Hamas terror chief Khaled Meshal and Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad met in Iran on Sunday, February 1, 2009.

Iranian ‘Supreme Leader’ Ayatollah Seyed Ali Khamenei told Meshal in Tehran that “the Islamic resistance (Hamas) should be prepared for any possible situation, including a fresh war in Gaza,” according to Iran’s state-controlled media outlet, Fars.

Last Spring, Iran promised the Hamas terrorist group advanced missiles, other weapons, financial support, and military training.

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert promised that if Hamas continued its Gaza-based deadly rocket attacks on Israel, the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) would respond with ‘disproportionate’ force.


After a cabinet meeting Sunday morning, Olmert stated that:

The Cabinet’s position from the outset was that if firing continues against residents of the South, there would be a sharp Israeli response that would be disproportional vis-a-vis the firing at residents of the State of Israel and at our forces. We will not go back to the rules of the game that the terrorist organizations tried to dictate in the past. We will act according to new rules that will ensure that we are not dragged into an unending shooting war on the southern border that denies southern residents a normal life.

Meanwhile, IDF Military Intelligence Chief Amos Yadlin believes that Hamas is currently acting in a defensive posture, concluding that the terrorist group “has been deterred, and is honoring the ceasefire, but is not deterring [other terrorist groups] enough.”

Former Lt. General Thomas McInerney told the Jerusalem Post that Israel was “too restrained and could have gone deeper into Gaza.”

Hamas used human shields again when terror operatives fired mortars from a U.N. school in Jabaliah / Jabalyah, Northern Gaza today.

Imad Abu Askhar and Hassan Abu Askhar were among the two (2) Hamas slain gunmen identified amongst the dead.

An initial IDF inquiry concluded that in “response to the incoming enemy fire, [Israeli] forces returned mortar fire to the source.” which came directly from the school.

This is yet another example of Hamas repeatedly using civilian population centers as human shields.

What were U.N. school authorities doing to prevent such blatant violations of the U.N.’s use of the property for educational purposes? What will Ban Ki-moon have to say about the latest incident using children and school employees as human shields?

The following video taken by an IAF drone in 2007 shows an attack in progress when terrorists launched rockets from a U.N.-operated school in Beit Hanoun, Gaza. U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon deplored the attack, calling it a an “abuse of UN facilities, which is a serious violation of the UN’s privileges and immunities…[and the type of] actions that endanger the lives of civilians, especially children.”