The Fallout From Premeditated Barbarianism – Part 7

Part Seven: Israel’s ceasefire with itself

With the ongoing, ever increasing rocket fire emanating from Gaza, many Israelis had been calling for the IDF to invade the Gaza Strip with ground forces in order to pummel Hamas et al into the ground once and for all. Hamas stores it arsenals under and in civilian apartment buildings, UNRWA schools, and even under Gaza’s Shiva hospital, the main hospital in the Gaza Strip. Israeli intelligence knows where many of these weapons storage areas are, but to hit them with missiles from the air would cause catastrophic damage and the cost in human life would simply be too high. A ground invasion would be the only way to root out and destroy Hamas’s multiple weapons’ caches, but a ground assault would be fraught with danger for Israeli troops and cost many lives among Israel’s finest young men. A ground invasion would be a last resort action and only undertaken should rockets continue to rain down upon Israel’s population centers despite the aerial blitz.

Egyptian mediation efforts to get Israel and Hamas to agree to a ceasefire appeared to have a chance when an agreement was presented to the warring parties on July 14. Israeli leaders, much to the chagrin of most of the population, accepted the ceasefire and halted Israel’s air, sea, and artillery bombardment of Hamas targets at 9:00 a.m. on July 15. Hamas, however, spurned the Egyptian ceasefire overture and continued firing scores of rockets into Israel. An Israeli man, who was volunteering to distribute food to IDF soldiers on the border with Gaza, sustained severe wounds from a mortar barrage from Gaza during the “ceasefire” and quickly succumbed to his wounds. He was Israel’s first direct casualty from Hamas’s missile bombardments.

Israel continued to hold its fire even though there was no reciprocity from Hamas. Its rocket fire was even increased. Come first light the next morning Israel once again unleashed its firepower from the air and from the sea, and tanks positioned at Israel’s southern border were given the coordinates for numbers of Hamas targets and they, too, joined the fray.

The United Nations pushed for a five-hour humanitarian truce that was to go into effect at 10:00 a.m. on July 17 in order to allow Gazans to stock up on food and medicines. The ceasefire went into effect; however, Hamas abrogated it by firing three salvos of rockets and mortars into Israeli towns during the “humanitarian” ceasefire. It became very apparent that Israel was observing ceasefires only with itself. Apparently, there are no humanitarian cells living in anyone that helps make up the Hamas leadership.

A few of the leaders of Hamas live overseas in four and five-star hotels and enjoy the opulence that wealth provides. Most of the senior Hamas member live in luxurious homes with swimming pools, which are dotted throughout the Gaza Strip. Israel has begun targeting these homes, which double as command centers. Unfortunately, some or all family members often die alongside their men and fathers.

To be continued