Israel, Refusing to Perish

"[We] cannot go back, we cannot go back to the silent death [of the blockade. Hamas is obliged] to defend our land and defend the future of the next generations."
"Gaza has decided to end the blockade by its blood and by its courage. This siege, this unjust siege, must be lifted."
Ismail Haniya, Hamas prime minister

He and his dedicated Islamists have no intention of agreeing to an unconditional ceasefire with Israel. Alternately, Israel's minister of defence has pledged to keep right on fighting "as long as necessary". And necessarily, Israel will continue its mission to destroy the extensive network of tunnels leading from Gaza into Israel that threaten incursion, danger of violence, and death or abduction for Israeli citizens and military personnel.

Admittedly, Israel is unreasonable about this position, that they will uphold the safety and security of their state, and the lives of their people. Hamas, with its philosophy of martyrdom, and its willingness to sacrifice the lives of ordinary Palestinians for the greater good of scoring "victories" over Israel by abducting Jews who will then be invaluable in rendering the release of a thousand-to-one prisoners for a single person, is on a perpetual treasure hunt.

But for now their mission is to reduce Israel to a whimpering, frightened enclave of Jews hoping that the nightmare that Hamas has unleashed with its unending rocket fire will end. It is a message that Israel has obviously misinterpreted, answering rockets for artillery fire, and upsetting Hamas enormously by studiously warning civilians to take themselves out of harm's way, when Hamas instructs them it is their duty to remain there, in harm's way.

To do otherwise is to surrender to the "oppressor" who "occupies" Palestinian land, and whom Hamas dedicates itself to sending into oblivion. Israel, Haniya demands, angrily, has no option but to relent and remove the blockade and Egypt too must do likewise. That neither Israel nor Egypt know Hamas for anything but its terrorist credentials and its bloodlust to prove its jihadist martyrdom complex is irrelevant.

Opening the borders to the free flow of weapons and terrorists between Gaza and Egypt, Gaza and Israel just coincidentally signs a death warrant for Israel and ongoing conflict for Egypt. Why would either agree to satisfy the demands of Ismail Haniyeh, fixed in his obsessive drive to destroy Israel and return the Muslim Brotherhood to Egypt?

It isn't too difficult to believe his assertion that all of Gaza's 1.7 million residents share his demand. When Hamas  triumphantly released the wonderful news that another Israeli soldier has been abducted and held by their brigades, Gaza and parts of east Jerusalem and the West Bank erupted in joyful congratulations at that achievement of monumental proportions. Victory cannot be far behind.

For its part, Israel is busy doing its utmost to safeguard its military personnel; its troops met "a huge level of resistance" as they moved in to destroy "extensive tunnelling" underground, and the infrastructure for what it calculates as 10% of the rockets being fired into Israel. Remove those tunnels and ten percent fewer rockets will strike into Israel; makes eminently good sense.

Hamas fighters were visible on the streets of Shejaiya

That, in the process, innocent Palestinians fled in their tens of thousands in terror unwilling to meet death, unwilling to adhere to the privilege of martyrdom, and that hundreds others are dying to satisfy the bloodlust of Hamas; whether through Jewish deaths or Arab ones appears irrelevant. If they're the death of Jews all the better; fewer to contend with. If they're Arab deaths, that too suits the agenda very well for propaganda purposes.

In Shejaiya, Hamas spotters were seen by reporters on the scene taking up positions on empty streets, talking into telephones and walkie-talkies as they maintained a lookout. Other reporters arriving later witnessed gunmen in black balaclavas and weapons concealed on their persons moving through the neighbourhood. A two-hour humanitarian truce was shattered in mere minutes, leaving journalists and medics caught in crossfire.

Hamas, in rejecting the Egyptian plan for a ceasefire is relying heavily on Qatar and Turkey to intervene and recommend a ceasefire whose details will be more in keeping with Hamas's demands. Israel will be less than enthralled to see the details of a ceasefire plan engineered by the two regional powers who support Hamas both morally and materially in their commitment to Israel's destruction.

Hamas fired over 50 rockets into Israel, and again attempted to have their henchmen tunnel into Israel on Monday. Again, the Palestinian death toll topped 100, with well over 600 dead in the weeks of violence, and over three thousand wounded. Israeli fighter planes striking homes and apartments, mosques and even a hospital, know with pinpoint intelligence-accuracy where rocket launchers and weapons stockpiles are, including in schoolhouses operated by UNRWA.

IDF armored personnel carriers in Gaza. Photo by AP

"Civilian casualties are a tragic inevitability of the brutal and systematic exploitation of homes, hospitals and mosques in Gaza", states the Israeli military, revealing a reality of existence in Gaza under a militaristic theocracy that expends funding for terrorist infrastructure, ignoring civil infrastructure and the provision of peace and security to advance the future for a people too long petulantly embracing their refugee status.

While a doctor at the Al Aqsa Hospital in the central town of Deir el-Balah indicated that four people were killed and 60 wounded in an Israeli tank strike damaging the third and fourth floors necessitating that patients be evacuated to the lower floors, the IDF gave notice that anti-tank missiles were stored near the hospital, the cache successfully targeted.