Hamas goal is to destroy Israel

I UNDERSTAND that Aayesha Soni, as representative of the Media Review Network, touts lies, with reference to “A sniper’s barbarous act” in The Star, June 11.

The reason she does this is because it is her mission to present Hamas and the Gazan Palestinians as innocent victims and the Israelis as aggressive oppressors.

Hamas is a terrorist organisation, listed as such by the US, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, the EU, Egypt and Israel. Its use of human shields as a weapon of war has long been recognised.

If it cannot defeat Israel on the battlefield then it needs to defeat it in the eyes of the world, and no better way than a body-pile of dead women and children.

In 2008 Fathi Hammad, a Hamas member of the Palestinian Legislative Council, said: “For the Palestinian people, death has become an industry, at which women excel, and so do all the people living on this land.

“The elderly excel at this and so do the mujahedeen and the children.”

This is why they have formed human shields of the women and the children, the elderly and the mujahedeen, in order to challenge the Zionist bombing machine.

It is as if they were saying to the Zionist enemy: “We desire death like you desire life,” (Al-Aqsa TV February 29, 2008).

Hamas has as its goal the destruction of the State of Israel.

In its attempt to destroy Israel it has fired thousands of rockets into the country, built underground tunnels from Gaza into Israel, sent suicide bombers into Israel and committed acts of terror against Israelis.

In this “Great March of Return” Hamas vowed to break down the border fence between Gaza and Israel. Its objective was to kidnap and murder Israeli citizens.

The death of a 21-year-old, any 21-year-old is tragic. So too the death of a paramedic.

And while there are conventions that guarantee the movement and freedom of medical personal on the battle field, all that do this kind of work know that they are at risk.

For as Bassam Tawil wrote in the Gatestone Institute on April 2: The March of Return is “part of Palestinian Jihad (holy war) to eliminate Israel.

“(It is) yet another phase in the Palestinian attempt to wipe out the presence of Israel in the Middle East, not about any blockade.”

No army can be accused of “being on a slippery slope of amorality” if its intention is to protect its citizens and country from annihilation. Glenhazel, Joburg