Thwarting Infiltration

"We saw a totally irregular event and severe attack, which was clearly orchestrated by Hamas leaders on the ground who were urging the rioters on, and to run toward the fence, to assault the fence."
"[Hamas attempts] to use civilians as human shields and as a disguise for terrorists trying to infiltrate into Israel."
Lt.-Col.Jonathan Conricus, IDF spokesman, Israel 

          A Palestinian protester slings stones towards Israeli soldiers during clashes with Israeli troops along the Gaza Strip border with Israel, east of Khan Younis, Gaza Strip, Friday, March 30, 2018. (AP/Adel Hana

Hamas, recognized as a terrorist group by most Western governments as well as some in the Middle East itself, has long been known to use Palestinians living in Gaza as living shields. In shooting off rockets and other types of deadly missiles into Israel, the locales from which the weapons are aimed across the border tend to be within crowded urban centres, including schools, mosques, hospitals and other areas of urban density. Inviting a military response from Israel targeting the area from which the missiles were fired. The purpose being to deliberately place civilians in harm's way.

Should the response hit its target located in population areas the calculation by Hamas is the more innocent civilians killed or wounded, the better. That response plays right into their playbook whereby any Israeli military targets resulting in Palestinian deaths make for heart-rending, and extremely useful propaganda played at loud volume to elicit outrage from the international community, responding to charges levelled of Israeli atrocities geared to killing Palestinians.

Palestinians march past a tent city erected along the border with Israel east of Gaza City in the Gaza strip on March 30, 2018. (AFP PHOTO / MAHMUD HAMS)

Not far from the border fence separating Israel from the Gaza Strip are a number of Israeli towns and villages, all vulnerable to attack by Hamas terrorists. Should Palestinians from Gaza -- a captive audience for Hamas whose administration of the strip is one of theocratic domination, rather complicated by the fact that the administrators' purpose of existence as a political-religious terrorist group is to kill Jews and destroy their country -- rebel against Hamas in favour of normalizing relations with a neighbour, they would be identified as traitors and suffer the punishing fate of such.

The Gaza Strip and West Bank would not be 'occupied' were it not for the fact that both represent deadly enemies of Israel and both recognize a self-imposed mandate to destroy the Jewish State, and to 'reclaim' the land on which it sits for Islam and the Palestinians. The 'occupation' is one of self-defence entirely. Insistence on "right of return" for the millions of 'refugee' descendants of the original estimated 750,000 who fled from Israel in advance of a combined Arab military attack in 1948 is one way of destroying the Jewish character of the state.

Flooding Israel with the presence of two million Palestinian Gazans, close to another two million from the West Bank, and millions who reside in Jordan, in 'refugee camps' in Syria, Egypt and elsewhere would unleash bloody carnage on Israelis, which the separating fence curtailed after two Intifadas that butchered Israelis of all ages. The new tactic adopted by Hamas of inciting Gazans to flood into Israel through the separating fence is geared to achieving that goal.

Gaza's Hamas terrorist rulers released these images of members of its military wing who it acknowledged were among 16 Gazans it said were killed by Israeli fire during clashes along the security fence on Friday, March 30, 2018. (Hamas)

Friday prayers invariably lead to clerical encouragement to go forth and engage in jihad, wherever those mosques happen to be located, in the Middle East or across the Muslim world and into the world of the West. Crowds of Gazans attempting to break through the fence using hooks and wire cutters, burning tires and intimidation of the forces who warn that tear gas will be used, then live fire when warranted, shout their eagerness to become "shahids" whenever bodies are taken away in stretchers to waiting ambulances.

Firebombs, explosives, Molotov cocktails hanging from kites and burning tires have no place in peaceful protests. If the energy used to slander and violently oppose Israel were used instead to demand accountability of the Hamas administration by the Palestinians living under their ruinous rule, it would represent reality, instead the fallacious fantasy of Israel's responsibility for the corruption and misrule of the West Bank and Gaza dominates the Palestinian agenda.

The Israeli communities living a mere hundred metres or so from the border are hugely dependent on the Israeli military to keep them safe from the deadly prospect of thousands of Palestinians rampaging into Israel.

"[All those killed were engaged in violence, most were injured by live fire while the rest were merely shaken up by tear gas and other riot dispersal means]."
"[The army had faced] a violent, terrorist demonstration at six points [along the fence. The IDF used]  pinpoint fire [wherever there were attempts to breach or damage the security fence]. All the fatalities were aged 18-30, several of the fatalities were known to us, and at least two of them were members of Hamas commando forces."
"[Israel] will not allow a massive breach of the fence into Israeli territory. [Hamas and other Gaza terror groups are using protests as a cover for staging attacks. If violence continues], we will not be able to continue limiting our activity to the fence area and will act against these terror organizations in other places too."
IDF Spokesman Brig. Gen. Ronen Manelis

A Palestinian protester throws a tire into a fire during clashes with Israeli security forces. (photo credit: AFP PHOTO)