The only winners in Gaza are extremists
I AM going to write words that I never thought I ever would. I agree with Na’eem Jeena. I agree with his assertion that Palestinian lives have been sacrificed on the altar. They have been sacrificed in the most cruel and unforgiving manner. But it is not on the altar of Israeli elections, as Jeena so cynically charges; but rather on the altar of extremism and hate.
Nearly two weeks ago, the Israeli Defence Force (IDF) launched Operation Breaking Dawn, pre-emptively striking, with pinpoint precision, Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) targets in the Gaza Strip. Following the arrest of PIJ leader Bassam al Saadi during counter-terror operations in Jenin in the West Bank, military and security officials had received intelligence that the terror group was planning to launch attacks on Israeli civilians.
PIJ, who are funded by Iran, have been responsible for the murders of hundreds of Israelis and are proscribed as a terror organisation by the EU, US, UK, Australia, Canada, New Zealand, Japan and others.
PIJ fired barrage after barrage of rockets aimed at Israel’s southern communities.
More than 1 500 000 Israelis, living within an 80km radius, were in range. Rockets were fired towards Tel Aviv, Modiin, Jerusalem and Beersheba as well.
These rockets were fired towards Israeli civilians from within Palestinian civilian infrastructure, effectively committing a double war crime.
At least 16 out of 27 civilian casualties are reported, with video evidence, to be as a result of PIJ rockets misfiring or landing short. A news crew were almost killed by a misfiring rocket.
Hamas stayed out of the fray for a variety of reasons – many believe it is because public support in the Gaza Strip for these terror entities has waned.
Witness accounts from Gazan citizens speaking to Agence France-presse (AFP) confirmed IDF claims.
“I was with my wife and children in my house when we heard the sound of a huge explosion. Two minutes later, I looked out the window and saw a horrible scene.
“A house nearby was destroyed,” Abdul Rahman, a Jabaliya refugee camp resident who did not want his full name used for security reasons, told AFP a little over a week after the latest round of violence between Israel and Gaza-based terror groups. One of the rockets launched at Israel “landed on the house”, he said.
The only winners in Gaza are extremists.
In a rare interview with Israel’s Channel 12 news, a woman who lives in the Gaza Strip describes her terror during Israeli strikes and says public support for Hamas and Islamic Jihad is fading.
Speaking in English and on condition of anonymity out of fear of reprisals from Hamas, which rules the Strip, the woman says there has been a change in public feelings.
“The view, the perspective, the thought of Gaza people has changed completely. In the previous wars, they were with the resistance, with Hamas and Jihad, but now people are calling for the stop of war,” she says.
“The only ones who get demolished and (are) losing are the people of Gaza, not the leaders,” she says.
This is the inconvenient truth Jeena ignores while pushing ideologies fraught with sophistry to push an agenda that is fomenting antisemitism in South Africa, and importing a conflict into a country facing its own fair share of challenges.
The Middle East is transforming before our eyes as Arab countries open up to Israel.
They have come to realise not only that their support for Palestinian leadership has resulted in gross misuse of funds, but that the region is safer and more prosperous when working with Israel.
Israel, like any sovereign state, reserves the right to protect her citizens – regardless of impending election cycles.
The Palestinian people deserve better than to be the sacrificial lambs on the altar of hate – and of truth.