(Israel Defense and Security Forum) Lt.-Col. (res.) Maurice Hirsch - Hamas has earned its international designation as a terror entity by carrying out thousands of terror attacks. Hamas' Charter calls for the destruction of Israel and declares all of Israel is Islamic territory - that no one has the right to place under the rule of any non-Islamic foreign entity. Over the last 18 years, terrorists in Gaza who belong to Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ), the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), Fatah's Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, and a host of other organizations have used Gaza as a launching pad for over 20,000 attacks against Israel and Israelis. These attacks have included over 17,000 missiles and mortars, hundreds of IEDs and firebombs, hundreds of shooting attacks, thousands of incendiary kites, and attempted and successful infiltrations of terrorists into Israel to murder Israelis. In recent months, $30 million in monthly aid from Qatar to Gaza has been "delayed" because the Qataris are annoyed with the growing relations between Hamas and the Iranian-Syrian-Hizbullah axis of terror. As a result of the cumulative effects of the worsening financial situation and ongoing disillusion with the Hamas leadership, throughout the summer, different groups of Gazans took to the streets to protest. In response, Gaza's Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar needed to do something to divert attention of Gazans and has chosen violence. He seeks to drag Israel into a battle and then peddle dead Palestinians as a means to rally the troops - both internally and in the international community - and re-direct the public hatred of Hamas towards Israel. Destroyed buildings mean another international effort to "reconstruct Gaza," which in turn brings in more building materials and provides jobs for thousands. The writer, director of the Palestinian Authority Accountability Initiative at the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, served for 19 years in the IDF Military Advocate General Corps and was director of the Military Prosecution in Judea and Samaria.
2023-09-28 00:00:00Full ArticleBACK Visit the Daily Alert Archive