UPDATES

Hamas is killing its own

Jul 23, 2014 | Glen Falkenstein

Hamas is killing its own
news_item/Hamas-rockets1.jpg

 

Glen Falkenstein

The Australian – July 23 2014

 

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/opinion/hamas-is-killing-its-own/story-e6frgd0x-1226997934042

 

“EVERYBODY here hates Hamas … But they’re too afraid to say so publicly. Our food comes from Israel but what we give them in return is rockets.”

A taxi driver from Gaza sums up the feelings of many whose lives are in danger, following increased rocket fire between Israel and Hamas, whose military wing is a listed terrorist organisation in Australia. Hamas terrorists have even gone on TV to urge Palestinians to stand on roofs and expose their “bare chests” to incoming rocket fire.

Involving their own civilians in warfare as human shields is a well-documented Hamas practice that the group itself has admitted to on many occasions, while for them, all Israeli civilians are “legitimate targets”. Meanwhile, Israel is taking extraordinary steps to minimise civilian casualties on both sides.

The Israel Defence Forces makes phone calls, sends text messages, drops leaflets and fires warning shots, giving ample warning for residents to temporarily leave an area that the IDF needs to target.

As a spokesman for the Israeli Prime Minister recently said: “If we know that innocent civilians will be hurt, we will call off the operation,” and the IDF has video footage of airstrikes that have been aborted for such reasons.

Last Tuesday, the Israeli cabinet agreed to a ceasefire with Hamas, which rejected the offer and continued to fire wave after wave of rockets into Israel. Hamas’ rejection of the ceasefire was criticised at the time by the UN Secretary General and other world leaders, as well as Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas.

Hamas’ decision to continue its self-destructive offensive has been unpopular among Gazans, many already opposed to Hamas’ extremism. In a poll taken in Gaza last month by a leading Palestinian pollster, 70 per cent of those surveyed agreed that “Hamas should maintain a ceasefire with Israel,” while 73 per cent of respondents agreed that non-violent action should be adopted.

Civilians in Gaza have every reason to resent Hamas for placing military assets, including rockets, missiles and bombs in homes, a UNRWA school and adjacent to Gaza’s al-Aqsa hospital – the latter reportedly causing fatalities in the hospital after it was accidentally hit on July 21. Hamas has reportedly made Shifa hospital its de facto headquarters and has even issued a directive to Gazans to say that “anyone killed or martyred is to be called an innocent civilian” even if they were killed in combat.

The number of civilians who have died in Gaza is a great tragedy – many of those deaths could likely have been avoided if Hamas leaders had not urged Gazans to ignore IDF warnings to leave a combat zone. As former US President Bill Clinton told India’s NDTV last week, “(Hamas has) a strategy designed to force Israel to kill their own (Palestinian) civilians so that the rest of the world will condemn them.”

Israel continues to exercise extreme vigilance to avoid harming Palestinian civilians as it battles Hamas, but the challenge of fighting an enemy that has such disregard for the safety of its own people is almost unprecedented and must be taken into account.

Israel’s responsibility to protect its citizens has been acknowledged by the same world powers that condemned Hamas. At great risk to the lives of its soldiers, the Israeli military has launched a ground operation in Gaza to target Hamas military infrastructure and extensive tunnels for smuggling weapons and terrorists into Israel. Twenty-seven Israeli soldiers have been killed and more than a hundred injured due to the conflict as of last night, with at least 45 tunnels already uncovered by the military.

Hamas has claimed Israel is targeting civilians and not the terrorists’ operations. This claim is not only meritless, but defies common sense. The IDF’s own casualties so far, which represent its’ highest toll since the Second Lebanon War, reveal the intensity of Hamas’s attacks, including the use of advanced weaponry such as Kornet anti-tank missiles. Had it been Israel’s intention to conduct a “massacre”, as Hamas alleges, a ground attack would not have been implemented.

Hamas governs Gaza, including the health ministry, and is the primary source for much of the casualty statistics that are being reported. Independent evaluations of the casualties thus far have noted a much higher number of military age males among Gaza’s dead than has generally been reported, and there is every reason for that to be reflected in the final figures.

However, it should always be remembered that the civilian casualties that do occur are solely the result of Hamas’s tactics, which amount to war crimes.

Glen Falkenstein is a policy analyst at the Australia/Israel & Jewish Affairs Council

 

Tags:

RELATED ARTICLES


A scene from the unusually intense and extended battle that took place in Jenin on June 19, which left eight Israelis injured and seven Palestinians dead, six of them gunmen (Photo: Ayman Nobani/dpa/Alamy Live News)

Growing security challenges in the northern West Bank

Jun 27, 2023 | Update
Khamenei called for Iran to create 20,000 megawatts of nuclear power capacity - which would require at least 19 more plants the size of Iran's only current nuclear power plant, the Russian-built Bushehr plant (Image: Wikimedia Commons).

Iran’s ambiguous pronouncements on a possible new nuclear deal

Jun 16, 2023 | Update
Image: Shutterstock, Stuart Miles

A “Less for Less” Nuclear Deal with Iran?

Jun 9, 2023 | Update
Recent weeks have seen the rei-gnition of intense discussions regarding US efforts to negotiate a Saudi-Israel normalisation deal (Image: Shutterstock, lunopark)

Saudi-Israel deal progress?/ Israel and Erdogan’s Turkey

Jun 5, 2023 | Update
Palestinian demonstrators demand the resignation of PA President Mahmoud Abbas - the PA is increasingly viewed by many Palestinians as no longer representing their interests (Photo: Shutterstock, Anas-Mohammed)

Palestinian Authority in Crisis

May 25, 2023 | Update
Screenshot from a tiktok video showing Palestinian Islamic Jihad rockets being launched at Israel from amidst civilians in a heavily populated area of Gaza

“Shield and Arrow”: Yet another Gaza conflict

May 12, 2023 | Update

SIGN UP FOR AIJAC EMAILS

RECENT POSTS

PA President Mahmoud appears to be doubling down on antisemtiic comments because he regards them as essential to the Palestinian “narrative”(Image: Shutterstock)

Scribblings: Why Mahmoud Abbas says horrible, antisemitic things

Yasser Arafat and Yitzhak Rabin: It became clear Arafat’s priority was getting a foothold in “Palestine”, but that he would never consider long-term compromise (Image: GPO/ Flickr)

Oslo at 30

Image: Shutterstock

Editorial: A year of hope or disaster?

Shaking,Hands,Israel,And,Morocco

Morocco and Israel: A disaster underscores how the Abraham Accords have changed the region

Iran Protests (52383779726)

After over 7 months of silence, Government rejects nearly all Senate recommendations on Iran

PA President Mahmoud appears to be doubling down on antisemtiic comments because he regards them as essential to the Palestinian “narrative”(Image: Shutterstock)

Scribblings: Why Mahmoud Abbas says horrible, antisemitic things

Yasser Arafat and Yitzhak Rabin: It became clear Arafat’s priority was getting a foothold in “Palestine”, but that he would never consider long-term compromise (Image: GPO/ Flickr)

Oslo at 30

Image: Shutterstock

Editorial: A year of hope or disaster?

Shaking,Hands,Israel,And,Morocco

Morocco and Israel: A disaster underscores how the Abraham Accords have changed the region

Iran Protests (52383779726)

After over 7 months of silence, Government rejects nearly all Senate recommendations on Iran

SORT BY TOPICS