops were withdrawing, eyewitness testimonies reported that a retreating Israeli soldier fired 6 shots and killed[102] 15-year-old Mohammed Dudeen.[94][102][103][104] Twenty-five more Palestinians were arrested at Dura and Dheisheh, bringing the number of detainees to 320, of which 240 are considered Hamas operatives. The number of sites searched mounted to 1,150,[101] of which 1,000 buildings were damaged,[44] the figure including over 750 homes.[102] According to Palestinian Foreign Minister Riyad al-Malki Israel had destroyed 150 homes by week's end.[105] In another dawn raid on the Dean's Office and Student Union of the Arab American University in Jenin papers were seized, and Amir Saadi, 17, was shot in the shoulder. The villages of Arraba,[106] Al-Louz, and Artas were also raided.[95]

Riyad al-Malki demanded Israel produce evidence that Hamas is culpable, stating that Netanyahu cannot 'keep blaming one side without showing evidence'. He said Israel's massive military sweeps were unacceptable, with 300 Palestinians taken in exchange for three Israeli kids,[94] but the Palestinian authority would act to prevent an uprising, for 'if the situation continues as it is, this will end up (with) the destruction of what we have built in Palestine'.[82][105]

On Friday night, Israeli security spokesmen said the 'noose was tightening', as troops were concentrated near Hebron, with intelligence officials confident that attempts to move the youths to either Jordan, Gaza, or the Sinai had failed.[107] A spokesman for the Prime Minister, Amos Gilead, stated that Netanyahu's view that Hamas was responsible was "built on the base of firm intelligence".[108] IDF forces ransacked Bethlehem's biggest Islamic charity, devoted to orphan's care, in the Jabal al-Mawalih neighborhood and took away computers and files.[109]

(snip)