NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg was in Israel to show solidarity with the country’s citizens facing Hamas rocket and missile attacks from Hamas, and for the IDF’s military operation in Gaza.

He criticized Hamas terrorists for using Gaza’s civilians as human shields. by locating command centers in densely populated areas and firing missles from such locations.

Bloomberg also experienced a Hamas rocket attack from Gaza first-hand when Sderot’s public address system warned of an incoming attack. “Get inside now! Move!” the mayor was told by Israeli security and his own security detail.

On Saturday, Bloomberg told Ashkelon’s mayor that he and most “Americans…think that Israel is doing the right thing in defending itself. It has a responsibility to defend the citizens.”

Mahmoud Zahar a/k/a al-Zahar, a Hamas terror hardliner and “the real power behind the Hamas prime minister, Ismail Haniyeh,” claimed today that his terrorist group’s rocket attacks on Israel are not a problem.

Zahar readily admits to smuggling $42 million U.S. dollars in cash into Gaza for Hamas, telling Der Spiegel: “I personally once brought $20 million from Iran to the Gaza Strip in a suitcase. No, actually twice — the second time it was $22 million.”

Sunday Times reporter Christine Toomey, suggests that Zahar should not be taken at his word. When she wrote an investigative piece trying to figure out what happened to captured Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit, the right-hand man to Hamas’ Ismail Haniyah gave her this cagey response:

“Nobody from the political or military wing of Hamas knows where Shalit is,” he says, disingenuously, sitting by my side in a starched safari suit. “Only the small group who kidnapped him know. They are very secretive.”

In a 2006 interview with another Sunday Times reporter, Zahar vowed that Hamas didn’t have to give up weapons for peace. “Why, why do we have to give up our weapons?” When asked how Hamas would make internal political decisions if it assumed power in Gaza, Zahar retorted: “”Why are you interested in that? We have no problems. We are not using guns to choose our representatives. We are not using guns in the primaries. We use knives.” And he refused to answer journalist Stephen Farrell’s question on whether Hamas “moved from being the IRA to being Sinn Fein”, laughing instead.

Zahar believes that “Christian Zionism” (i.e., Christians who support Israel) is “criminal.”

Zahar openly vows never to recognize Israel’s existence: “Israel is not a legitimate entitity, and no amount of pressure can force us to recognize its right to exist.”

Abu Obeida, the nom de guerre of Hamas’ spokesman for the terrorist group’s Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades military wing, told al Jazeera on Sunday that that Israeli troops faced death or capture.


His rhetoric appears to have toned down to the point that he sounds scared. Just two and a half years ago he boasted to a Los Angeles Times reporter: “We will turn Sderot into a ghost town.”

Listening to the Hamas spokesman’s Abu Obeida now sounds like a scared spokesman in hiding,
“The battle has just started and the enemy should endure the consequences and results. They should be ready for the bad news coming from the Gaza Strip.”

Israeli forces attacked and wounded Husam Hamdan, a senior Hamas terrorist responsible for setting up the “Qassam rocket infrastructure in the Gaza town of Khan Yunis” and long-range Grad missile attacks on the Israeli cities of Be’er Sheva and Ofakim.

Khan Yunis is 48 kilometers / 30 miles from Be’er Sheva. Now imagine you lived in Seattle and had to face daily rocket attacks from terrorists in Tacoma, Washington. That’s roughly the same distance.

The distance between Khan Yunis in Gaza and Ofakim, Israel is 33 kilometres / 21 miles. Imagine if you lived in Beverly Hills, California faced daily rocket attacks from terrorists in Malibu. Terrifying.

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Other Hamas terror leaders the IDF targeted included Mohamad Hilu, responsible for Hamas’ commando forces in Han Yunes, and Mohamad Shalpoch, a member of Hamas’ commando forces in Jebaliya. Both Hilu and Shalpoch were involved in launching rocket attacks from Gaza into Israel.