Israel Warns Of "Holocaust" In Gaza

No, really. I was surprised that an Israeli official would use this term in the context of their ongoing counter-terror operations, but here it is. First, an excerpt from the BeeB;

Israeli leaders are warning of an imminent conflagration in Gaza after Palestinian militants aimed rockets at the southern city of Ashkelon.

The deputy defence minister said the stepped-up rocket fire would trigger what he called a "bigger holocaust" in the Hamas-controlled coastal strip.

Israeli air strikes have killed about 30 Palestinians, including six children in the past two days.

Israel has activated its early warning system in Ashkelon for the first time.

One rocket hit a block of flats in the city of 120,000 inhabitants about 10km (six miles) north of the Gaza Strip breaking through the roof and slicing through three floors below.

"The more [rocket] fire intensifies and the rockets reach a longer range, they (the Palestinians) will bring upon themselves a bigger holocaust because we will use all our might to defend ourselves," Matan Vilnai told Israeli army radio.

Correspondents say the "holocaust" is a term rarely used in Israel outside discussions of the Nazi genocide during World War II.
[...]
Israel's leadership has been under pressure in some quarters to launch a ground invasion of Gaza to end the rocket fire...

Israel is being subjected to intolerable attacks from a terrorist proto-state (Gaza aka Hamasistan). The Israelis are absolutely right to continue there counter-terror operations. If collateral damage is suffered by the Palestinians...well, perhaps they should stop supporting groups that want to destroy Israel and exterminate the Jews.

As to the use of "holocaust"...I think the deputy minister Vilnai should have chosen a different term, given the historical baggage that word now carries and the fact that Arab media often tries to apply that term to Israeli security measures in a negative sense; i.e., that Israel is like (or worse) than the Nazis and so forth.

(Source: BBC)