Peter Lyukimson, Israel. Exclusively to Vestnik Kavkaza
It is the third week of Operation Protective Edge started by the Israeli Defense Forces in Gaza. Both sides have suffered serious losses. While Israel lost about two dozen of its citizens, the number of Palestinian casualties is more than 500 people; a big part of them are peaceful citizens, including children. Israel expresses condolences to the Palestinian nation, but stresses that the terrorist organization Hamas is responsible for the huge human tragedy.
The main difference between the current Israeli operation and all previous ones is that the majority of the international community, including the Arab countries, in general support Israel in its activity. Only Iran, Turkey and Qatar criticize Israel and express support for Hamas. To understand the situation, we should analyze it in detail.
The new turn in the conflict over Gaza began in the context of the kidnapping and murder of three Jewish boys by Hamas terrorists. When it wasn’t clear that they had been killed, but it turned out that Hamas kidnapped them, the Israeli Defense Forces and the Palestinian Security Service began to arrest militants of the organization in the Palestinian autonomy, trying to find out anything about the boys’ fate. Several hundred Hamas activists were arrested.
The arrests caused indignation in the Hamas leadership, and it ordered missile attacks on Israeli residential areas from Gaza to be escalated. Even though the attacks had never stopped before the incident, the Israeli government thought that Hamas was following the ceasefire agreement of 2012 in general, and tha the attacks were being committed by more radical organizations like Islamic Jihad. So they didn’t react to them.
On July 2nd, the day after the funerals of the Jewish teenagers, despite calls by their families and politicians to reject revenge, three young Jews (later it was found out that two of them were mentally ill) kidnapped and murdered 16-year-old Arab teenager Muhammad Abu-Hdejr.
Despite the fact the murder was harshly criticized by all circles of Israeli society and the police did their best to find the murderers, mass disorders and riots started in many Arab residential areas.
On July 7th Israel started Operation Protective Edge, attacking various facilities of Hamas and houses of its leaders from the air. Hamas responded not only with a shower of missiles toward Israeli towns in the south, but also in the central and northern regions of the country, including Tel Aviv, Rishon le Cion, Holon, Gerclia, Hadera, Haifa…
Thus, 80% of Israeli territory and 6 million Israeli citizens appeared to be under fire. Of course, the missiles reached not only Jewish districts, but also Arab residential areas. As a result of one of the attacks, a resident of a Bedouin village was killed and all the members of his family were injured. One of the missiles hit the territory of the Palestinian Autonomy.
In the early days of the war it was clear that it is very difficult to attack the missile systems and arms depots of Hamas, as it uses the peaceful population, first of all children and women, as a living shield.
Several times Israeli pilots reached a Hamas target, but they had to cancel attacking to avoid victims among the peaceful residents of Gaza.
However, it was inevitable there would be victims: people suffered even from targeted attacks. The command of the Israeli Defense Forces distributed hundreds of thousands of fliers in Gaza to warn about attacking this or that target and called on residents to leave the districts. However, Hamas urged them from mosques to stay at home.
In the followed days Hamas attacked Israel numerous times and Israel responded, while not only terrorists, but also peaceful citizens died in Gaza. Despite Hamas’s statements, not only Israel saw “the gates of hell,” but also residents of Gaza.
The leadership of Egypt, which was concerned about the growing number of victims, decided to become a mediator between Hamas and Israel. According to the Egyptian proposal, the sides should have a ceasefire for 48 hours and negotiate conditions for a final ceasefire. Despite the right wing of the Israeli government standing against it, Premier Netanyahu decided to agree to the suggestion. Hamas rejected it and stated that it would stop attacking only when Israel had fulfilled all its demands.
The Israeli Army hadn’t been doing anything for several hours, while Hamas was attacking Israeli cities and towns. Then, Israel declared the end of the ceasefire and began to respond. Again the victims of the new attacks were peaceful residents of Gaza.
Two big problems were discovered.
First of all, Hamas used concrete (the UN and the EU made Israel export concrete to Gaza for civil construction) to build hundreds of underground tunnels from houses and mosques of Gaza to the territory of bordering Israeli villages. According to Hamas' plans (one of them was implemented, but failed), groups of armed terrorists should use the tunnels to penetrate the territory of Israel and kill all the residents of this or that village or kill a part of them and capture others as hostages. Of course Israel couldn’t accept the existence of the tunnels.
Secondly, the UN employees who worked in Gaza admitted that Hamas uses schools and other UN humanitarian facilities as arms depots.
As a result, on July 18th Israeli infantry and tanks entered the territory of Gaza to provide the land operation. Simultaneously, air attacks continued – first of all at the village of Sadjie, where missiles were launched toward Israel.
On Sunday 20th, Hamas demanded a two-hour humanitarian ceasefire to withdraw the bodies of killed and injured people from the region. At first Israel didn’t agree to this, but the Red Cross and Red Crescent persuaded it, and Israel gave four hours of ceasefire to Hamas. But after it was declared Hamas began to attack Israeli soldiers and seven of them were killed.
At the same time, we could understand representatives of the world community who demand a stop to the “slaughterhouse in Gaza.” One cannot stay indifferent, watching photos of ruins of houses, crying women, killed or injured children. Of course the residents of Gaza blame Israel for all their troubles – it is the Israeli Air Forces that are flying above their houses and Israeli soldiers intruding into their houses to find a secret tunnel.
But it should be understand that, if Israel wanted to destroy Gaza with all its residents, it could do it in 15 minutes, considering its power.
To stop the suffering of Gaza’s residents, only one thing is needed – to stop the suffering of Israeli residents, to stop attacking its territory. But Hamas, which is aimed at the destruction of Israel, doesn’t want to do this.
