Israel Responds to Hamas' Rocket Attacks: Operation "Protective Edge"
Hamas' Rocket Attacks
· The latest round of rocket fire from the Gaza Strip on Israel began on 12 June, the day that three Israeli teenagers were abducted and murdered. The shooting escalated significantly starting on 30 June, even before the bodies of the teens were found later that day and before the murder of Palestinian youth Muhammad Abu Khdeir. The rocket launches reached a peak on Monday, 7 July, when no fewer than 80 rockets were launched at Israeli cities.
· Between the day of the kidnapping (12 June) and today (8 July, 06:30 Israel time), 284 rockets were launched at Israel from the Gaza Strip. Many of them were fired directly by the military arm of Hamas.
· Hamas bears responsibility for the escalation. Hamas also bears responsibility for rockets launched by other organizations by virtue of the fact that it has ruled Gaza since 2007.
Israel's Response
· Israel showed great restraint during three weeks of continuous rocket fire from Gaza. Israel’s measured response was intended to restore the calm without a major military action.
· However, in response to the incessant attacks by Hamas on the civilian population of Israel, the Government of Israel decided on 7 July to initiate Operation "Protective Edge." Israel cannot tolerate a situation in which millions of its citizens are forced to live under a barrage of missiles.
· The objective of the operation is to restore stability and quiet to the residents of Israel, to damage Hamas’s capabilities and to destroy terror infrastructures directed against the State of Israel and its citizens.
· Israel’s actions are measured and directed at the missile launchers and the terror infrastructure of Hamas and the other terrorist organizations, which have turned the Gaza Strip into the center for attacks against Israel.
· Israel has the right of self-defense and is obligated to act decisively when its citizens are under attack. Israel will continue to act as necessary until quiet for its citizens is achieved.
The US State Department stated (7 July) that they “strongly condemn the continuing rocket fire into Israel, but we also support Israel’s right to defend itself against these attacks.”
Messages
· Israel left the Gaza Strip completely in the August 2005 Disengagement. Since then, there has been no Israeli presence at all, civilian or military, in the Gaza Strip, nor does Israel have any territorial claims there. Nonetheless, Hamas, which rules the Gaza Strip, continues to initiate terrorist attacks against Israeli citizens.
· Hamas and the other terrorist organizations in the Gaza Strip fire on communities inside Israel with the intention of killing civilians. They also do not hesitate to launch rockets from the midst of Palestinian civilian concentrations, thereby cynically using Gaza residents as human shields for their terrorist activities.
· Hamas does not stop at the indiscriminate firing of rockets; it is preparing more terrorist attacks using tunnels. On 7 July, disaster was averted when a large tunnel, which Hamas was planning on using to carry out a major terrorist attack in Israel, blew up.
· Hamas is similar in its characteristics, its ideology and its operational methods to other extremist Islamist organizations in the Middle East and elsewhere, such as ISIS, al-Qaeda, Hizbullah, Boko Haram and organizations in the Horn of Africa.
Hamas aspires to establish an Islamist state characterized by human rights violations, violent repression of minorities, women and non-Muslims, antisemitism and the murder of Jews.
· PA President Mahmud Abbas must immediately dissolve his partnership with Hamas.
· There is no blockade of the Gaza Strip; goods enter and exit the Gaza Strip freely as long as Hamas rocket fire doesn’t prevent it. For example, on Sunday, 6 July, 137 trucks carrying goods and 218 tons of gas entered Gaza from Israel.
· It is important to remember that Israel acted swiftly and determinedly to locate and arrest the murderers of Muhammad Abu Khdeir. Strong expressions of condemnation were heard across the political spectrum, including from the Rachel Frenkel, the mother of one of the murdered Israeli teenagers.
Appendices
The Hamas Terrorist Organization
· Hamas is recognized as a terrorist organization by the United States, the European Union, Canada, Australia and other countries.
· Hamas' goal is the destruction of the State of Israel and it views Israeli civilians as legitimate targets of indiscriminate missile firing, suicide attacks, abductions and murder.
· Hamas is responsible for the abduction and murder of three Israeli teenagers on 12 June. This cruel attack provided further proof that Hamas has not abandoned the path of terrorism directed against Israeli citizens – including women, children and the elderly.
· Today, Hamas possesses about 12,000 missiles of various ranges that threaten about 3.5 million Israel citizens (about 40% of the country’s population).
· Since the Israeli withdrawal in 2005, approximately 9,000 rockets and 5,000 mortar bombs have been fired at Israel from the Gaza Strip.
· In the twenty-one years that have passed since Israel and the PLO signed the Declaration of Principles in 1993, Hamas has perpetrated more than 80 suicide attacks in which approximately 1,000 Israelis were murdered.
· Hamas is involved in digging tunnels from Gaza into Israel, which are used to carry out terrorist attacks, abduct Israelis and smuggle terrorists into Israeli territory.
· Hamas’s commitment to the path of terror can be found both in the statements of its leaders, past and present, who encourage shooting and abducting Israeli civilians and in its charter (quoted at the end of this paper).
· Hamas invests enormous resources in weapons development, with an emphasis on high-trajectory fire, and on smuggling various kinds of weaponry and war materiel into the Gaza Strip.
For example, last March Israeli forces intercepted the ship Klos-C, which was carrying a huge shipment of weapons and materiel, including dozens of long-range rockets destined for Hamas.
Excerpts from the Hamas Charter
· "There is no solution for the Palestinian question except through Jihad." [Article 13]
· "Israel will exist and will continue to exist until Islam will obliterate it, just as it obliterated others before it" [Introduction]
· "It [Hamas] strives to raise the banner of Allah over every inch of Palestine [i.e. all of Israel]…" [Article 6]
· "Our struggle against the Jews is very great and very serious….The Movement [Hamas] is but one squadron that should be supported by more and more squadrons from this vast Arab and Islamic world, until the enemy is vanquished and Allah's victory is realized." [Introduction]
· "The Prophet, Allah, bless him and grant him salvation, has said: ‘The Day of Judgment will not come about until Moslems fight the Jews (killing the Jews), when the Jew will hide behind stones and trees. The stones and trees will say O Moslems, O Abdulla, there is a Jew behind me, come and kill him.’" [Article 7]