The continued ignoring of Hamas appropriation of construction materials at BBC News

...Obviously Hamas’ appropriation of construction materials not only adversely affects the civilian population of the Gaza Strip now facing a second winter in unsatisfactory conditions but will also have bearing on future events in the region. But when the BBC begins to report those events, its audiences will lack the background information necessary for them to understand how and why they came about because of the ongoing policy of omission of any serious coverage of that topic.

Hadar Sela..
BBC Watch..
09 November '15..

Since the conclusion of the hostilities between terrorist groups in the Gaza Strip and Israel in the summer of 2014, the BBC has devoted considerable coverage to the topic of the slow pace of reconstruction in Gaza. As has been noted here before, that coverage has not included the provision of information to BBC audiences on the very relevant issue of Hamas appropriation of construction materials for the purpose of rehabilitation of its terrorist infrastructure and any references to that topic have been presented using the caveat “Israel says”.

Israeli officials recently announced the indictment of a Gaza Strip resident in a case related to that issue.

“A Gazan has been indicted for diverting building materials meant for reconstruction in the Strip directly to Hamas’s armed wing, the Shin Bet said on Wednesday.

The suspect, named by the Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency) as 36-year-old Tamer Ahmed Muhammad Barim of Bani Suheila, was arrested trying to enter Israel at the Erez crossing on the northern Gaza border on August 31. His arrest remained under a gag order until Wednesday. […]

The Shin Bet said that Barim managed to circumvent UN inspectors who supervise imports to the Strip, allowing him to divert hundreds of tons of building materials provided by foreign donors for the rehabilitation of civilian infrastructure damaged during Operation Protective Edge in the summer of 2014.”

There has been no BBC reporting on this subject to date.

This, of course, is not an isolated case.

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Updates throughout the day at http://calevbenyefuneh.blogspot.com. If you enjoy "Love of the Land", please be a subscriber. Just put your email address in the "Subscribe" box on the upper right-hand corner of the page.Twitter updates at LoveoftheLand as well as our Love of the Land page at Facebook which has additional pieces of interest besides that which is posted on the blog. Also check-out This Ongoing War by Frimet and Arnold Roth. An excellent blog, very important work as well as a big vote to follow our good friend Kay Wilson on Twitter, 

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Rebuilding Gaza and its terror-war capabilities

...For Arab audiences, revelations of this kind are considered heroic. So too are claims by Hamas that the massive destruction suffered by their people during the summer are a 'victory' worth protecting and guarding. There is zero prospect of getting to a state of peace with people who hold to views like these, no matter how much our side wants to.

Arnold/Frimet Roth..
This Ongoing War..
20 December '14..

A rocket, fired from the rocket-rich environs of the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip, was fired into southern Israel on Friday morning. It landed in the Eshkol region which covers part of Israel's Western Negev desert and is home to 15 kibbutzim, 13 moshavim, and a handful of non-collective communities, with a total population of roughly 6,000 people. The attack received little coverage by news media outside Israel. It was the third such rocket attack on Israel since a ceasefire temporarily ended the last intensive round of fighting, known in Israel as Operation Protective Edge, in August.

During the early hours of this morning (Saturday), the IDF launched an airborne mission into Gaza:

The Israeli Air Force struck a Hamas training facility in the area of Khan Yunis in the southern Gaza Strip on Friday night in retaliation for a rocket fired at southern Israel earlier in the day. The attack marks the first time Israel carried out an air strike in the Gaza Strip since Operation Protective Edge ended in August. No injuries were reported. [Ynet, today]

A later report clarified that it was not a Hamas training facility but rather "a cement factory intended to rehabilitate the [Hamaa] group's terror tunnels".

The Israeli measure, consistent with how these things go in the news media, was reported. So was a serious-sounding call by the arch-terrorist Ismail Haniyeh of Hamas (the one who has hypocritically sent multiple members of his family into Israeli hospitals when they needed serious and professional medical care, as recently as a few weeks ago). He is quoted saying Israel's actions, coming hours after the explosive landing of the Gazan rocket, amount to

"a grave violation of the ceasefire agreement... We will protect and guard the resistance’s victory in the last conflict... We call on Egypt as the guarantor of the agreement to act and stop the violations by the enemy." [Hamas threatens retaliation following Israeli airstrikes | Times of Israel, today]

(Continue)

Updates throughout the day at http://calevbenyefuneh.blogspot.com. If you enjoy "Love of the Land", please be a subscriber. Just put your email address in the "Subscribe" box on the upper right-hand corner of the page.Twitter updates at LoveoftheLand as well as our Love of the Land page at Facebook which has additional pieces of interest besides that which is posted on the blog. Also check-out This Ongoing War by Frimet and Arnold Roth. An excellent blog, very important work as well as a big vote to follow our good friend Kay Wilson on Twitter, 
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Hamas Rebuilds Tunnels With International Aid As Israel’s Critics Say ...

...By acquiescing to a situation in which a criminal terrorist group not only continues to rule over a captive population and threaten war against a neighboring sovereign state but also standing by silently as Hamas creates the conditions for another terror war, the West is demonstrating its moral bankruptcy on the Middle East.

Jonathan S. Tobin..
Commentary Magazine..
19 December '14..

Five months ago Hamas rained down rockets on Israeli cities and attempted to use a tunnel network to infiltrate into the Jewish state and kidnap and kill as many Jews as they could. But predictably most of the world’s attention was focused on Israeli counter-attacks to suppress the missile fire and take out the tunnels and it came under severe criticism, even from its American ally, for the toll of civilian deaths that were caused by Hamas using the population of Gaza as human shields. But those who deplored the 50-day war as a tragedy for the Palestinian people now need to ask themselves whether they are really interested in watching another such round of fighting in the future. The same international community that blasted Israel for having the temerity to defend itself now needs to address the fact that the aid that is pouring into the strip for the purpose of rebuilding homes destroyed in the fighting, is actually being used to rebuild the terror tunnels. If they don’t, they’ll have no right to criticize Israel when it is once again forced to act to defend itself.

As the Times of Israel writes, the Israel media is reporting that:

Some of the cement and other materials being delivered to the coastal Palestinian territory, as part of an international rebuilding effort, has been diverted to the tunnels.

The story goes on to detail some things that can’t come as a surprise. Even as it rebuilds its terror tunnels, Hamas is replenishing its supply of missiles and rockets. Given that the group has just kissed and made up with Iran, the flow of money and munitions into the strip by one means or another is bound to increase.

Though expected, this does increase Hamas’s leverage over the Palestinian Authority, which isn’t interested in making peace with Israel but will certainly never do so while it remains under threat from its erstwhile unity partner. Though many in Israel and elsewhere assumed Hamas would emerge weakened from a war in which Gaza was flattened and little material damage was done to the Jewish state, it is more popular than ever (especially in the West Bank which did not suffer much from the terror group’s murderous policies) and may soon be as much of a threat to Israel as it was before the fighting started. Indeed, if, as reports indicate, Hamas is working on ways to defeat Israel’s Iron Dome missile defense system succeed, the danger will be far worse the next time the terrorists decide they wish to try their luck.