Last weekend’s Gaza violence in which 15 Palestinians were killed by Israeli forces was not what it might have seemed. It certainly was not the peaceful protest, or the massacre of innocent civilians, that Hamas, the Palestinian Authority and their supporters claim.
The demonstrations were orchestrated by Hamas, the Islamist terrorist group that rules Gaza and is committed to Israel’s destruction, with a long history of suicide bombings and thousands of indiscriminate rocket attacks against Israel’s civilians. While masses chanted and threw stones, many others were attempting to throw molotov cocktails at, and some even shoot, the Israeli soldiers, or seeking to blow up or burn down the border fence and infiltrate Israel.
Those killed were all males of fighting age and were attacking the Israeli soldiers or the fence. Eight have been positively identified as members of the Hamas military forces and two others members of other terrorist groups.
The demonstrations were not about Israel’s occupation or the West Bank settlements. Israel fully evacuated Gaza in 2005 and settlements haven’t prevented it offering a Palestinian state on generous terms in 2000, 2001 and 2008, offers that the PA summarily rejected. It also was not about Israel jailing Palestinian teenager Ahed Tamimi after she repeatedly assaulted and threw stones at soldiers and incited terrorism.
Read the article by Colin Rubenstein (executive director of the Australia/Israel & Jewish Affairs Council) in The Australian.