From the Associated Press:

GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip (AP) – Israeli tanks and troops launched a ground offensive in the Gaza Strip Saturday night with officials saying they expected a lengthy fight with Hamas militants in the densely populated territory after eight days of punishing airstrikes failed to halt rocket attacks on Israel.

Hamas vowed that Gaza would be a “graveyard” for Israelis forces.

“This will not be easy and it will not be short,” Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak said soon after the ground invasion began.

The incursion was preceded by several hours of heavy artillery fire after dark, igniting flames in the night sky. Machine gun fire rattled as bright tracer rounds flashed through the darkness and the crash of hundreds of shells sent up streaks of fire.

The EU rightly legitimizes Israel’s actions:

PRAGUE – European Union president, the Czech Republic, said Saturday an Israeli ground offensive in Gaza was “defensive, not offensive” action. “At the moment, from the perspective of the last days, we understand this step as a defensive, not offensive, action,” Czech EU presidency spokesman Jiri Potuznik said.

Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, while in Paris on Thursday, told of Israel’s rejection of a French-proposed cease-fire in the Gaza Strip.

Livni told her French counterpart Bernard Kouchner that Hamas must must not be given the opportunity to gain any sort of legitimacy within a renewal of a truce. Under the current offensive, she said, Hamas understand that Israels will not tolerate Gaza rocket fire without response.

Israel is sticking, literally, to her guns.

The French Foreign Ministry, however, in contradiction of the EU, says “France condemns the Israeli ground offensive against Gaza as it condemns the continuation of rocket firing.”

It is good to see that Israel appears to be in the fight for the long run:

This will not be easy and it will not be short,” Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak said soon after the ground invasion began.

For once, the entire globe is not calling for the defeat of Israel.

From the Washington Post, Ephraim Sneh writes: Why Israel Is Bombing Gaza

When demands are made of Israel to halt its military activities in Gaza, a brief historical reminder is in order.

In September 2005, Israel vacated Gaza, dismantled all the settlements in the Gaza Strip and did not leave a shred of a presence there.

In January 2006, rule over Gaza passed to the Hamas government under Ismail Haniyeh. Instead of bringing investors to Gaza, the Hamas government brought the guerrilla-warfare trainers of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard. Instead of launching economic projects, this government launched rockets every day at Israeli towns and villages across the border. They smuggled in vast amounts of explosives, weapons and rockets; they prepared themselves for battle.

In June 2007, in a brutal and bloody military coup, Hamas took control of Gaza and soon killed or chased out the leaders of President Mahmoud Abbas’s Fatah movement. Gaza became nothing less than a military base for Iran.

Up until the Hamas takeover, 750 trucks would cross the border each day with imports and exports. As Israel’s deputy defense minister at the time, I was in charge of this activity and promoted this trade with Gaza, since the border crossings were being controlled by Abbas’s Presidential Guard, not by terrorists. The Hamas takeover is what in effect locked the gates of Gaza and forced its residents to suffer.

Thus endeth the lesson.