Netanyahu orders Israeli military to prepare for 'significant expansion' of Gaza ground offensive

July 17, 2014: Smoke from flares rises in the sky in Gaza City, in the northern area of the Gaza Strip.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ordered the military Friday to prepare for a "significant expansion" of its ground operation against Gaza militants.

Netanyahu said the military's primary goal would be to destroy underground tunnels used by Hamas to attack the Jewish State. The announcement came hours after Israeli ground troops and tanks struck more than 100 terror targets in Israel's first major ground offensive in Gaza in just over five years.

The offensive follows an Egyptian effort earlier this week to halt hostilities. Israel accepted the terms, but Hamas refused, demanding that Israel and Egypt first give guarantees to ease the blockade on Gaza.

“Since there is no way to deal with the tunnels only from the air, our soldiers are doing it now from the ground," Netanyahu said at the opening of an emergency cabinet meeting in Tel Aviv, the Jerusalem Post reported. “We decided to launch the action after we tried all the other ways, and with an understanding that without this operation the price we will have to pay later would be much higher."

Tanks, infantry and engineering forces were operating inside the coastal strip. In a statement, the military said it targeted rocket launchers, tunnels and more than 100 other targets. Throughout the night, the thud of tank shells echoed across Gaza, often just a few seconds apart. Several explosions from Israeli missile strikes shook high-rise buildings in central Gaza City. Pillars of smoke could be seen from the Israeli side of the border.

At Gaza's main Shifa Hospital, casualties quickly began arriving, including several members of the same family wounded by shrapnel from tank shells. Among those hurt were a toddler and a boy of elementary school age, their bodies pocked by small bloody wounds.

At least 20 Palestinians have been killed in the early stage of the ground operation, including three teenage siblings and a 3-month-old boy who died after a shell hit his family's Bedouin tent in southern Gaza, The Associated Press reported, citing Gaza health officials.

The Israeli military said a number of soldiers were wounded throughout the night, and one soldier, Staff Sgt. Eitan Barak, 20, was killed in the fighting. The circumstances behind his death were not immediately clear. Hamas' military wing said it ambushed Israeli units in the northern town of Beit Lahiya and caused casualties but Israeli media said it was likely a case of friendly fire between Israeli troops.

"The ground offensive does not scare us and we pledge to drown the occupation army in Gaza mud," Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri said in a statement.

Israeli officials have said the goal is to weaken Hamas militarily and have not addressed the possibility of driving the Islamic militants from power.

However, Hamas has survived Israeli offensives in the past, including a major ground operation in January 2009 from which it emerged militarily weaker, but then recovered. Hamas has since assembled thousands of rockets and built a system of underground bunkers.

Israel had been reticent about launching a ground offensive for fear of endangering its own soldiers and drawing international condemnation over Palestinian civilian deaths.

Since the July 8 start of the air campaign, more than 260 Palestinians have been killed and more than 2,000 wounded, Palestinian health officials said. In Israel, one civilian died and several were wounded.

Israeli public opinion appears to strongly support the offensive after days of unrelenting rocket fire from Gaza and years of southern Israeli residents living under the threat. Gaza militants have fired more than 1,500 rockets at Israel over the past 11 days.

Israel said it launched an open-ended assault on several fronts, with the primary aim being to destroy underground tunnels into Israel built by Hamas that could be used to carry out attacks.

On Thursday, 13 heavily armed Hamas militants tried to sneak in through such a tunnel, but were stopped by an airstrike after they emerged some 820 feet inside Israel.

Israeli defense officials said soldiers faced little resistance during the first night of the ground operation, but the longer troops remain in Gaza, the greater the risk for heavy casualties on both sides.

Forces are expected to spend a day or two staking out positions and are working in the north, east and south of the Gaza Strip. Then, they are expected to move to the second phase, which is to destroy tunnels, an operation that could take up to two weeks.

Once Hamas is able to study the military's positions and movements, it may push back more forcefully, the officials said.

The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the military's strategy.

"The mission is progressing well," said Lt. Gen. Benny Gantz, Israel's military chief. "There were a number of incidents overnight that we overcame and moved forward."

Prior to the Israeli Cabinet meeting, several ministers said they expected a prolonged offensive.

"This operation must be completed to its end and that includes a significant incursion into Gaza," said Uri Ariel, a Cabinet minister from the hardline Jewish Home party.

"We need to go in and finish the job. We need to eliminate every terrorist. They have no immunity."

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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Administration announces new gun control measures, targets military surplus imports

April 17, 2013: President Obama puts his arm around former Arizona Rep. Gabrielle Giffords before speaking in the Rose Garden at the White House in Washington about measures to reduce gun violence.AP

The Obama administration unexpectedly announced two new gun control measures on Thursday, including one that would curb the import of military surplus weapons -- in a move that could anger collectors. 

Vice President Biden announced the new measures Thursday morning. The new rules, announced while Washington was otherwise focused on the crisis in Syria, took the form of executive actions, which President Obama added to the list of 23 steps the White House already determined the president could take on his own. 

The steps come after Congress declined to pass any gun control legislation earlier this year despite an aggressive White House push for action in the wake of the Newton, Conn., shooting massacre. With the political world focused on Mideast tensions and looming fiscal battles, the move signaled Obama's intent to show he hasn't lost sight of the issue. 

The National Rifle Association, though, ripped the administration, saying its proposals would do little to reduce crime. 

"The Obama administration has once again completely missed the mark when it comes to stopping violent crime," the NRA said in a statement. 

One new policy will end a government practice that lets military weapons, sold or donated by the U.S. to allies, be reimported into the U.S. by private entities. The White House said the U.S. has approved 250,000 of those guns to be reimported since 2005; under the new policy, only museums and a few other entities like the government will be eligible to reimport military-grade firearms. 

The Obama administration is also proposing a federal rule to stop those who would be ineligible to pass a background check from skirting the law by registering a gun to a corporation or trust. The new rule would require people associated with those entities, like beneficiaries and trustees, to undergo the same type of fingerprint-based background checks as individuals if they want to register guns. 

But the NRA said that neither measure would reduce crime, since neither the re-importation of firearms nor the corporate gun registration is known to be a source of weapons for criminals. 

"Requiring background checks for corporations and trusts does not keep firearms out of the hands of criminals. Prohibiting the re-importation of firearms into the U.S. that were manufactured 50 or more years ago does not keep firearms out of the hands of criminals. This administration should get serious about prosecuting violent criminals who misuse guns and stop focusing its efforts on law-abiding gun owners," the NRA said in a statement. 

The event in the Roosevelt Room where Biden spoke also marked the ceremonial swearing-in for Todd Jones, whose confirmation to head the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives after six years of political wrangling to fill that position was another of Obama's post-Newtown priorities. A Senate deal to approve the president's pending nominations after Democrats threatened to change Senate rules cleared the way for Jones' confirmation last month. 

Still out of reach for Obama were the steps that gun control advocates and the administration's own review say could most effectively combat gun violence in the U.S., like an assault weapons ban and fewer exceptions for background checks for individual sales. Only Congress can act on those fronts. 

Although Obama and Biden have said the fight is not over, there is scant evidence that there is more support for gun control legislation than there was in April, when efforts died in the Senate amid staunch opposition from the National Rifle Association and most Republican senators. 

"Sooner or later, we are going to get this right," Obama said that day in the White House Rose Garden, with the families of Newtown victims and former Rep. Gabrielle Giffords -- herself a victim of a gunman -- at his side. "The memories of these children demand it, and so do the American people," the president said at the time. 

In the months following the Senate vote, Biden has claimed that a handful of lawmakers who opposed expanded background checks have told him privately they've changed their minds and want another chance. But Biden and White House officials have not named any of those lawmakers. 

These days, Obama mentions gun control with far less regularity than when it appeared the Senate was poised to take action, although Obama did meet Tuesday with 18 city mayors to discuss ways to contain youth violence. And with immigration and pressing fiscal issues dominating Congress' agenda, the prospects for reviving gun legislation appear negligible. With Jones' confirmation at ATF, the White House has completed or made significant progress on all but one of the 23 executive actions Obama had previously ordered in January, the White House said. Still lingering is an effort to finalize regulations to require insurers to cover mental health at parity with medical benefits, although the White House said that it is committed to making that happen by the end of 2013. 

The new rules for guns registered to corporations will follow the traditional regulatory process, with a 90-day comment period before ATF reviews suggestions and finalizes the rule. Last year, ATF received 39,000 requests to register guns to corporations and trusts. 

The Associated Press contributed to this report. 

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Military dad surprises daughter at gymnastics competition

Leave it to someone with military training to execute such a successful and well-planned mission.

Maj. Jake Brittingham had been stationed in Africa for the past five months, and he's been badly missed by his daughter Emma. So to surprise her, he showed up at her first gymnastics competition. Luckily, the moment was captured on video.

Dad came home early, arrived at the gym and hid. Operation Surprise Emma was a go.

With mom Kelley and older sister Erin in the audience, the announcer asks 9-year-old Emma, “If you had one wish today, what would it be?”

“That my dad could be here,” she answers.

“Really? How about you turn around?” the announcer says to gasps in the crowd as Emma’s father appears behind her. A joyful Emma gets a huge hug from her dad.

“I just couldn’t even believe he was here,” she says.

Her mom, when she posted a video of the surprise reunion, wrote, "We had NO idea Daddy came home early to surprise Emma at her first Level 7 meet! Thank goodness the news was there to capture the whole thing!"

“It was exactly what I was hoping it would be,” says Maj. Brittingham.

Mission very accomplished.

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North Korean leader Kim praises military sings, oungum-style

SEOUL (Reuters)-forget "Hail to the Chief". In North Korea, the army sing their Praises leaders with a chorus of "we'll defend Gen. Kim Jong-un at the Cost of Our Lives", or the catchy accordion and Tap Dancing tune, "The Naval port in the evening".

Kim, the third of his rule in North Korea, praised musical instruments made from 1.2 million-strong army of the North on Sunday, the State News Agency KCNA reported.

Tensions have risen on the Korean peninsula as new UN sanctions were imposed after the North carried out its third nuclear test in February. Pyongyang has threatened to destroy the United States with nuclear weapons, bombing its bases Pacific and South Korea by shell in response.

Putting aside the rhetoric rising, Kim inspected guitars and drums made by the army and said it was important to make the quality tools so soldiers could "spend their days worth in the army filled with joy and militant optimism," said the KCNA.

Kim, "Supreme Commander" of the North's armed forces, inspected also coats for students at the best military schools in the country and suggested improvements, the KCNA reported.

According to independent observers, huge North Korea's military, believed to be the fourth largest in the world, spend most of their time in activities such as manufacture or for fishing for crabs because Drills are too expensive for the country impoverished and need feeding.

Kim field guide follows the example of his father, Kim Jong-il, who gave advice to factories and farmers, as well as the army.

Kim Jong-un, 30, still has some way to go in emulating the accomplishments reported by his father.

Feats of his father, according to the KCNA, including inventing the oungum, a musical instrument like banjo that is "popular" in North Korea and scored 11 holes-in-one in a single round of golf.

(Reporting by Somang Yang; Editing by Paul Tait)

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