The news Wednesday that Israeli warplanes bombed Palestinian supply tunnels running into the Gaza Strip again is more than a predictable hiccup in Israel’s self-declared cease-fire. A Palestinian bomb had killed an Israeli soldier on Tuesday. Israel responded with airstrikes the same day, and followed up Wednesday with air attacks on tunnels in the southern Gaza town of Rafah, on the Egyptian border. There were no reported casualties, but residents fled their homes in panic.
The raid underlines – if any underlining was needed – that any lasting truce is going to hinge on the question of what is allowed into Gaza and how.
Since Israel stopped allowing much except humanitarian supplies into Gaza two years ago, in a bid to undermine the strip’s Hamas rulers, Gazans have depended on a warren of tunnels from Egypt for everything from AK-47s to cheese. If they couldn’t get even legit stuff in through the Israeli-controlled border points, Gaza’s merchants have been bringing it in underground. And Hamas’s rocket builders have been bringing their weapons in that way, too.
Hamas is like the little boy who runs crying to mommy saying:
“Mom! Jeffy hit me back!”
They really need to take responsibility for their actions.
More like “Jeffy took 100 eyes for one tooth.”
[More information about this can be downloaded at: IfAmericansKnew.org/download/gazacfv.pdf ]
American media are reporting violence that took place along the Gaza-Israel border on January 27th as, in the words of CNN, “the first incidents of violence since last week’s Mideast cease-fire,” telling the public that Palestinians broke the ceasefire. [1]
The reality, however, is that Israel had already violated the cease-fire at least 7 times, the Israeli military killing 2 Palestinian civilians and injuring at least 5, at least one of them a child:
* Israeli forces killed a Palestinian farmer in Khuza’a east of Khan Yunis on Jan 18
* Israeli forces killed a Palestinian farmer east of Jabalia on Jan 19
* Israeli naval gunboats shelled the Gaza coast line, causing damage to civilian structures on Jan 21
* Israeli troops shot and injured a child east of Gaza City on Jan 22
* Israeli gunboat fire injured 4-7 Palestinian fishermen on Jan 22
* Israeli shelling set a Palestinian house on fire on Jan 22
* Israeli tanks fired on the border town of Al Faraheen, causing damage to homes and farms on Jan 24
This list does not include two Palestinian children who were killed on January 20th by unexploded ordnance left from Israel’s 22-day assault on Gaza.
Nigel,
Please check out this [url=http://new.kendallharmon.net/wp-content/uploads/index.php/t19/article/19895/#comments]thread[/url]. You clearly do not have the whole picture.
Or read [url=http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,24864678-2703,00.html]here[/url] and [url=http://www.turkishweekly.net/news/62757/-he-would-tease-us-and-ask-if-we-wanted-to-die-as-martyrs-with-him-rayyan-39-s-daughter-says.htm]here[/url] to learn a little more about the culture of Hamas.
Don,
I can’t get the second link to work for me.
Jim
Sorry, Jim. It works when I click it. It’s a slightly different take on the story of Nizar Rayyan from a Turkish news source. It gets more into the “virtues” he instilled in his family. Things like this from one of his surviving daughters:
[blockquote]“My father raised us all to love martyrdom,†Walaa said. “If you had the chance to ask my 4-year-old sister Aaysha, who died in the attack, she would have told you that she preferred to die martyr.â€[/blockquote]
Maybe [url=http://www.turkishweekly.net/news/62757/]this version of the link[/url] will work.
I stand in full support of Israel. Israel belongs to the Jews in my Bible. Again and again they have made concessions to the Palastenians and it’s never enough.
Why does one need a tunnel system to bring in things like food, medicine, appliances and such?
Jeffersonian,
You do not need a tunnel system to bring in food and medicine. Israel shut the border, except for humanitarian aid, to protest the existence of a government next door that vowed the destruction of Israel.
If our border with Mexico were small and Mexico had a history of sending in bombers and murders and calling for the destruction of the United States, then I dare say we would shut the border too.
YBIC,
Phil Snyder
Jeffersonian, try [url=http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/28/world/middleeast/28egypt.html?_r=1&scp=6&sq=gaza&st=cse]this[/url] on for size.
I realize Israel shut the border…into Israel. I’m speaking of the tunnels that go from Gaza into Egypt. Israel hasn’t, indeed cannot, close those.
I;ll have what Archangelica is having – well said! Actually, Israel may have some bombs that will take care of the tunnels.
I have never really understood where the three great monotheistic religions are coming from on the Israeli issue. Both Jews and Christians hold the entire “Old Testament” to be inspired scripture, and Islam also accepts the “Pentateuch” as inspired scripture. And it is in that part of scripture that God, several times, grants the land of Israel (including quite a bit that isn’t now under their control) to “the sons of Jacob,” who was renamed Israel. So. . . either the great monotheistic religions of the world think they know better than the God they say they worship, or they are determined to change God’s mind, with the passage of time. Seems futile to me. The land is Israel’s, from the “great sea” to the river Euphrates – or so it reads.
Except, jkc, the Muslim accepts the [i]re-written[/i] Pentateuch, with the line of Ishmael being the inheritors of the promise to “Ibrahim”, and the line of Isaac being the usurpers of that promise.
libraryjim, thank you for the enlightenment. I did not realize that.
Well, one minor point:It may be incorrectly inferred that the Muslims accept and read the Torah. That is not entirely correct.
The Q’ran has some of the same stories as is in the book of Genesis, however, they were re-written as beneficial towards Islam, and replace Ishmael for the acts of Isaac, as in the sacrifice of ISHMAEL by “Ibrahim†on the mount, not Isaac. Since Ishmael was the first-born of “Ibrahimâ€, he is the inheritor of God’s promises, not Isaac, and therefore the ‘holy land’ belongs to them not the Jews or Christians.