Tag Archives: Gaza Strip

A visit from the boss in Gaza

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Khaled Meshal made his first visit to the Gaza Strip today as the head of Hamas:

For Mr. Meshal, 56, it was a triumphant visit, and Hamas fighters, armed with rifles and wearing balaclavas, lined the streets where he was to travel. He entered from Egypt, through the Rafah crossing, an indication of a new alliance with Cairo.

“Gaza, with its martyrs, cannot be described in words,” he said as he arrived here, with tears in his eyes. “There are no words to describe Gaza, to describe the heroes, the martyrs, the blood, the mothers who lost their sons.

“I say I return to Gaza even if I never have been here. It has always been in my heart.”

Mr. Meshal’s visit resonated on multiple levels, reflecting the many changes that have swept the region since the Arab Spring. Mr. Meshal was permitted to cross the Egyptian border now that allies of the Muslim Brotherhood — a cousin of Hamas — have come to power. But it also reflected at least a symbolic effort to heal divisions within Hamas between Mr. Meshal and the leadership in Gaza, and for Hamas to promote its contention that it was victorious in its recent battle with Israel. Mr. Meshal fled the West Bank with his family after the 1967 Arab-Israeli war and had never returned to Palestinian territory. In 1997, when he was in Amman, Jordan, agents from the Israeli intelligence service, posing as Canadian tourists, tried to kill him by injecting him with poison. The agents were captured by Jordanian authorities, and Mr. Meshal lay in a coma until the agents handed over the antidote.

Color me ignorant, but it seems bizarre to me that Meshal can navigate around Gaza so freely and openly just weeks after the conclusion of fighting precipitated by an unexpected Israeli air strike on a senior Hamas operative, Ahmed Jabari. The fact that Jabari was apparently a somewhat key contact of Israel’s makes Meshal’s very public visit all the more striking.

Israel has, quite obviously, not always been above attempted assassinations of Meshal (as evidenced by its failed 1997 attempt), so it’s interesting to guess exactly what’s preventing it from taking the easy shot now. Obviously, there would be international repercussions of some sort. But given the recent overwhelming vote (over Israel’s strong objections) to award Palestine nonmember observer state status at the United Nations, it’s not particularly clear that Israel cares much about its increasing isolation anyway.

So what is preventing Israel from assassinating Meshal? If the entire reason for its restraint is the recent truce negotiated by Egypt, then perhaps there really is some baseline level of trust between senior Israeli and Hamas officials. After all, it seems unlikely Meshal would risk appearing in public in Gaza if he didn’t have utter certainty that he wouldn’t be targeted.

The French think strategically…

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…while the United States continues to think anachronistically:

France will vote in favor of the Palestinians’ request to heighten their profile at the United Nations, the French foreign minister told Parliament on Tuesday, embracing a move that Israel and the United States oppose.

The support of France, a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council, is the most significant boost to date for the Palestinians’ hopes to be granted nonmember observer status and thus greater international recognition. Russia and China, two other permanent members, have also thrown their support behind the Palestinian bid.

The French support appeared calculated to strengthen the position of the Palestinian Authority’s president, Mahmoud Abbas, whose Fatah party governs the West Bank, after fighting with Israel in the Gaza Strip this month that left Hamas, the Islamic militant organization that oversees Gaza, ascendant.

For too many years, the American approach to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has been incoherent. We want democratic elections, but then we decry the results and call the winners a terrorist organization. We want fewer terror attacks, but then support Israel in policies that only strengthen the hand of those same people we call terrorists. What do we want, exactly?

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The New York Times, Israel, and Gaza

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Robert Wright justifiably takes issue with the Paper of Record’s description of Israel’s blockade of the Gaza Strip:

Sadly typical of the way the MSM covers the issue is a recent New York Times piece about the ceasefire by David Kirkpatrick and Jodi Rudoren (both of whom have done excellent work on other issues in the region). The piece described the blockade as “Israel’s tight restrictions on the border crossings into Gaza under a seven-year-old embargo imposed to thwart Hamas from arming itself.”

Putting it this way is a real time saver, not just because it fits into a single short sentence, but because, if you’re too busy to actually write that sentence, the Israeli government’s press office would be happy to do it for you. But this description of the blockade raises a question:

If the essential purpose of the blockade were indeed to “thwart Hamas from arming itself,” wouldn’t restrictions on imports into Gaza suffice? (And even then the import restrictions wouldn’t have to be as draconian as they were when imposed, or even as tight as they are now, after some loosening.) What I’d like to see an enterprising MSM reporter ask is: How do Israel’s severe restrictions on Gazan exports keep arms from getting to Hamas?

The Nation‘s Greg Mitchell is on the same page regarding the newspaper’s photo captioning.

Fanaticism in the Israeli mainstream

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Gilad Sharon, the youngest son of Ariel Sharon, penned an op-ed for the Jerusalem Post yesterday:

Why do our citizens have to live with rocket fire from Gaza while we fight with our hands tied? Why are the citizens of Gaza immune? If the Syrians were to open fire on our towns, would we not attack Damascus? If the Cubans were to fire at Miami, wouldn’t Havana suffer the consequences? That’s what’s called “deterrence” – if you shoot at me, I’ll shoot at you. There is no justification for the State of Gaza being able to shoot at our towns with impunity. We need to flatten entire neighborhoods in Gaza. Flatten all of Gaza. The Americans didn’t stop with Hiroshima – the Japanese weren’t surrendering fast enough, so they hit Nagasaki, too.

There should be no electricity in Gaza, no gasoline or moving vehicles, nothing. Then they’d really call for a ceasefire.

Were this to happen, the images from Gaza might be unpleasant – but victory would be swift, and the lives of our soldiers and civilians spared.

IF THE government isn’t prepared to go all the way on this, it will mean reoccupying the entire Gaza Strip. Not a few neighborhoods in the suburbs, as with Cast Lead, but the entire Strip, like in Defensive Shield, so that rockets can no longer be fired.

There is no middle path here – either the Gazans and their infrastructure are made to pay the price, or we reoccupy the entire Gaza Strip. Otherwise there will be no decisive victory. And we’re running out of time – we must achieve victory quickly. The Netanyahu government is on a short international leash. Soon the pressure will start – and a million civilians can’t live under fire for long. This needs to end quickly – with a bang, not a whimper.

Meanwhile, deputy prime minister Eli Yishai was quoted as saying, “We must blow Gaza back to the Middle Ages, destroying all the infrastructure including roads and water.”

The Israelis who condemn Palestinian children’s education for its alleged anti-Semitism should be that much more horrified by their own adult politicians’ behavior.

The other war in Gaza

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[tweet http://twitter.com/IDFSpokesperson/statuses/268780918209118208]

It’s the one being fought in — and sometimes on — the media. The Israel Defense Forces have not only tweeted up a storm since beginning their air strikes days ago, but they’ve even maintained a much-debated liveblog of their operations, complete with “chest-thumping” and over-the-top imagery (see graphic at right).

Meanwhile, amidst reports that nine women and small children were killed in an airstrike today, journalists in the region are increasingly concerned that they’re becoming targets as well:

Seven journalists were injured in the first attack, around 1:40 a.m., in the Shawa and Hossari Building in downtown Gaza City. It houses two local radio stations — one run by the militant Islamic Jihad — and the offices of the Ma’an Palestinian news agency as well as the German broadcaster ARD.

One of the journalists injured on Sunday, Khader Zahar of the Beirut-based Al Quds satellite channel, was said to have lost a leg in the explosion, which hit its 11th-floor studio.

The Israeli military referred to the two sites as “Hamas operational communication sites that were identified by precise intelligence…”

It urged “international journalists and correspondents who operate in the Gaza Strip carrying out their duties, to stay clear of Hamas’s bases and facilities — which serve them in their activity against the citizens of Israel.”

Ayman Amar, a spokesman for the Al Quds television, said seven camera operators and editors were resting on couches in their offices around 1:30 a.m. when a missile fired from an Israeli helicopter ripped through the roof. They fled, and three more bombs dropped around 10 minutes later, Mr. Amar said.

Al Quds, an independent channel with 50 employees in the Gaza Strip, has had offices in the building since 2007, and on its top floor since 2011. Since the conflict escalated, journalists have been working around the clock and catching naps in the office. Some of its employees were back out on the streets on Sunday, Mr. Amar said, and others were trying to clear the wreckage from the five-room editing studio.

“We never expected that it would hit us,” he added. “So far we don’t know why; there are no reasons. We will not stop. It is our duty toward our cause to support the Palestinian people.”

Later, a missile that was dropped from an Apache helicopter hit the top of the 15-story Al Shoruq Building, which is also downtown, witnesses said.

The target was the Hamas channel that broadcasts locally, Al Aqsa, but the building also contains offices of the Al Arabiya television network and the Middle East Broadcast Center, which runs it, as well as the live studio of an Iranian television station and two production companies — the Gaza Media Center and Mayadeen — that provide services for Fox News, Sky News, CBS and Al Jazeera.

No one was injured in that attack. Witnesses said that everyone in the building fled after a warning missile was fired in the stairwell, two minutes before the attack on the roof.

The Foreign Press Association in Jerusalem said it was “concerned” by the attacks, recalling a United Nations ruling that “journalists, media professionals and associated personnel engaged in dangerous professional missions in areas of armed conflict shall be considered civilians, to be respected and protected as such.”

More on the alleged media intimidation and targeting here.

Living in a war zone

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If you spend too much time reading big-picture reports and analyses of the current IDF/Hamas showdown in Gaza and southern Israel, it’s easy to forget just how terrifying it must be for the people that live on both sides of the border.

Below are two truly incredible videos (as seen on the New York Times‘ excellent “Lede” blog) of the Israeli Iron Dome (funded in large part by the United States) intercepting missiles coming from Gaza. The apparent lack of concern on the part of the applauding audiences is surreal, as well as a good reminder of just how much baseline stress these populations live under on a daily basis.

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8kAyqbKwd1o] [youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NLi4l5Vxc6A]

The dark side of Hamas

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Another overt execution of a suspected collaborator occurred today in a public area in Gaza. The New York Times reports:

Masked gunmen in Gaza summarily executed a man here on Friday as a suspected collaborator with Israel on the third day of its deadly aerial bombardments, shooting him multiple times and leaving his body beneath a billboard featuring a Hamas fighter holding a rocket.

The executed man, identified as Ashraf Ouaida, had a poster hung around his neck accusing him of cooperating with the Israelis in the killing of 15 Palestinian leaders.

Wael Mohammed, a taxi driver who was standing on the steps of the Aman Mosque in the Sheikh Radwan neighborhood of Gaza City, said that around 11:45 a.m. he saw a Jeep pull up on Al Jalla Street, from which two masked men dragged Mr. Ouaida to the dirt circle under the Hamas billboard.

“They took him out from the Jeep with his hands cuffed behind his back, they pushed him under the poster and fired three gunshots at his head from the back,” Mr. Mohammed said. “He was still alive. Then they set his cuffs free and turned him upside down and fired on him again.”

One of the gunmen, Mr. Mohammed said, hung a poster in which Hamas’s Al-Qassam Brigades claimed responsibility and cited Mr. Ouaida’s alleged crimes.

You’d think this type of behavior would eventually backfire with the population of Gaza. Hopefully it will.

An impending ground war in Gaza?

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Andrew Sullivan laments the direction the Israel/Palestine conflict has gone in recent years:

As I wrote yesterday, it is impossible and wrong to blame Israel for self-defense against Hamas rockets with greater range and power, if not much greater accuracy, than the past. There is no defense of Hamas’s use of terrorism. Equally, the kind of ground assault that now looks inevitable is yet another iteration of the same dead end. Except, this time, for Israel, the region is shifting against it. The visit to Gaza by the Egyptian prime minister yesterday – he and Hamas’s leader together beheld the body of a Gazan boy killed by Israeli firepower yesterday – represents a tectonic shift. And the deeper regional and international isolation of Israel is pregnant with foreboding. If we see another civilian bloodbath in Gaza, four years after the last one, the failures of the Israeli government to seize the opportunity Obama offered them four years ago – indeed to treat the United States president with contempt combined with an open attempt to elect his opponent – will haunt the Jewish state. Greater Israel is as unsustainable as it appears to be inevitable. There was, and maybe still is, a ramp off this conflagration. But Netanyahu and Hamas feed off it domestically – a gruesome and ominous fact.