Gaza Hamas Israeli/Palestinian Conflict Terrorism

IDF Ops in Gaza Kill Palestinian Weapons Expert…….

The IDF scored a big hit last night in its targeting of Eid al-Ashram, a Palestinian weapons expert that was killed in an open area in northern Gaza. Israel has been operating in Gaza over the last few days after sending in troops, tanks and aircraft that are trying to take out Gaza rocket squads that have been bombarding the neighboring Israeli cities of S’derot and Ashkelon.

The Palestinians have been continuously launching Qassams as well as the newly acquired Grad missiles at Israel, thanks to the breaching of the border fence with Egypt and to their labyrinth of tunnels that run under the border. Deputy Defense Minister Matan Vilna’i told Army Radio: that Israel had “no other choice” but to launch a massive military operation in Gaza.

The J’lem Post reports that:

In all, at least 20 Palestinian civilians – the youngest a 6-month-old boy – and 27 terrorists have been killed since clashes between Israel and Hamas terrorists spiked Wednesday when an Israeli student at Sapir College in Sderot was killed by a Kassam rocket.

One must be remined that the IDF takes great care in trying to ferret out the terrorists from the actual civilian population. The death toll of civilians, no matter how unsettling and unfortunate it is, would be far greater if it were for an example, an Arab army conducting a similar military operation. That’s a fact.

Like the Defense Minister said, they have no choice. The IDF is dealing with an enemy that hides itself amongst civilians, shoots their missiles from civilian areas, and last night one of their own Qassam or Grad missiles landed on a house killing a baby, Malak Karfaneh, and wounded three other civilians.

One of the least likely sources for the Tundra Tabloids to quote in defense of the current IDF operation, as well as the difficulties involved in trying to limit the military impact on the civilian population– is the well known (in Finland) Israel critic, international lawyer, Martti Koskenniemi:

“An occupying army can’t be completely fault free, because of the fact that the opposing side hides in and amongst the civilian population.”

Though Koskenniemi was talking about Iraq, the comparison with the Palestinians’ standard operating procedures is the same. In dealing with private militias who fold in and out of the general public, the difficulties increase dramatically for an army trying to target their enemy. If any harm comes to a civilian, the side which bears the ultimate responsibility is the side that deliberately puts their own people in harms way. *L* KGS

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