Gaza
Fact and fiction about the situation of civilians in Gaza
You can use the following points when responding to news reports or letters to the press:
1. Why did Israel go to war?
To end the ongoing and insufferable terrorist fire on a quarter of a million Israeli citizens.
Hamas recently decided to completely break the truce that was brokered by Egypt. Just in the past few days, Hamas and its partners fired hundreds of rockets and mortar shells at Israeli population centers in southern Israel. Following a period of maximum restraint on Israel’s part and an attempt to return to the calm, the situation mandates military action for the sake of defending our citizens and giving them a normal life. A quarter of a million Israeli citizens have been under incessant terror attacks from the Gaza Strip with thousands of missiles fired over the past eight years. No country in the world would be willing to accept this kind of onslaught on its citizens.
2. What is the goal of the war?
To deal a major blow to Hamas’ terror infrastructure and protect our citizens.
As the military action is intended to defend the residents of the State of Israel, its goal is to heavily strike the growing infrastructure of terror and the ability of Hamas and its allied organizations to launch missiles and mortar shells at Israeli citizens and execute terror attacks of various kinds, such as kidnapping Israeli civilians. If Hamas would renounce the path of terror, there would be no need for the action. As we have stated repeatedly – quiet will be answered with quiet, but terror will elicit a response.
3. Whose responsibility is the war?
The deterioration in the situation is the direct result of Hamas policy. It violated the calm, is firing against and attacking Israeli citizens, and is investing all its resources in arming itself and gathering power.
The truce agreement brokered by Egypt was exploited by Hamas not only to employ terror against Israel’s citizens but also to gain strength and massively arm itself with weapons and means of warfare, with the intention of increasing their capacity for terror and expand the range of the threat against Israeli citizens. This takes the form of smuggling in and manufacturing thousands of rockets and mortar shells of various kinds and diameters, including antitank and antiaircraft rockets, and a distinct effort to increase the range of the rockets and their warheads, smuggling in and manufacturing dozens of tons of explosives, charges, and weaponry – machine guns, light weapons and ammunition, preparing an extensive underground system of tunnels for smuggling and combat purposes, training fighters in Iran and Syria, raising massive funding to finance terrorist activity, and allying themselves with international terrorist organizations. Israel cannot allow the establishment of an organization similar to Hezbollah on its southern border. The residents of Gaza are hostages to Hamas’ extremist agenda.
4. The government will use all tools at its disposal to provide essential services to residents in the south.
The Home Front Command, the government ministries, the local authorities and the security, emergency and rescue forces are all prepared for immediate action. The ongoing war on terror requires stamina and endurance from Israel’s citizens, despite the inherent difficulties. The policy of all the administrations has always been that “we will not overprotect ourselves.” The government has invested some two billion shekels in protection, but no one really thinks that every civilian can be protected.
5. The government trusts the IDF to deal Hamas a severe blow.
The Israel Defense Forces is prepared for action and has excellent operational and command capabilities, and excellent combat soldiers. We must let the army do its work and leave it out of the political dispute being waged especially these days.
Additional Points:
6. Israel does not want a humanitarian crisis. The Hamas Authority in the Gaza Strip is the only cause of the suffering and distress of the population there and the deterioration in their situation. Just a few days ago, Hamas prevented humanitarian supplies from being brought in from Egypt to Gaza. For purposes of comparison: in the first months of the calm, 17,000 trucks entered Gaza, as opposed to 9,000 (almost double) in an identical time span before the truce.
7. The terrorist organization work out of the Palestinian population centers and cynically exploit them, so the responsibility for Palestinian civilians getting hurt rests on their shoulders.
Israel for its part directs its activity at the terrorist elements and does its utmost to refrain from harming the innocent. Hamas brings women and children up to the roofs of buildings housing terrorist activity in an attempt to prevent air strikes; it sends civilians to the line of fire; it works out of schools and mosques; it fires rockets out of crowded population centers; and it sends Palestinian mothers to murder Israeli children in suicide attacks. Omar Fathi Hamad, a Hamas member of parliament said in a television interview (Feb. 2008), “The Palestinian people has developed its own methods of killing…it has become an industry…it has turned women, children, and old people into human shields.”
8. Most of the countries in the world and the United Nations have pronounced Hamas to be a terrorist organization, and they are boycotting all contact with it.
We expect the world’s nations to support Israel’s war against this terror organization and even join the campaign. Even Arab leaders testify to this: Palestinian President Abu Mazen recently said in an interview that Hamas helped Al Qaeda enter Gaza, and the president of Egypt expressed a fear that “due to the situation in the Strip, we actually have a border with Iran.”
9. At the same time it is fighting terror, the Israeli government is deliberately and openly maintaining a political process with the elected Palestinian government headed by President Abu Mazen and Prime Minister Fayyad.
Hamas opposes these negotiations and any settlement with Israel, and constitutes an unstable element in the region.
10. Israel is prepared and ready to respond harshly to any attack or provocation by any factor in the region.
This is a fight between Israel and terrorist elements acting against Israel’s citizens, so there is no cause for any outside party to intervene.
11. Israel completely withdrew from the Gaza Strip in 2005, to enable Palestinians to live their lives in peace alongside Israel.
In the disengagement, Israel evacuated all its settlements and military bases, and 9,000 residents who lived in the area. But since then Hamas took control of the region and is subjecting Israeli citizens to rocket attacks inside sovereign Israeli territory, in flagrant violation of international law.
12. The situation of Israeli citizens in the south is intolerable.
The Hosen Center in Sderot recently reported the spread of developmental problems among children living in the area, such as speech difficulties, fear of sleeping alone, juvenile diabetes, hair falling out, and more. The reality of real life is expressed in the descriptions of journalists who visited the city: 7-year-old Sagi will only agree to go to sleep in his parents’ bed, 8-year-old Yanai bought a first-aid kit with money he saved up, 9-year-old Neria has nightmares that her parents will be killed, children are scared to go to the bathroom for fear they will not make it to the shelter in the 15 seconds given by the warning system. The first words of Alon, two years old, were “red” and “boom.” The trauma centers report high stress among children and adults alike. The residents do not use the seat belts in their cars, so they can get out quickly in case of attack. They never change radio stations lest they miss a warning. Schools have become “concrete monsters,” in some of which the children do not see daylight all day long.
13. Hamas belongs to the school of extremist elements espousing violence, such as Iran, Syria, Hezbollah, Al Qaeda, the World Jihad, and others.
This is manifested in instructions to carry out terror, training and drills, smuggling means of warfare, supplying monies, etc. In an interview with the Sunday Times published on March 9, 2008, a Hamas official related, “The Iranian Revolutionary Guards have been training Hamas operatives in Tehran ever since Israel withdrew from the Gaza Strip…in field warfare tactics and weaponry. The operatives come into the Strip with skills they have acquired in advanced technologies, rocket firing, setting off charges, sharpshooting and other tactics similar to those used by Hezbollah.”
Other Resources
Backgrounder on Hamas
From the UK group Beyond Images comes a three-part resource document covering a) Hamas' ideology, track record and the 'engagement' issue; b) the build-up to the Israel-Hamas war; and c)key issues during the war.
Issues of proportionality -- Background paper from the Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs
The IDF's International Press Branch has opened a YouTube Channel. It will be uploading IDF footage as it comes out to http://www.youtube.com/user/idfnadesk
Other videos are available on Youtube at http://www.youtube.com/user/warinsouth
Son of Hamas founder says the organization betrays the Palestinian cause and tortures its own members--Watch an interview with Mosab Hassa Yousef
Hamas extorts a fee of $1500 to $3000 per traveler for those seeking to pass through the Rafah terminal.
You can use the following points when responding to news reports or letters to the press:
1. Why did Israel go to war?
To end the ongoing and insufferable terrorist fire on a quarter of a million Israeli citizens.
Hamas recently decided to completely break the truce that was brokered by Egypt. Just in the past few days, Hamas and its partners fired hundreds of rockets and mortar shells at Israeli population centers in southern Israel. Following a period of maximum restraint on Israel’s part and an attempt to return to the calm, the situation mandates military action for the sake of defending our citizens and giving them a normal life. A quarter of a million Israeli citizens have been under incessant terror attacks from the Gaza Strip with thousands of missiles fired over the past eight years. No country in the world would be willing to accept this kind of onslaught on its citizens.
2. What is the goal of the war?
To deal a major blow to Hamas’ terror infrastructure and protect our citizens.
As the military action is intended to defend the residents of the State of Israel, its goal is to heavily strike the growing infrastructure of terror and the ability of Hamas and its allied organizations to launch missiles and mortar shells at Israeli citizens and execute terror attacks of various kinds, such as kidnapping Israeli civilians. If Hamas would renounce the path of terror, there would be no need for the action. As we have stated repeatedly – quiet will be answered with quiet, but terror will elicit a response.
3. Whose responsibility is the war?
The deterioration in the situation is the direct result of Hamas policy. It violated the calm, is firing against and attacking Israeli citizens, and is investing all its resources in arming itself and gathering power.
The truce agreement brokered by Egypt was exploited by Hamas not only to employ terror against Israel’s citizens but also to gain strength and massively arm itself with weapons and means of warfare, with the intention of increasing their capacity for terror and expand the range of the threat against Israeli citizens. This takes the form of smuggling in and manufacturing thousands of rockets and mortar shells of various kinds and diameters, including antitank and antiaircraft rockets, and a distinct effort to increase the range of the rockets and their warheads, smuggling in and manufacturing dozens of tons of explosives, charges, and weaponry – machine guns, light weapons and ammunition, preparing an extensive underground system of tunnels for smuggling and combat purposes, training fighters in Iran and Syria, raising massive funding to finance terrorist activity, and allying themselves with international terrorist organizations. Israel cannot allow the establishment of an organization similar to Hezbollah on its southern border. The residents of Gaza are hostages to Hamas’ extremist agenda.
4. The government will use all tools at its disposal to provide essential services to residents in the south.
The Home Front Command, the government ministries, the local authorities and the security, emergency and rescue forces are all prepared for immediate action. The ongoing war on terror requires stamina and endurance from Israel’s citizens, despite the inherent difficulties. The policy of all the administrations has always been that “we will not overprotect ourselves.” The government has invested some two billion shekels in protection, but no one really thinks that every civilian can be protected.
5. The government trusts the IDF to deal Hamas a severe blow.
The Israel Defense Forces is prepared for action and has excellent operational and command capabilities, and excellent combat soldiers. We must let the army do its work and leave it out of the political dispute being waged especially these days.
Additional Points:
6. Israel does not want a humanitarian crisis. The Hamas Authority in the Gaza Strip is the only cause of the suffering and distress of the population there and the deterioration in their situation. Just a few days ago, Hamas prevented humanitarian supplies from being brought in from Egypt to Gaza. For purposes of comparison: in the first months of the calm, 17,000 trucks entered Gaza, as opposed to 9,000 (almost double) in an identical time span before the truce.
7. The terrorist organization work out of the Palestinian population centers and cynically exploit them, so the responsibility for Palestinian civilians getting hurt rests on their shoulders.
Israel for its part directs its activity at the terrorist elements and does its utmost to refrain from harming the innocent. Hamas brings women and children up to the roofs of buildings housing terrorist activity in an attempt to prevent air strikes; it sends civilians to the line of fire; it works out of schools and mosques; it fires rockets out of crowded population centers; and it sends Palestinian mothers to murder Israeli children in suicide attacks. Omar Fathi Hamad, a Hamas member of parliament said in a television interview (Feb. 2008), “The Palestinian people has developed its own methods of killing…it has become an industry…it has turned women, children, and old people into human shields.”
8. Most of the countries in the world and the United Nations have pronounced Hamas to be a terrorist organization, and they are boycotting all contact with it.
We expect the world’s nations to support Israel’s war against this terror organization and even join the campaign. Even Arab leaders testify to this: Palestinian President Abu Mazen recently said in an interview that Hamas helped Al Qaeda enter Gaza, and the president of Egypt expressed a fear that “due to the situation in the Strip, we actually have a border with Iran.”
9. At the same time it is fighting terror, the Israeli government is deliberately and openly maintaining a political process with the elected Palestinian government headed by President Abu Mazen and Prime Minister Fayyad.
Hamas opposes these negotiations and any settlement with Israel, and constitutes an unstable element in the region.
10. Israel is prepared and ready to respond harshly to any attack or provocation by any factor in the region.
This is a fight between Israel and terrorist elements acting against Israel’s citizens, so there is no cause for any outside party to intervene.
11. Israel completely withdrew from the Gaza Strip in 2005, to enable Palestinians to live their lives in peace alongside Israel.
In the disengagement, Israel evacuated all its settlements and military bases, and 9,000 residents who lived in the area. But since then Hamas took control of the region and is subjecting Israeli citizens to rocket attacks inside sovereign Israeli territory, in flagrant violation of international law.
12. The situation of Israeli citizens in the south is intolerable.
The Hosen Center in Sderot recently reported the spread of developmental problems among children living in the area, such as speech difficulties, fear of sleeping alone, juvenile diabetes, hair falling out, and more. The reality of real life is expressed in the descriptions of journalists who visited the city: 7-year-old Sagi will only agree to go to sleep in his parents’ bed, 8-year-old Yanai bought a first-aid kit with money he saved up, 9-year-old Neria has nightmares that her parents will be killed, children are scared to go to the bathroom for fear they will not make it to the shelter in the 15 seconds given by the warning system. The first words of Alon, two years old, were “red” and “boom.” The trauma centers report high stress among children and adults alike. The residents do not use the seat belts in their cars, so they can get out quickly in case of attack. They never change radio stations lest they miss a warning. Schools have become “concrete monsters,” in some of which the children do not see daylight all day long.
13. Hamas belongs to the school of extremist elements espousing violence, such as Iran, Syria, Hezbollah, Al Qaeda, the World Jihad, and others.
This is manifested in instructions to carry out terror, training and drills, smuggling means of warfare, supplying monies, etc. In an interview with the Sunday Times published on March 9, 2008, a Hamas official related, “The Iranian Revolutionary Guards have been training Hamas operatives in Tehran ever since Israel withdrew from the Gaza Strip…in field warfare tactics and weaponry. The operatives come into the Strip with skills they have acquired in advanced technologies, rocket firing, setting off charges, sharpshooting and other tactics similar to those used by Hezbollah.”
Other Resources
Backgrounder on Hamas
From the UK group Beyond Images comes a three-part resource document covering a) Hamas' ideology, track record and the 'engagement' issue; b) the build-up to the Israel-Hamas war; and c)key issues during the war.
Issues of proportionality -- Background paper from the Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs
The IDF's International Press Branch has opened a YouTube Channel. It will be uploading IDF footage as it comes out to http://www.youtube.com/user/idfnadesk
Other videos are available on Youtube at http://www.youtube.com/user/warinsouth
Son of Hamas founder says the organization betrays the Palestinian cause and tortures its own members--Watch an interview with Mosab Hassa Yousef
Hamas extorts a fee of $1500 to $3000 per traveler for those seeking to pass through the Rafah terminal.