UPDATES

Rockets from civilian areas: Hamas and Islamic Jihad are fooling no one

Nov 21, 2012 | Daniel Meyerowitz-Katz

Rockets from civilian areas: Hamas and Islamic Jihad are fooling no one
news_item/Rocket.jpg

The most unfortunate consequence of any war is that innocent people are invariably caught in the crossfire. The current conflict in Gaza is no exception, as can be seen by the tragic deaths of members of the Dallu family on Sunday from what appears to have been an erroneous airstrike on the part of the Israelis. The IDF were trying to target Hamas commander Yihya Abayo and, for reasons still unclear, hit the nearby Dallu household instead. The incident is currently under investigation.

Nevertheless, there is overwhelming evidence that the human toll that the war is taking is being exacerbated substantially by the tactics that Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad (‘PIJ’), and other Gaza militant groups are employing. These groups have taken a decision to conduct military operations — particularly the launching of rockets into Israel — from positions deeply embedded in civilian areas. This means that, however much care it takes to target only military objectives, Israel is unable to strike at rocket teams without a very high probability of civilian casualties.

As Harvard Law Professor Alan Dershowitz recently noted:

Hamas’s tactic is as simple as it is criminal and brutal. Its leaders know that by repeatedly firing rockets at Israeli civilian areas, they will give Israel no choice but to respond. Israel’s response will target the rockets and those sending them. In order to maximize their own civilian casualties, and thereby earn the sympathy of the international community and media, Hamas leaders deliberately fire their rockets from densely populated civilian areas. The Hamas fighters hide in underground bunkers but Hamas refuses to provide any shelter for its own civilians, whom they use as “human shields.” This unlawful tactic puts Israel to a tragic choice: simply allow Hamas rockets to continue to target Israeli cities and towns; or respond to the rockets, with inevitable civilian casualties among the Palestinian “human shields.

An example of the horror that this can lead to was shown on Monday’s 7:30 Report on ABC:

Nine-month-old Hanin Haled Tafeshi was wounded in an air strike on the first night of the Israeli operation. Her little skull was fractured, causing dangerous swelling on the brain. For her father, Khaled, a bakery worker, it’s an incomprehensible outrage.

KHALED TAFESHI, FATHER (voiceover translation): No-one was firing rockets near us. The Israelis are firing on kids and old people. …

MATT BROWN: Debris thrown up by an Israeli air strike had crashed through the roof. Mud and the little girl’s blood were splashed on the walls.

It was, of course, a freak accident that this piece of errant shrapnel happened to come down where it would injure Tafeshi. Unfortunately, such accidents are almost inevitable when striking the areas from which Palestinian rocket teams are firing. Israel is given the awful dilemma of either choosing not to take-out the rocket team — thereby exposing its own civilians to enemy fire — or to take-out the rocket team with a high chance of hitting Palestinian civilians. For that very reason, conducting military operations from within civilian areas is considered to be a war crime, not that this seems to bother the groups in Gaza.

Matt Brown went on to interview a representative of PIJ about the tactic of firing from civilian areas. The militant did not even attempt to justify the practice, instead trying to deny that it is a common trend:

MATT BROWN: The men who fire rockets from eastern Gaza could not be reached for comment, so we asked a representative of one of the most radical groups, Islamic Jihad, for an explanation.

ISLAMIC JIHAD MEMBER (voiceover translation): We do not deliberately go to residential areas to launch rockets. We avoid them.

MATT BROWN: It’s just not true that the rocket crews don’t fire from near civilian dwellings. We’ve seen videos of it. We’ve seen the vapour trails of the rockets coming out from very close to civilian homes.

ISLAMIC JIHAD MEMBER (voiceover translation): This is only in limited cases, but we believe Israel is bombing the population deliberately.

It may not come as a shock that the man from PIJ was lying, but as can be clearly seen from many images coming out of Gaza, firing rockets from civilian areas is hardly ‘only in limited cases’. In fact, it appears more like standard practice.

According to the Australian‘s John Lyons, who reported from Gaza yesterday, the residents of Gaza are well-aware of this tactic and, fearful of Israeli counter-attacks, are even starting to have hostile reactions against militants who want to fire from their neighbourhoods:

In Gaza, the first you know of an incoming bomb is the boom. The other sound is outgoing missiles. Fights have been breaking out between some groups when residents of an area become angry with militants wanting to fire from their neighbourhood.

Israel responds quickly and forcefully, and those still in the area where the rocket was fired face the consequences.

But then, as the old saying goes, ‘a picture is worth a thousand words’, and there is no small number of photos of rockets being fired from civilian areas — both from the present round of conflict, and from rocket attacks going back a number of years — to prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that this is a long-standing tactic for Gazan militants. Below are just a few examples from Western media outlets and from the Palestinian media.

Daniel Meyerowitz-Katz

Rockets are launched from the Gaza Strip towards southern Israel on Wednesday. The rocket fire stopped overnight. Photograph: Jack Guez/AFP/Getty Images

Tir d'une roquette depuis la bande de Gaza, le 9 avril 2011. | AP/Ariel Schalit

FILE - In this Jan 7, 2009 file photo, a rocket fired by Palestinian militants in the Gaza Strip is seen from southern Israel, near Israel's border with the Gaza Strip | The National, UAE

A rocket launched by Palestinian militants towards Israel makes its way from the northern Gaza Strip, seen from the Israel Gaza Border, southern Israel, Thursday, Nov. 15, 2012. (AP Photo/Ariel Schalit)











Tags:

RELATED ARTICLES


Sderot, Israel. 7th Oct, 2023. Bodies of dead Israelis lie on the ground following the attacks of Hamas (Image: Ilia Yefimovich/dpa/Alamy Live News)

Israel’s Sept. 11, only worse

Oct 11, 2023 | Update
Israeli PM Binyamin Netanyahu (r) gets his long-awaited face-to-face meeting with US President Joe Biden in New York (Photo: Avi Ohayon, Israeli Government Press Office)

Netanyahu meets Biden, other world leaders, in New York

Sep 27, 2023 | Update
Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, who gave an address on Aug. 28 threatening the US and laying out the Iranian-led axis's new "unity of the arenas" doctrine. (Photo: Shutterstock, mohammad kassir)

US-Iran prisoner swap deal set to go through

Sep 12, 2023 | Update
A rally of Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah party last year: Yet outside these faithful, Abbas is not only largely unpopular, but his rule over the PA has seen the Palestinian parliament dissolved, judiciary sidelined, and his party hollowed out (Photo: Shutterstock, Anas-Mohammed)

The Crisis in the PA

Aug 28, 2023 | Update
Reports are suggesting a US-Saudi agreement has been reached on the broad outlines of a package that would see Riyadh normalise its relations with Israel, perhaps early next year - though other reports dispute this. (Image: Shutterstock, OnePixelStudio)

Renewed focus on Saudi-Israeli normalisation

Aug 14, 2023 | Update
PM Netanyahu flanked by Justice Minister Yariv Levin (r), the main architect of the judicial reform package, and Defence Minister Yoav Gallant (l), known to favour compromise on the reforms, during the Knesset debate over passage of the "reasonableness" clause" on July 25 (Image: Screenshot, Kan TV).

The aftermath of passage of one judicial reform bill in Israel

Aug 1, 2023 | Update

SIGN UP FOR AIJAC EMAILS

RECENT POSTS

Section 93Z of the NSW Crimes Act 1900

AIJAC welcomes the passage of improved NSW race hate laws

Pro-Palestinian protestors waiting in the lobby for the Israeli families of those murdered or taken hostage by Hamas

AIJAC questions handling of pro-Palestinian protestors ambushing visiting families of Israeli murder victims and hostages

Masked members of the al-Qassam Brigades, the military wing of Hamas (Image: Shutterstock)

A powerless Hamas is the only way this war will end

Pie Chart

News reports whitewash the crimes of Palestinian prisoners being released

(Image: Shutterstock)

The silence about Hamas’ ongoing war crimes

Section 93Z of the NSW Crimes Act 1900

AIJAC welcomes the passage of improved NSW race hate laws

Pro-Palestinian protestors waiting in the lobby for the Israeli families of those murdered or taken hostage by Hamas

AIJAC questions handling of pro-Palestinian protestors ambushing visiting families of Israeli murder victims and hostages

Masked members of the al-Qassam Brigades, the military wing of Hamas (Image: Shutterstock)

A powerless Hamas is the only way this war will end

Pie Chart

News reports whitewash the crimes of Palestinian prisoners being released

(Image: Shutterstock)

The silence about Hamas’ ongoing war crimes

SORT BY TOPICS