F-22 crashes on highway in Florida.

TYNDALL AIR FORCE BASE, Fla. — An Air Force F-22 Raptor fighter jet crashed near a Florida Panhandle highway Thursday, but the pilot was able to eject safely and there were no injuries on the ground, the military said.

The single-seat stealth fighter, part of a program that has been plagued with problems, went down Thursday afternoon near Tyndall Air Force Base, just south of Panama City on The Gulf of Mexico. The pilot received medical treatment and a section of Highway 98 that runs through the base was closed as rescuers responded.

The crash was on Tyndall land and no one on the ground was hurt, said Air Force Sgt. Rachelle Elsea, a spokeswoman for the base where F-22 pilots train.

The Air Force said the plane went down in a wooded area near the highway.

Israel at war with Hamas

JERUSALEM –  Israel is in an all-out ground war with Hamas Thursday, as Israeli planes, tanks and gunboats pounded suspected militant positions in Gaza in retaliation for another day of Hamas rocket attacks that left at least three Israelis dead.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told reporters on Thursday that Israel could no longer stand repeated attacks on its southern towns. He said that Israel has "made it clear" it won't tolerate continued rocket fire on its civilians.

Earlier, Netanyahu had declared, "If there is a need, the military is prepared to expand the operation. We will continue to do everything to protect our citizens."

The casualties were the first since Israel launched its operation on Wednesday with the assassination of Hamas' top military commander.

Police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said two Israeli men and a woman died after a rocket struck their four-story apartment building in the southern Israeli town of Kiryat Malachi. A 4-year-old boy was seriously wounded and two babies slightly injured in the strike.

Since the Israeli operation started, a total of 13 Palestinians, including four civilians, have been killed and more than 100 people wounded, according to Palestinian medical officials. Among the dead were two children.

Israelis and Gazans both holed up in their homes Thursday in anticipation of heavy fighting on the second day of the military's campaign.

Israeli aircraft, tanks and naval gunboats pounded the Hamas-ruled coastal strip and rocket salvoes thudded into southern Israel.

The operation, launched after days of rocket fire from the coastal territory, was Israel's most intense attack on Gaza since its full-scale war there four years ago.

The Israeli military said the some 20 airstrikes were part of a major offensive dubbed "Operation Pillar of Defense," according to a Reuters report.

Israeli officials said Wednesday that a ground invasion was a strong possibility in the coming days if Hamas didn't rein in the rocket fire. Mid-morning Thursday, there was no sign such an invasion might be beginning. But the Israeli military was cleared to call up special reserve units -- a sign the operation might broaden.

"The military will continue acting to establish deterrence against Hamas and to return the calm," Defense Minister Ehud Barak said during a tour of southern Israel. He praised citizens for coping with the "tough moments to come."

Gaza schools were ordered closed until the operation ends, and most of the territory's 1.6 million people hunkered down close to home, venturing out only to buy food, fuel and other basic supplies.

Hamas announced a state of emergency in Gaza, evacuating all its security buildings and deploying its troops away from their locations.

Israeli aircraft dropped leaflets on several locations in Gaza early Thursday, warning Gazans to stay away from Hamas, other militants and their facilities.

The Israeli military said Hamas fighters and other militant factions, undeterred by the air attacks, bombarded southern Israel with more than 130 rockets after the operation began. Israel's newly deployed Iron Dome missile defense system, developed as a response to the short-range rockets from Gaza, intercepted two dozen of them, military spokeswoman Lt. Col. Avital Leibovich said.

Israel declared a state of emergency in the country's south, where more than 1 million Israelis live within rocket range, instructing people to remain close to fortified areas.

People living in areas along the frontier were ordered to stay home from work, save for essential services, and shopping centers were closed. Israeli police stepped up patrols around the country, fearing Hamas could retaliate with bombing attacks far from the reaches of Gaza.

Batya Katar, a resident of Sderot, a community that has been a frequent target of rocket fire, said streets were empty there.

"People won't be outside. The minute they assassinated the Hamas military chief we knew an offensive had begun. We were waiting for it, and it's about time they did it. We have the right to live like other countries in the world."

Many Gazans provided updates on their Facebook and Twitter accounts, providing news about airstrikes and rocket launches. Others shared prayers and called for militants to stand tough against Israel.

"My little 4-year-old boy keeps asking me to pray with him every 10 minutes, saying, 'Mama. Let's pray together to Allah in order to be safe,'" one woman, Ghadeer Ahmad, wrote on her Facebook account.

Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas cut short a trip to Europe to deal with the crisis surrounding Israel's military operation, according to Saeb Erekat, an aide to Abbas.

Erekat harshly condemned Israel's military operation, saying the Palestinians "hold Israel fully responsible for the consequences of this act of aggression."

Few in the Palestinian territory's largest urban area, Gaza City, came out following the call for dawn prayers on Thursday, and the only vehicles plying the streets were ambulances and media cars.

About 400 angry mourners braved the streets, however, to bury Hamas mastermind Ahmed Jabari, whose body was draped in the green flag of the Islamic militant Hamas movement. Some fired guns in the air and chanted, "God is Great, the revenge is coming." 

When the body was brought into a mosque for funeral prayers, some tried to touch or kiss it. Others cried. Jabari was the most senior Hamas official to be killed since the last war in Gaza ended in early 2009. He has long topped Israel's most-wanted list, blamed for a string of deadly attacks, including the kidnapping of Israeli soldier Gilad Schalit in 2006.

The Israeli military said its aircraft targeted more than 20 facilities that served as storage or launching sites for rockets. Among the weapons destroyed were rockets that could hit as far as 25 miles into Israel.

The conflict has deepened the instability gripping the Middle East. Cairo recalled its ambassador in response to the military operation, which began just days after Israel was drawn into Syria's civil war for the first time.

In a statement read on state TV late Wednesday, spokesman Yasser Ali said that President Mohammed Morsi recalled the ambassador and asked the Arab League's Secretary General to convene an emergency ministerial meeting in the wake of the Gaza violence.

Israel and Egypt signed a peace accord in 1979. Relations, never warm, have deteriorated since longtime Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak was ousted in a popular uprising last year.

Egyptian Foreign Minister Mohammed Kamel Amr spoke with U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton late Wednesday, asking for "immediate U.S. intervention to stop the Israeli aggression," the ministry said in a statement.

Amr told Clinton that if Israel's offensive does not stop, "matters will escalate out of control" and asked the U.S. "to use what contacts it has with Israel."

In Washington, the United States lined up behind Israel. "We support Israel's right to defend itself, and we encourage Israel to continue to take every effort to avoid civilian casualties," State Department spokesman Mark Toner said.

President Obama spoke with Netanyahu and the two men agreed Hamas needs to stop its attacks on Israel to allow tensions to ease, the White House said.

Obama spoke separately to Morsi, given Egypt's central role in preserving regional security, the White House said. The two men agreed on the need to de-escalate the conflict as quickly as possible.

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon called for calm and urged both sides to respect international humanitarian law.

On Wednesday night, the U.N. Security Council met behind closed doors to consider an Egyptian request for an emergency meeting on Israel's military action in Gaza. The Palestinians asked the council to act to stop the operation.

For the past four years, Israel and Hamas have largely observed an informal truce. But in recent weeks, the calm has unraveled in a bout of rocket attacks from Gaza and retaliatory Israeli airstrikes. From Israel's perspective, Hamas escalated the situation with two specific attacks in recent days: an explosion in a tunnel along the Israeli border and a missile attack on an Israeli military jeep that seriously wounded four soldiers.

Outside the hospital where Jabari's body was taken, Hamas official Khalil al-Haya eulogized the commander and threatened Israel.

"The battle between us and the occupation is open and it will end only with the liberation of Palestine and Jerusalem," he said.

Thousands of angry Gazans chanted "Retaliation" and "We want you to hit Tel Aviv tonight."

Witnesses said Jabari was traveling in a vehicle in Gaza City when the car exploded. Crowds of people and security personnel rushed to the scene of the strike, trying to put out the fire that had engulfed the car and left it a charred shell. The Israeli military released a grainy, black-and-white video of the airstrike. It shows a sedan moving slowly along a road before exploding in a powerful blast that sent a large piece of the car flying into the air.

Dovish Israeli lawmaker Dov Hanin condemned the killing.

"Assassinating leaders is never the solution. In place of the leaders killed, others will grow, and we will only get another cycle of fire and blood," he said.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/world/2012/11/15/3-dead-after-gaza-rocket-strikes-southern-israel/#ixzz2CJ3WJBVe

Petraeus to testify behind closed doors on Benghazi

CBS NEWS: Gen. David Petraeus will testify before a House Committee on the Libya embassy attack Friday morning, despite the ongoing FBI investigation into an extramarital affair that led to his resignation as director of the CIA.

The hearing to be held by the House Intelligence Committee is closed to the public and the media. Petraeus is expected to answer questions about the CIA's knowledge and handling of the assault on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi that left U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans dead. Two of those Americans were with the CIA.

It was unclear at first whether or not Petraeus would testify at all on Capitol Hill at all, after he abruptly resigned from the agency amid news of his affair with biographer Broadwell. On Wednesday, before the House Intelligence Committee's announcement, the Senate Intelligence Committee said the retired General would testify to their committee at a separate hearing, though it's still unclear when he'll speak to the Senate panel.

Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calf., chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said Wednesday that Petraeus was "willing and interested" to talk to the committee, CBS News reported earlier Wednesday.

"It's just on Benghazi. Our hearings are on Benghazi and the intelligence that preceded Benghazi and the intelligence that determined security," she told reporters.

Meantime, the House Intelligence Committee will hear from him at 7:30 a.m. on Friday, an hour that is extremely uncommon for a congressional meeting.


Timeline: How Benghazi attack, probe unfolded

Congressional investigators get access to telegrams, intelligence reports, and classified emails as they interview top security and Pentagon officials. Sources tell CBS News' Margaret Brennan that intelligence officials will show footage from an unmanned surveillance drone that was overhead during the assault.

The Senate Foreign Relations Committee, which has oversight of the State Department, has already been briefed about the attack by Under Secretary Patrick Kennedy and Assistant Secretary for Diplomatic Security Eric Boswell.© 2012 CBS Interactive Inc. All Rights Reserved.

Israel releases video showing death of Hamas leader Ahmed al-Jabari

Israel has confirmed it has killed Hamas Military Chief and terror mastermind Ahmed al-Jabari. He had been credited with the increased rocket fire coming from the Gaza Strip. Approximately 10,000 rockets have been fired at Israel since he assumed the position.

IDF Spokesman Yoav Mordechai told the Jerusalem Post that the airstrike marked the beginning of a campaign to target Hamas and Islamic Jihad terror organizations in Gaza.

According to an AP report, “Witnesses say Jabari was traveling in his vehicle in Gaza City when his car exploded.”

Shortly after the operation the IDF released this statement:

“In the past hour, the IDF targeted Ahmed Jabri, the head of Hamas’ military wing, in the Gaza Strip. Jabri was a senior Hamas operative who served in the upper echelon of the Hamas’ command and was directly responsible for executing terror attacks against the State of Israel in the past number of years.

The purpose of this operation was to severely impair the command and control chain of the Hamas leadership, as well as its terrorist infrastructure. This was a surgical operation in cooperation with the Israeli Security Agency, that was implemented on the basis of concrete intelligence and using advanced capabilities.”

The Times of Israel reports that, “Jaabari was credited with being one of the leaders of Hamas’s violent putsch to take control of the Gaza Strip in 2007, and masterminded the professionalization of the Hamas military,” and that “Israel attempted to kill Jaabari in an airstrike in 2004.”

Editors note: This should cause Hamas members to lose plenty of sleep - especially when they hear jets flying overhead.




RELATED

FBI looks for classified document leaks in Petraeus case

By Sari Horwitz, Greg Miller and Karen DeYoung, Published: November 13


The FBI is making a new push to determine how a woman who had an affair with retired Gen. David H. Petraeus when he was CIA director obtained classified files, part of an expanding series of investigations in a scandal that also threatens the career of the United States’ top military commander in Afghanistan.

Senior law enforcement officials said that a late-night seizure on Monday of boxes of material from the North Carolina home of Paula Broadwell, a Petraeus biographer whose affair with him led to his resignation last week, marks a renewed focus by investigators on sensitive material found in her possession.

The issue of national security is still on the table,” one U.S. law enforcement official said. Both Petraeus and Broadwell have denied to investigators that he was the source of any classified information, officials said.

The surprise move by the FBI follows assertions by U.S. officials that the investigation had turned up no evidence of a security breach — a factor that was cited as a reason the Justice Department did not notify the White House before last week that the CIA director had been ensnared in an e-mail inquiry.

The disclosure about the FBI’s renewed focus comes as investigations of the matter expanded on other fronts.

The Defense Department said Tuesday that its inspector general is examining hundreds of e-mails between Marine Gen. John R. Allen, the U.S. commander in Afghanistan, and a Florida woman also linked to the Petraeus inquiry.

At the same time, key lawmakers signaled their intent to scrutinize the Justice Department’s handling of an inquiry that focused initially on a potential conflict between two private people but quickly morphed into an examination of the e-mail of two top national security officers.

“My immediate gut is like this is the National Enquirer,” Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), the chairman of the Senate intelligence committee, said in an interview on CNN. “I mean, every day there is something new.”

Feinstein added that she has “many questions about the nature of the FBI investigation, how it was instituted, and we’ll be asking those.”

White House spokesman Jay Carney said that President Obama maintains confidence in Allen and that the four-star general will continue to lead the war in Afghanistan even as he faces the inspector general’s inquiry.

“I can tell you that the president thinks very highly of General Allen and his service to his country, as well as the job he has done in Afghanistan,” Carney said, adding that Obama “has faith in General Allen, believes he’s doing and has done an excellent job.”

At the same time, Carney said Obama put on hold Allen’s nomination to serve as supreme allied commander for NATO forces in Europe, canceling Allen’s appearance before the Senate Armed Services Committee this week.

The Allen investigation focuses on his extensive correspondence with Jill Kelley, a Tampa resident who had carved out a role as an ad hoc social ambassador to military personnel at MacDill Air Force Base.

READ THE REST AT THE WASHINGTON POST