[Ha'aretz] Amos Harel and Avi Issacharoff - Hamas' decision to put Ashkelon, and its 120,000 residents, within permanent range of their rockets from Gaza may turn out to have been a mistake on their part. A round of increased violence between Israel and Hamas takes place every two or three weeks. And each time, the latest round is more severe than the one preceding it. More than 30 rockets were fired at Israel Thursday, and close to 90 in the last two days. Hamas has adopted an extreme, uncompromising stance. Conversations with its leaders sometimes give rise to the suspicion that they are out of touch with the military reality on the ground, in which their forces are suffering more and more casualties. Hamas has also been criticized for the way it distributes humanitarian aid from Arab states, providing food only to its supporters. When four out of every five Gazans live below the poverty line, this is not the kind of behavior that makes Hamas popular.
2008-02-29 01:00:00Full ArticleBACK Visit the Daily Alert Archive