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ISRAELI LEADERS HAVE authorised its military to call up 40,000 reservists for a possible assault on the Gaza Strip, the army said.
“Following a directive of the chief of staff the general staff… and the approval of the government, the Israel Defence Forces increased the draft of reserve forces,” the military tweeted in English.
The approval is currently limited to 40,000.
The move came during the most serious flare-up over Gaza since November 2012, as Palestinian militants rained rockets onto southern Israel and Israel hit back with deadly air strikes.
“We have been instructed by the political echelon to hit Hamas hard,” chief military spokesman General Moti Almoz told army radio earlier, saying the operation would take place “in stages”.
Defence Minister Moshe Yaalon warned it was likely to be a protracted campaign.
“We are preparing for a campaign against Hamas, which will not end in just a few days,” he said in a statement after meeting security chiefs, which defined the aim as being “to exact a very heavy price from Hamas”.
We will not tolerate rocket fire on Israel cities, and we are preparing to expand the operation with everything at our disposal to strike Hamas.
Israeli strikes on Gaza gave killed 13 people and wounded at least 90, the emergency services said, as the military began an aerial campaign against militants in the Strip.
In the worst strike, a missile slammed into a house in the southern city of Khan Yunis after people had reportedly formed a human shield to protect it, killing seven people.
Emergency services spokesman Ashraf al-Qudra told AFP two people were among the dead and that another 25 people were wounded.
Witnesses said an Israeli drone fired a warning flare, prompting relatives and neighbours to gather at the house as a human shield and that, shortly afterwards, an F-16 warplane fired a missile that levelled the building.
In response, Hamas said “all Israelis” would be potential targets for retaliation.
“The Khan Yunis massacre… of children is a horrendous war crime, and all Israelis have now become legitimate targets for the resistance,” spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri said on Facebook.
Shortly afterwards, two Palestinians were killed in an air strike in Shejaiya, east of Gaza City, Qudra said without elaborating.
Earlier, three people were killed when a missile struck a car in the Daraj neighbourhood in the centre of Gaza City, he said, correcting an earlier toll of four fatalities.
Hamas’s Al-Aqsa TV showed gruesome images of charred body parts being loaded onto ambulance stretchers.
Family members said all of them were Hamas militants, identifying one as Mohammed Shaaban, 32, a senior commander in Hamas’s armed wing, the Ezzedine Al-Qassam Brigades. He was also head of the group’s naval operations, they said.
Israel’s army confirmed targeting Shaaban, describing him as “a senior Hamas operative.”
In a separate strike near Nusseirat refugee camp in central Gaza, another man was killed, with witnesses telling AFP he was also a Hamas militant.
The deaths came hours after Israel announced the start of Operation Protective Edge, a campaign aimed at stamping out rocket fire on southern Israel and destroying Hamas’s military infrastructure.
Army figures show that militants have fired 130 rockets at southern Israel since midnight without causing any casualties, while the air force struck 150 “terror targets” in Gaza.
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I’m more interested in how much it increased from 2021 to 2022 and more to the point from January 2020 to December 2022 ..
It’s all so backwards. Energy providers are claiming the price increase is due to increased fuel costs, yet they are all reporting massive profit increases during the same period. Price gouging and war profiteering at it’s finest and the Government/Regulators are doing nothing about it.
Does anyone think it will ever go back down in price again?
@David Mc Cabe: never once up it’ll stay there.
Go with the storage heater like David suggested. 1.5KW per hour would cost you your ESB rate per hour. Say your rate is 40 cents per KW (unit) then it would cost you 60 cents per hour to run it. If you had it on for 4 hours it would cost you €2.40.
Can someone advise, which is more cost efficient, a storage plug in heater or a fan heater? Thank you
@Julie: Get the wattage off both units and I will run the calculations for you.
@Julie: I think an oil storage plug in heater is better, fan heaters need to be always on and when switched off you notice the temp. drop within 5 min. Oil radiators will switch off when a set temp. is reached and switch back on if the temp. falls below a certain amount also keep dont go cold quickly after they switch off.
@David Corrigan: Thank you David, the fan is 2000 watts and the storage heater is 1.5kw
@David Mc Cabe: Thank you David!
@Julie: @Julie: looks like the heater will use 25% less electricity over an hour and be on less because it stores a certain amt of heat. Keeping the heater on level 1 over an extended period is the way to use them.
@Julie: I have one of the Oil Filled Radiators 1.5kw, it has 3 setting 700w, 800w and 1.5kw. It has a min – max temperature dial. I mostly just use the 800w setting with the temp turned about 60-70% full. (Large Double Bedroom) At this setting it will switch on for 15 min, and turn itself off for about 10 min. So using a full hour of electric power it is actually on for 1hr 40 mins. I believe the price for this was about 16c – 20c per hour. ( 1hr 40mins of actually being on consuming power)
I only use the 1.5kw setting on the really colder days.
@David Mc Cabe: you are a star thank you!!
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