Israel Update for November 2006

The army plan reportedly focuses on a major ground operation that could mirror the 2002 IDF "Defensive Shield" campaign carried out in Judea and Samaria following the deaths of nearly 100 Israeli civilians in terrorist attacks early that year. Thousands of Israeli reserve soldiers would reportedly be called up for active duty, this time to support regular army forces who would effectively reoccupy large portions of the Gaza Strip. Press reports said the army plan proposes that Israeli forces take control over most of the northern third of the small coastal zone, along with the southern Philadelphi corridor where it is known that up to 100 Palestinian tunnels have been dug in recent months to smuggle in banned weapons from Egypt.

Gaza Deaths Spark UN Action

In the weeks before the new ceasefire was hammered out, IDF ground and air forces continued to conduct smaller-scale daily operations in many portions of the Gaza Strip for a fifth month in a row. Israeli officials said nearly 300 Palestinians had been killed during that time, most of them Hamas fighters. While mainly attempting to reduce the number of Kassam rockets fired into Israel, the IDF also continued to search for abducted soldier Gilad Shalit. The military action came amid continuing Palestinian political turbulence and street clashes that threatened to destroy what remains of the thin layer of civility in the increasingly lawless zone.

The Palestinian Hamas group claimed that November's stepped up rocket assaults were mainly to avenge the killing of 19 Gaza Strip non-combatants by Israeli artillery fire early in the month, most of them members of one extended family. Scores were also wounded in the misguided firing, which struck several private homes at dinnertime. Israeli officials said seven artillery shells strayed from their intended Hamas terrorist targets by up to 200 meters in the northern Gaza town of Beit Hanun, from where over 600 Kassam rockets have been deliberately launched at Israeli communities since Jewish civilians and military forces completely evacuated the Gaza Strip in September 2005.

A subsequent army investigation found that a faulty radar system was behind the tragic incident, prompting DM Peretz to order that all artillery fire from now on must first be cleared with the overall IDF Southern Commander, General Yoav Galant. After opening the border so that wounded victims could be treated at Israeli hospitals, the government issued an official apology for the misguided fire, and offered to financially compensate the wounded, along with relatives of the fatal victims.

In typical fashion, the Muslim world's excessive hypocrisy concerning Israel was displayed yet again when the Arab League demanded, and got, an emergency UN Security Council session to discuss the "latest Zionist massacre." The fact the Israeli army had completely withdrawn from the Gaza Strip over one year ago, and was only engaging in renewed military activity as a result of relentless and unprovoked rocket attacks upon Israeli communities and an illegal cross border kidnapping, was not mentioned in the latest proposed resolution condemning Israel. Nor was it noted that seven Israelis, including a pregnant woman and a four year old boy, have been killed by Kassam rockets in recent years, and dozens injured, or that the Palestinian rockets are deliberately fired at schools, factories and homes in an obvious effort to kill and maim as many civilians as possible. When the United States vetoed the typically one-sided resolution-noting that it "does not display an even-handed characterization of the recent events in Gaza, nor does it advance the cause of Israeli-Palestinian peace"-the issue was moved to the wider UN General Assembly, where it was naturally overwhelmingly approved.

New Weapon Unveiled-Human Shields

The Palestinians unveiled an effective new weapon during November, designed to protect the radical Islamic militants who insist on endlessly assaulting Israeli civilian centers with deadly rocket fire. In the spirit of Muslim women and teenagers who are encouraged to commit suicide while slaughtering Israeli civilians-the latest being a 68 year old grandmother who wounded three soldiers when she blew herself up next to an IDF checkpoint on November 23-Hamas officials called upon women and children to surround the homes of terrorist activists in the crosshairs of Israeli fire. Of course, Hamas leaders can only say which homes are being targeted because the IDF informs them in advance that an attack is pending. The warning, which often gives radical activists a chance to escape, is a humanitarian effort by a non-militant Mideast country to spare as many non-combatant lives as possible, even if they are mostly the relatives of those who choose to make attacking Israel their prime occupation.

Hundreds of Muslims dutifully flocked to the home of wanted Hamas Kassam rocket commander Muhammad Baroud after the IDF phoned his home to warn of an impending attack. When Baroud informed a local mosque of the phone call, a nearby minaret began broadcasting appeals for civilians to surround the home to prevent it from being destroyed. Similar actions took place in at least five other homes that Israel intended to target during the month, prompting IDF commanders to call off the operations in every instance.

Adding a new dimension to the story, an American Roman Catholic priest and nun joined the Palestinian communal sit-ins in late November. The Michigan-based "peace activists" claimed they were "sent by God to help protect innocent Palestinian lives." They were warmly welcomed by Baroud's brother Ahmed, who escorted them inside for their internationally televised vigil. "It is wrong for Israel to bomb people's homes, and so we are here in solidarity," said Father Peter Dougherty, apparently unfazed by the fact that Baroud's chosen occupation is to direct Palestinian rocket attacks upon Israeli civilian homes and schools-without any advance notice that they are about to come crashing down.

In an unusual move, a major human rights group actually condemned the latest Palestinian attempt to protect terrorists who deliberately operate from civilian neighborhoods. The New York-based Human Rights Watch group issued a statement declaring that "there is no excuse for calling civilians to the scene of a planned IDF attack," adding that "knowingly placing civilians in harm's way is unlawful." The group especially blasted the fact that the Hamas PA Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh had praised the tactic, declaring he was "very proud of this national stand."

At Each Others Throats

While Palestinian rockets continued to soar into Israeli airspace, tensions percolated on the ground between supporters and opponents of the Hamas movement which took control of the PA government last March. Armed clashes occurred in several Gaza Strip locations. A senior member of the PLO Fatah movement, Abu Ali Shaheen, was shot and seriously wounded in an apparent Hamas assassination attempt on November 22, provoking warnings of further clashes ahead from angry Fatah officials. The shooting took place just minutes after Shaheen left a Gaza City radio station where he had blasted Hamas for bringing the Palestinian people to the brink of economic ruin. He said the group must alter some of its extremist positions in order to help lift international economic sanctions imposed when Hamas assumed control of the PA.

Instead of modifying its radical positions, the overall Hamas Damascus-based leader, Khaled Mashal, said that a "third intifada" will be launched against Israel if the Olmert government does not agree to uproot over 300,000 Jews from their homes in Samaria, Judea and the eastern half of Jerusalem, and permit the fanatical group to establish a sovereign anti-Israel state in the evacuated areas. Since this is obviously not about to occur, Israeli officials are now bracing themselves for a possible wave of Hamas rocket attacks upon Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, and other central Israeli cities, perhaps coinciding with a Syrian military assault on the Golan Heights and renewed Hizbullah missile strikes from Lebanon. Many analysts say such a new regional war is apparently being planned by Iran in an attempt to keep Israel from launching military action against Tehran's escalating nuclear program.

Sensing that radical Iranian and Al Qaida fueled anti-Western forces are slowly gaining the ascendancy throughout the entire Middle East, Hamas officials continued to rebuff repeated attempts by Mahmoud Abbas to replace the Hamas PA government with a more moderate unity coalition compromised mostly of non-militant Palestinian technocrats. Several times during November, Abbas announced that a unity deal was imminent, only to be forced to eat his words when new Hamas conditions were unveiled at the last minute.

Analysts say it is now clear that militant Hamas leaders believe the group can hold onto power in the face of crippling international sanctions, while waiting for Syria and Iran to engage Israel in military action. They said Hamas believes that the new ceasefire with Israel will decrease pressure on them to modify their radical policies, while allowing their weapons arsenals to be restocked and their battle-scarred militia forces to be reorganized-all in relative peace in preparation for the next round of attacks against the hated "Zionist entity."

Whatever happens in this crisis-ridden region in the coming year, the Lord will ultimately reign in Jerusalem, as His ancient Hebrew prophets foretold: "Then the moon will be abashed and the sun ashamed, for the Lord of Hosts will reign on Mount Zion and in Jerusalem, and His glory will be before His elders" (Isaiah 24:23).