State indicts Gazans for incendiary kites, attacking IDF soldiers
The Southern District Attorney’s Office filed indictments against two Gazans on Sunday over their use of fire kites and other weapons to attack Israeli fields and IDF border troops.
Visam Dibari, 20, was accused in Beersheba District Court of making and sending incendiary kites over the Gaza border fence with the express purpose of harming Israeli agriculture, and potentially also harming any Israelis nearby.
Dibari allegedly was careful to plan his timing of launching incendiary kites to match when conditions were driest so that he could maximize the damage caused to Israeli lands and agriculture.
Muhammad Hasi, 21, is accused of being a member of Hamas and Palestine Islamic Jihad at different times, and of using a variety of makeshift weapons to attack IDF soldiers on the border.
Both Dibari and Hasi allegedly burned tires to create smokescreens for informal units of Palestinians to have a better chance of achieving surprise attacks on IDF soldiers, or of cutting through the border fence and infiltrating Israel.
Also, both defendants were involved in surveillance of IDF forces to aid coordinated efforts at harming those forces or breaching the border defenses.
The two were captured in separate incidents in which each of them broke through the Israel-Gaza border fence, but were then apprehended by IDF patrols.
When the two were captured, they or others with them were armed with weapons including knives and shears that could be used to cut through fences or stage an attack.
The two are part of the violent side of the mixed violent and nonviolent March of Return protests that Hamas and some civil society organizations have staged along the Gaza-Israel border on Fridays since March 2018.
Already in May 2018, the state prosecution started to indict some of the violent participants in the conflict.
Throughout the approximately 21 months of the low-grade conflict, the Palestinians have alleged that Israel has been heavy-handed in shooting and killing around 350 Palestinians, while Israel has slammed the Palestinians for trying to cover-up Hamas involvement and the violent activities of many protesters.
Although Hamas also tries to portray Israel as heavy-handed, as early as May 2018, a senior Hamas official admitted in a television interview that around 80% of those killed on one of the most violent days of the protests were members of Hamas or other terror groups.