Here's the rundown on what's been going on so far:

The army retakes the remains of three abandoned Jewish villages in northern Gaza:
Israeli forces on Thursday took over the remains of three abandoned Jewish settlements in northern Gaza and clashed with gunmen on the outskirts of a Palestinian town, carving out a temporary buffer zone to prevent Palestinian militants from firing rockets at Israeli towns and cities.

The move marked an expansion of Israel's largest operation in Gaza since Israel's withdrawal from the coastal territory nearly a year ago. At least six Palestinians were killed in fighting Thursday.

Officials decided to step up the offensive, launched last week in response to the capture of an Israeli soldier, after Palestinian militants from the ruling Hamas party fired two upgraded rockets into the southern Israeli city of Ashkelon. No one was hurt, but the rockets were the first to reach the city of 110,000, infuriating Israeli leaders.There was also an airstrike:
An Israeli aircraft attacked a group of Palestinian militants in southern Gaza on Thursday, killing two people and wounding several others, witnesses said.

The army confirmed it had carried out an airstrike in Khan Younis after Israeli forces were attacked with seven anti-tank missiles and a rocket.

Palestinian hospital officials said two people were killed. Islamic Jihad said one of the dead belonged to the militant group.

An AP photographer said civilians appeared to be among the wounded, but there was no immediate confirmation from hospital officials.

Militants gathered around the area after the airstrike, taking up positions with grenade launchers.Let us be clear here. Just like the US army doesn't concern itself in wartime with civilian casualties, neither should Israel's army. And if any of those "civilians" are among the Islamofascists who support the PLO/Hamas, I can't say I'm sorry for any of them.

[Image]Former IDF chief of staff Moshe Yaalon says that Ariel Sharon's "disengagement" from Gaza was the disaster it is, and was designed to save him from legal problems:
Lt.-Gen. (ret.) Moshe Yaalon, IDF Chief of Staff until the implementation of the Gaza withdrawal, says that the entire Disengagement was conceived to save PM Sharon from legal troubles.

“The Disengagement was not the result of thorough strategic analysis, but the result of [then-Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s] political distress," Yaalon said in an interview to be published in full in Haaretz this weekend. “It was a disengagement from reality and a disengagement from the truth."

Though such a claim has been made in the past, including by two prominent journalists Ofer Shelah and Raviv Drucker in their book Boomerang, this is the first time an official who was privy to the Sharon regime from the inside has cited such motives.

"The process created an illusionary hope," Yaalon said, "which was not planned strategically and practically. The Disengagement was mainly a media spin. Those who initiated it and lead it lacked the strategic, security, political and historical background. They were image counselors and spin doctors. These people put Israel into a virtual spin, disconnected from reality, using a media spin campaign which is imploding before our eyes."

"There is no doubt that the Disengagement failed,” Yaalon said. The entire withdrawal and expulsion of 10,000 Jewish residents from Gaza and northern Samaria “was an internal Israeli game that ignored what's going on outside Israel.”

The former Chief of Staff does not accept the argument that because polls have shown a broad section of the Israeli public wanted to leave Gaza, it was the right thing to do. "The Israeli public backed the Disengagement because it was blinded and drugged and because it really wanted to free itself from the burden of the conflict and divide the land. But we have to understand that although we are trying to shake the Palestinians off our backs, they refuse to get off our backs and stab us instead. We shouldn't fool ourselves. We live in the Middle East. We cannot barricade ourselves behind walls and fences. There is no such thing as unilateralism. Even when we refuse to talk with our neighbors there is interaction with them.”Similar problems are present today in Europe, where you have Islamofascists who're interested in nothing more than living as parasites, under the favoratism of corrupt government officials who give them all the welfare checks they can get.