Amnesty's use of a deceptive press release to cover for Hamas’ human shields policy - by Emanuel Miller

...For a self-described human rights organization, it’s hard to understand how a commitment to human rights is being served when Amnesty allows itself to be used as cover for Hamas’ human shields policy, in which the terror group embeds itself in civilian infrastructure in order to conceal its presence and avert being struck, even after being discovered.

Emanuel Miller..
Honest Reporting..
30 July '19..

It’s a compelling story, one sure to be picked up by journalists, but beyond the usual anti-Israel agitprop, it’s a tale of deception and dishonesty that should leave Amnesty International shamefaced.

A show called “Obliterated,” sponsored by the prominent human rights organization, was said to have been due to be performed exactly one year after the destruction of a Gaza theater.

In fact, the play was never due to have been performed at all — the whole thing was a PR stunt.

In an email sent to people who had signed up for what was advertised as a free, one-night only performance, playwright Ahmed Masoud and actress Maxine Peake openly admitted to the devious trick: “There was never a play or a show. I didn’t write it and Maxine never rehearsed it.” This was confirmed when an Amnesty International UK press officer told HonestReporting, “they have cancelled it, and intended to cancel it.”

Despite openly admitting to registrants that the play was never written, a press release circulated by Amnesty International to announce the show was being pulled totally neglected to acknowledge that the cancellation was premeditated. The press release, seen by countless journalists, failed to mention that the play was never written, and that from the very outset, no performance was actually planned. Consequently, multiple news outlets picked up on the press release and failed to report the full story.

The episode should act as a cautionary tale to journalists not to rely on press releases for more than one reason.

The stunt was designed to draw attention to the first anniversary of the destruction of the al-Mishal Cultural Center in Gaza. In its press release, Amnesty wrote:

The scheduled performance – which is fully booked – would have marked exactly one year since the destruction by an Israeli airstrike of the Mishal Cultural Centre last year, the only working theatre in Gaza which housed numerous arts projects in the beleaguered Palestinian territory.

That’s one way to describe the theater. A more objective statement would have recognized that the theater was believed to have served as a command and control center for the Hamas terrorist group in Gaza in its ongoing hostilities against Israel.

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Finally a real election issue - demilitarizing Gaza by force despite human shields - Dr. Aaron Lerner

There is no telling how long this window of opportunity to essentially demilitarize the Gaza Strip will remain open. I fervently hope that this idea gets traction in the remaining days of the campaign.

Dr. Aaron Lerner..
IMRA Weekly Commentary..
28 March '19..
Link: http://www.imra.org.il/story.php3?id=73482

After weeks of a campaign focused on various aspects of the party heads, New Right leader Naftali Bennett has pitched a tangible actionable proposal for dealing with a pressing critical national security issue which challenges the current "quiet for quiet" policy - the kick-the-can-down-the-road policy which the leaders of Blue White also embrace.

Under the quiet for quiet policy, Hamas and other military forces in the Gaza Strip can prepare for war against the Jewish State without interference as long as they don't get too "noisy". And even in those instances that they are "noisy" and fire rockets at Israel, Israel's choice of targets in the target bank does not seek to wipe out the enemy's weapons producing capabilities or armories but instead only provide an Israeli "tat" for the enemy "tit" to complete the round of "noise" and return to quiet.

Speaking this week at Maariv's National Security Conference, Bennett described a plan to destroy the weapons factories and armories in the Gaza Strip and then follow up with a policy of destroying any new factories or armories the moment that they are discovered.

Frankly speaking, if that's all Bennett said I would not have been impressed.

That plan would be empty words if the issue of human shields is ignored.

But Bennett addressed the issue head on.

"Launch first step crushing from the air and clearing the rocket capability of Gaza.

And that means seeking and destroying every missile warehouse and factory.

I don't care if its under a residential building, it's a military base

A house that's a source of fire towards the State of Israel loses its right to be a house.

The Hamas and Islamic Jihad terrorists preference to hide behind women and children - by Bassam Tawil

...Those who are encouraging women and children to take part in a violent confrontation with the Israeli army should be held accountable for war crimes. It is time for the international community to call on Hamas and Islamic Jihad and the other terrorist groups in the Gaza Strip to stop hiding behind women and children and to stop using them as human shields in their jihad to eliminate Israel.

Bassam Tawil..
Gatestone Institute..
12 February '19..

When Hamas launched its weekly demonstrations along the border between the Gaza Strip and Israel 10 months ago, it first sent its men and their family members to participate in the protests. A few weeks later, however, Hamas instructed its men to stay away from the border after many were detected and killed by the Israeli army. Most of the Hamas men who were killed during the violence belonged to the group's military wing, Izaddin al-Qassam. Others belonged to the military wing of another terrorist group, Islamic Jihad.

It is worth noting that the Hamas and Islamic Jihad members who were killed while participating in the violence near the Gaza-Israel border did not come there dressed in military uniforms or carrying their weapons. Instead, the Hamas and Islamic Jihad men participated in the weekly protests dressed in civilian clothes. They pretended they were ordinary and innocent civilians protesting against the economic crisis in the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip.

Later, however, Hamas was forced to admit that dozens of its members were killed in the first three months of the protests near the border. Salah Bardaweel, a senior Hamas official in the Gaza Strip, revealed in May 2018 that at least 50 Hamas members were killed during the violent demonstrations, which had begun two months earlier.

Hamas was also forced to admit that most of the victims were "fighters" after their identities were revealed by their families and by hospitals in the Gaza Strip. Hamas was probably hoping that the identities of its men would remain a secret so that the group and other Palestinians could accuse Israel of targeting innocent and defenseless civilians.

After the Hamas ploy was uncovered, the group and its supporters in the Gaza Strip resorted to a different tactic: sending children and women to the Gaza-Israel border.

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Gaza's most recent work accident: Hamas tunnel engineer used his own family as a human shield - by William A. Jacobson

...As with most of these work accidents, the most significant part is not the accident itself. It’s how and where it took place. In this case, the Hamas tunnel engineer was working underneath his own home, turning the civilian structure into a military purpose. That is something we see throughout Gaza, where Hamas hides among and underneath civilian structures, using civilians as human shields.

William A. Jacobson..
Legal Insurrection..
23 December '18..

A “work accident” is a commonly used term to refer to Palestinian terrorists who die by their own hand when explosives or explosive devices they are handling detonate prematurely, or when a tunnel they are constructing collapses.

We have covered many such incidents:

- Senior Hamas terrorist Imad al-Alami *accidentally* shoots himself in the head
- Hamas explosives chief accidentally blows himself up
- Palestinian rocket commander ‘accidentally’ blows himself up
- Hamas terrorist killed when attack tunnel collapses on him
- Gaza: Two PFLP terrorists killed when rocket they were firing exploded prematurely
- Hamas Bomb Expert Blows Himself Up
- Hamas Commander killed at Gaza border when ‘hand grenade’ exploded prematurely
- Hamas member killed in “accidental explosion during preparation and training”

Joe Truzman at his valuable weekly Ground Brief newsletter (to which you should subscribe) reports on the latest Hamas work accident:

The military wing of Hamas, Al-Qassam Brigades, acknowledged Friday [note – link goes to Hamas website] that one of their tunnel engineers, Ayman Zidan, had died. They were not specific about the cause of his death, only stating it was an “accident.” However, Qassam activists claimed Zidan was working on a tunnel underneath his home when it collapsed and killed him.

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Israel's reluctance to finish Hamas with a decisive operation - by Dr. Hanan Shai

...Once free from the trap it has fallen into, and with universal morality on its side, Israel needs to declare loudly and clearly that the lives of Israelis are more important to it than the lives of its enemies...

Dr. Hanan Shai
Israel Hayom..
17 October '18..
Link: http://www.israelhayom.com/opinions/their-lives-or-ours/

The Israel Defense Forces were planned and built to win short and "cheap" wars.

However, in its earliest years, the IDF was also forced to wage lengthy wars of attrition. It eventually put an end to these, beating the enemy and destroying its fighting capability to secure quiet that would last as long as possible.

Such periods of quiet were reached after Operation Kadesh in 1956, which ended the war of attrition waged by the fedayeen; after the War for Peace in the Galilee or First Lebanon War of 1982, which put an end to the Katyusha missile threat from Lebanon; and after Operation Defensive Shield in 2002, which seriously checked the momentum of the Second Intifada.

Today, too, Israel is waging a war of attrition, this time against Hamas in the Gaza Strip.

But this particular war of attrition has turned into the longest in Israel's history because of Israel's reluctance to finish it with a decisive operation.

Just as the State of Israel is duty bound to protect its civilians, it must also protect its soldiers as much as possible - by Erez Tadmor

...However: "Once it has exhausted its efforts to distinguish between terrorists and nearby enemy civilians – and can no longer do so to the greatest extent possible – not only is the state not obligated to risk the lives of its soldiers in another attempt to make this distinction, it is prohibited from doing so just to minimize the danger posed to the terrorist's neighbors."

Erez Tadmor

Erez Tadmor..
Israel Hayom..
21 August '18..
Link: http://www.israelhayom.com/opinions/soldiers-and-terrorists-are-not-morally-equivalent/

Haaretz on Thursday published a scathing piece by former Meretz leader Zehava Galon, which ended in a call to "put down the tiger of Im Tirzu." Galon's rage erupted after bereaved parents, who were backed by Im Tirzu, lambasted Maj. Gen. Yair Golan over comments he made to premilitary academy cadets nearly a decade ago: "Due to the civilian population, yes, we assume certain risks, justifiably."

Golan's somewhat ambiguously worded statement shines a light on complex dilemmas and warrants public discourse. Where, in Golan's view, is the line between the need to avoid harming an uninvolved civilian population at all costs, and putting soldiers' lives at risk?

This is more than a theoretical exercise. There have been dozens of instances in recent decades – such as the battle in Jenin's refugee camp during Operation Defensive Shield – when IDF soldiers paid with their lives because they were deployed house-to-house in a condensed urban environment, instead of shelling an area in advance or using bulldozers for the same job.

Galon apparently believes bereaved parents and Im Tirzu don't have the right to ask whether IDF commanders erred in these instances. Merely questioning the matter led Galon to claim Im Tirzu members "won't calm down until they turn the IDF into a militia of Cossacks."

While Golan's remarks were generalized and open to interpretation, Galon's position on the dilemma is unequivocal: If you don't want to become a Cossack militia, you must categorically prefer risking soldiers' lives over the lives of Palestinian civilians.

Eliminating major Gaza targets: We don't need dead Israelis to justify defending ourselves - by Dr. Aaron Lerner

...it is the obligation of the sovereign State of Israel to eliminate these vital elements of the terrorist's war machine before they are used in an operation against the Jewish State that would cost countless Israeli civilian lives.

Dr. Aaron Lerner..
IMRA Weekly Commentary..
12 August '18..
Link: http://www.imra.org.il/story.php3?id=73339

We don't need dead Israelis to justify defending ourselves.

Human shields protect many of the most important offensive capabilities of the enemy in the Gaza Strip.

These are targets that must be eliminated for a truly effective operation.

Israeli civilians don't have to pay with their lives to "earn" us the right to eliminate these targets.

In fact, it is the obligation of the sovereign State of Israel to eliminate these vital elements of the terrorist's war machine before they are used in an operation against the Jewish State that would cost countless Israeli civilian lives.

Achieving Moral Clarity in Gaza - by Charles Krauthammer OBM

In memory of Charles Krauthammer, brilliant thinker, defender of Israel, who passed away yesterday, Thursday, 21 June. This was first posted 17 July '14.

To deliberately wage war so that your own people can be telegenically killed is indeed moral and tactical insanity. But it rests on a very rational premise: Given the Orwellian state of the world’s treatment of Israel (see: the U.N.’s grotesque Human Rights Council), fueled by a mix of classic anti-Semitism, near-total historical ignorance and reflexive sympathy for the ostensible Third World underdog, these eruptions featuring Palestinian casualties ultimately undermine support for Israel’s legitimacy and right to self-defense.

Charles Krauthammer OBM..
Washington Post..
17 July '14..

Israel accepts an Egyptian-proposed Gaza cease-fire; Hamas keeps firing. Hamas deliberately aims rockets at civilians; Israel painstakingly tries to avoid them, actually telephoning civilians in the area and dropping warning charges, so-called roof knocking.

“Here’s the difference between us,” explains the Israeli prime minister. “We’re using missile defense to protect our civilians, and they’re using their civilians to protect their missiles.”

Rarely does international politics present a moment of such moral clarity. Yet we routinely hear this Israel-Gaza fighting described as a morally equivalent “cycle of violence.” This is absurd. What possible interest can Israel have in cross-border fighting? Everyone knows Hamas set off this mini-war. And everyone knows the proudly self-declared raison d’etre of Hamas: the eradication of Israel and its Jews.

Apologists for Hamas attribute the blood lust to the Israeli occupation and blockade. Occupation? Does no one remember anything? It was less than 10 years ago that worldwide television showed the Israeli army pulling die-hard settlers off synagogue roofs in Gaza as Israel uprooted its settlements, expelled its citizens, withdrew its military and turned every inch of Gaza over to the Palestinians. There was not a soldier, not a settler, not a single Israeli left in Gaza.

And there was no blockade. On the contrary. Israel wanted this new Palestinian state to succeed. To help the Gaza economy, Israel gave the Palestinians its 3,000 greenhouses that had produced fruit and flowers for export. It opened border crossings and encouraged commerce.

The whole idea was to establish the model for two states living peacefully and productively side by side. No one seems to remember that, simultaneous with the Gaza withdrawal, Israel dismantled four smaller settlements in the northern West Bank as a clear signal of Israel’s desire to leave the West Bank as well and thus achieve an amicable two-state solution.

This is not ancient history. This was nine years ago.

Gazans have the honor to have the first government in history to deliberately lure its enemies to kill its own civilian population

I have heard many armchair experts arguing that Israel should have acted differently, but not one credibly explain how.

Richard Kemp..
Gatestone Institute..
13 May '18..

I predict a riot — and much worse. The Palestinian terrorist group Hamas is orchestrating a 'demonstration' at the beginning of this week of up to 200,000 people on the Gaza border with Israel, and is intent on turning it into an orgy of death and bloodshed. If that happens, the UN and EU, human rights groups and many Western media organizations will have helped bring it about.

Hamas, which governs the Gaza Strip, is planning the bloody culmination of six weeks of violence along the border that has so far led to the deaths of around 50 of their own people and wounding of hundreds more. Now they intend to pile the bodies higher still, exploiting what they see as a perfect storm. It is the seventieth anniversary of the creation of the modern State of Israel — a date that Palestinians revile as 'Nakba' or 'Catastrophe' Day. It coincides with the opening of the US embassy in Jerusalem, a move abhorrent to those who consider the existence of the Jewish State illegitimate. And it is the beginning of the Islamic festival of Ramadan, a time when violence throughout the Muslim world often spirals.

Hamas claim that the purpose of their 'demonstrations' is to break through the Israeli border en masse, march through the country and reclaim the homes that they say their people were thrown out of when Israel was formed — exercising the strongly disputed 'right of return'. But they know they cannot achieve that in the face of the formidable Israel Defence Force.

So the true and malevolent purpose of Hamas's plan is to incite violence in such a way that the IDF has no choice but to respond with lethal force, killing Gaza civilians.

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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. 

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(Video) Behind the Smokescreen: Hamas unrest in Gaza - by Pierre Rehov

From inside Gaza, the reality of the so called "peaceful demonstrations". Watch Hamas hate speeches. See how they build their propaganda at the expense of brainwashed, deceived and manipulated unfortunate people. Understand why Israel has no choice but to protect itself using lethal force.

Pierre Rehov
02 May '18..
Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fbIZmd8hKAQ







Behind the smoke screen from Pierre Rehov on Vimeo.

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. 

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The Price that Israel Critics are Willing to Pay - by Divest This!

Today, when war is even more destructive and attitudes towards it even more hostile, most people can’t contemplate that this beast called ruthlessness still drives the decision making of political actors. Accepting that Israel’s enemies deliberately put their own civilians at risk in order to either kill or malign Jews and maintain power means accepting that ruthless actors are still doing things that decent people have trouble even imagining. And one way of not thinking about something that puts your whole world view in jeopardy (especially a world view which hopes for an end to armed conflict altogether) is to strip away the dark corners of reality, replacing difficult moral choices – especially those that arise when faced with a ruthless foe – with comforting bromides, like “shooting people is bad.”

Divest This!..
Elder of Ziyon..
30 April '18..

The price even a non-intentional embrace of anti-Israel propaganda places on the believer was brought home to me during a recent conversation with a good friend, whose opinion I respect on all matters, who was aghast at the bloodletting at the Gaza border over the last month.

Interestingly, she was willing to accept that the thousands of rockets shot from Gaza into Israel over the last decade constitutes acts of war, and was even willing to believe that Hamas was responsible for civilian casualties on its own side if it placed its rockets in civilian locations. And, with a little cross-examination, she was ready to give up her original assertion that the tunnels Hamas has been digging incessantly into Israel were not a means of civilian resupply, but rather tools of war.

But neither of these understandings could budge her from the opinion that Israel’s use of live fire to protect its border with Gaza was appropriate or legitimate. “You don’t shoot people,” she kept coming back to. In other words, she believes that the IDF has the right and responsibility to arrest, detain and do whatever other non-lethal things it could to protect the people it defends from harm, but that shooting should be a last resort to be applied only when actual lives are in danger.

Now keep in mind that my interlocutor is a decent and moral person, as well as being highly intelligent. But as we went through a series of logic-based arguments regarding the difference between war and crime fighting, the fact that a majority of those killed were jihadi fighters, or nature of the Hamas regime and its primary role in creating Gaza’s misery, I was clearly unable to shake her of the belief that undergirded her primary response to current events: that you shouldn’t shoot people if you don’t have to.

And you know what? She’s right! In the ordinary course of life, and even in policing and warfare, you shouldn’t shoot people if other effective choices are available. But...

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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. 

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Failing to Breach Israeli Border While Using Civilian Shields To Protect Gunmen and Sappers - by Liel Leibovitz

It’s a deeply depressing reality, and it’s likely to exasperate the beautiful souls among us who’d like to see this conflict resolved and who continue to cheer for some sort of magical process that would somehow stop the hostilities. As this weekend so abundantly and painfully proves, that kind of talk is futile.

Liel Leibovitz..
Tablet Magazine..
02 April '18..

What should we call the violent clashes along Israel’s border with Gaza this weekend, which cost 17 Palestinians—at least five of whom were members of the armed wing of Hamas, according to Hamas—their lives? Much of the press, foreign diplomats, and Senator Bernie Sanders called them “protests.” But is that really the right word for attempts by masses of people organized and incited by a terrorist organization to breach the border of a sovereign country using plastic explosives? No.

While the usual suspects are busy denouncing Israel for war crimes, two facts mustn’t be ignored and cannot be explained away, no matter how critical one is of the Jewish state and its policies.

The first is that Hamas again used innocent civilians, many of them children, in its cynical quest to score propaganda points against Israel. Just as it had murdered at least 160 Palestinian children by forcing them to dig the tunnels used to allow gunmen to infiltrate Israel, and just as it continues to use civilians as human shields to protect its arsenals and rocket factories, the terror organization again put the most vulnerable on the line to further its murderous cause.

(Continue to Full Column)

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. 

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A new innovtion by Hamas: Using human matchsticks to fuel the fire - by Fiamma Nirenstein

After the missiles and tunnels, terror comes in the form of masses of people sent to storm the Israel-Gaza border in another instance of using Palestinians as pawns.

Fiamma Nirenstein..
JNS.org..
03 April '18..

The risk of the “March of Return,” organized by Hamas last Friday, is that of a new kind of mass terrorism, a new kind of war. The whole world knows that this organization’s foremost aim, together with the death of the Jews and the conquest of the West, is a strategic turn taking place with these mass marches. It’s a terrorist spark in the haystack of the Middle East. Yet the United Nations again blames Israel by engaging in its favorite sport—blaming Israel, even if it was unable to pass a condemnation this time.

U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres supports the call for an international inquiry. He adheres to the traditional and wrong idea that Israel has used disproportionate force in countering the mass demonstrations on its border, while promoting the idea that it killed Palestinians who marched “peacefully” along its border. And European Union official Federica Mogherini argues against Israel that the civil liberties of the protestors, armed with rocks and Molotov cocktails, must be respected. Whose liberties? Those of the Islamist dictators of Gaza killing the Jews?

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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. 

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BBC News conceals human shields part of a story on Hamas tunnels - by Hadar Sela

...during the 2014 conflict between Israel and Hamas, some senior BBC journalists claimed that there was "no evidence" of Hamas using the civilian population of Gaza as human shields and the BBC Trust subsequently defended that inaccurate reporting following complaints from members of the public. Given that the BBC's Middle East editor repeated that claim less than two months ago, the editorial decision not to inform BBC audiences of this clear example of Hamas' placement of military assets in civilian residential areas is particularly noteworthy.

Hadar Sela..
BBC Watch..
11 August '17..

On August 10th the BBC News website published a report titled “Israel to speed up Gaza tunnel barrier“.

“Israel is to accelerate the building of a huge barrier along its boundary with Gaza aimed at preventing militants from tunnelling under the border.

The 64km (40-mile) long construction will reach a depth of 40m (131ft) below and 6m above ground, at a cost of 3bn shekels ($833m).

An Israeli army commander said the barrier should be completed in 2019.

Israel has sought to neutralise the threat of cross-border tunnels since its war with militants in Gaza in 2014.”

The BBC apparently based that article on local media reports concerning a briefing given the previous day by the head of the IDF’s southern command.

“At a briefing on Wednesday, Israel Defense Forces (IDF) Maj Gen Eyal Zamir said the hi-tech barrier would be completed, even at the risk of renewed conflict with Hamas.

“If Hamas chooses to go to war over the barrier, it will be a worthy reason [for Israel] to go to war over. But the barrier will be built,” Israeli media quoted him as saying. […]

According to local media reports, the machine used to dig the new the barrier will destroy any existing tunnels, while the barrier itself will use sophisticated technology to detect any new tunnels being built.”

While readers are not informed which Israeli news site was the source of the information used in the BBC’s article, it is notable that an additional, related and widely reported part of Major General Zamir’s briefing was omitted from the BBC’s account.

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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. 

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No surprise as BBC’s Bowen repeats his ‘no human shields in Gaza’ claims - by Hadar Sela

...Having publicly claimed that he did not come across human shields in the few days he was in Gaza in the summer of 2014, three years later he cannot accommodate the ample evidence that shows otherwise. Having promoted his own pseudo-legal interpretations of the Law of Armed Combat in his 2014 reporting from Gaza, he is incapable of subsequently adjusting that view in line with the facts. That, of course, is what happens when the agenda takes precedence over the actual story.

Hadar Sela..
BBC Watch..
28 June '17..

BBC Radio 4’s series ‘Our Man in the Middle East’ continued on June 16th with episode 15 – titled “Missiles and the Ballot Box” – which was devoted to Jeremy Bowen’s view of the Gaza Strip.

“Jeremy Bowen explores Gaza, the Palestinian territory controlled by Hamas, the Islamic resistance movement. It’s not a place you would chose [sic] for a Mediterranean holiday, though the Palestinians used to dream of developing a tourist industry, he says. “Israel could recapture Gaza in days if it wanted to. But then it would be responsible for around a million children and about the same number of angry adults. Palestinians can’t destroy a state as strong as Israel. But Israel can’t bludgeon Palestinians into submission either.””

Refraining from informing audiences that hopes of economic development in the Gaza Strip were killed off by, among other things, the Islamist take-over of the territory, Bowen opens the programme with the theme promoted in that synopsis.

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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. 

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ISIS adopts Hamas terror tactic because it gets results - by Evelyn Gordon

...ISIS obviously bears primary blame for all civilian deaths in Mosul. But a portion of that blame is shared by every journalist, “human rights” activist, politician and demonstrator who blamed Israel rather than Hamas for civilian deaths in Gaza–because they are the ones who persuaded ISIS that deliberately sacrificing civilians is an effective way to fight a war.

Evelyn Gordon..
Analysis from Israel..
06 April '17..
Link: http://evelyncgordon.com/isis-borrows-a-tactic-from-hamas/

The U.S. Army recently announced that it has horrifying video footage of Islamic State fighters herding Iraqi civilians into buildings in Mosul. The plan was not to use them as human shields–that is, to announce their presence in the hope of deterring American airstrikes. Rather, ISIS was deliberately trying to ensure that American troops killed them, by “smuggling civilians into buildings, so we won’t see them and trying to bait the coalition to attack,” an army spokesman said at a briefing for Pentagon reporters. The motive, he explained, was hope that massive civilian casualties would produce such an outcry that the U.S. would halt airstrikes altogether.

There’s an important point to this story which the spokesman neglected to mention: This tactic is borrowed directly from Hamas. And it was borrowed because the world’s response to successive Hamas-Israel wars convinced ISIS that creating massive civilian casualties among residents of its own territory is an effective strategy.

Admittedly, Hamas hasn’t yet been caught on video actually herding civilians into buildings before launching attacks from them. But there’s plenty of evidence that Hamas prevented civilians from leaving areas whence it was launching rockets or other attacks at Israel, thereby deliberately exposing them to retaliatory strikes.

During the 2014 Gaza war, for instance, the Israel Defense Forces warned civilians to evacuate the town of Beit Lahiya before launching air strikes at Hamas positions. But according to Palestinian human rights activist Bassem Eid, who based himself on interviews with Palestinians in Gaza, Hamas gunmen showed up and warned that anyone who left the town would be treated as a collaborator. Since Hamas executes collaborators, that was equivalent to saying that anyone who tried to leave would be killed on the spot. Thus, faced with the alternative of certain death at Hamas’s hands, most Beit Lahiya residents understandably opted to stay and take their chances with the IDF.

There’s also plenty of evidence that Hamas deliberately launched attacks from buildings where it knew civilians were present. Just last month, for instance, I wrote about a case during the 2009 Gaza war in which Hamas directed sniper fire at Israeli troops from the third floor of a well-known doctor’s home, thereby forcing the soldiers to choose between becoming sitting ducks or shooting back and risking civilian casualties. Unbeknownst to the soldiers, Hamas was also storing explosives in the house (using civilian buildings as arms caches or wiring them with explosives is standard practice for Hamas). Consequently, when the soldiers fired at the Hamas position, an unexpectedly large explosion ensued, killing three of the doctor’s daughters and one of his nieces.

BBC reporting on the use of ambulances by terrorists in Iraq vs. Gaza - by Hadar Sela

....The abuse of medical facilities protected by international conventions during conflict is obviously an issue of interest to international journalists. However, as we see from the examples above, the BBC’s reporting of such abuses lacks consistency.

Hadar Sela..
BBC Watch..
01 December '16..

On November 6th an article appeared on the BBC News website’s Middle East page under the title “Iraq suicide attacks: Ambulances used in Tikrit and Samarra“.

“Suicide bombers have used explosives-laden ambulances to kill at least 21 people and wound many others in the Iraqi cities of Tikrit and Samarra.

The so-called Islamic State (IS) group said it had carried out both attacks. […]

The deadliest of Sunday’s blasts happened in Tikrit, some 200km (123 miles) south of Mosul.

A suicide bomber drove a booby-trapped ambulance into a line of vehicles queuing at a checkpoint at the southern entrance to the city, once the hometown of executed former leader Saddam Hussein. […]

In Samarra, further south, another ambulance was detonated in a car park for the al-Askari mosque – one of the holiest shrines in Shia Islam. Iranian pilgrims were among the dead.”

During the 2014 conflict between Israel and terrorist organisations based in the Gaza Strip, Hamas’ use of ambulances to transport armed terror operatives (a practice also seen in previous conflicts in Gaza and during the second Intifada) was documented on several occasions.

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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. 

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Examining BBC reporting on human shields in Gaza vs. Iraq - by Hadar Sela

...So as we see, within less than a month since the launch of the military operation against ISIS in the Mosul region, BBC audiences were alerted to the terror group’s use of civilians as human shields on at least four occasions. The majority of those reports were based on information provided by outside sources and – in contrast to the 2014 reports from the Gaza Strip, where the corporation did have journalists on the ground in the relevant areas – the BBC apparently did not find it necessary in this case to find “evidence” of its own before reporting on the use of human shields by ISIS.

Hadar Sela..
BBC Watch..
29 November '16..

As readers no doubt recall, one of the many remarkable features of BBC coverage of the summer 2014 conflict between Israel and terrorist groups in the Gaza Strip was the corporation’s failure to report on Hamas’ use of the local civilian population as human shields.

Not only did BBC journalists refrain from reporting adequately on the issue of Hamas’ placement of military assets in populated areas (with the BBC later claiming that it was “very hard for journalists in Gaza to get to see rockets being fired out”) and the terror group’s instructions to civilians to stay put in such areas but some BBC correspondents even went out of their way to deny the phenomenon.

(Continue to Full Post)

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. 

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Monsters and a very incomplete list of children used as human shields in Gaza - by Elder of Ziyon

...Gideon Levy isn't crying about what sort of society would do such a monstrous thing. Because he doesn't really care about the dead children. He wants to do what Hamas does - use them as a weapon against Israel. Just like B'Tselem. Just like Amnesty. Just like Human Rights Watch. Which means that it is Gideon Levy and these NGOs who are the real monsters for not saying a word about - or worse, exonerating - Hamas and other Gaza armed groups for literally using their children as weapons in war.

Elder of Ziyon..
28 July '16..

Gideon Levy is outraged at Israelis:

One hundred and eighty babies and children up to the age of 5. One hundred and eighty helpless babies and toddlers that the Israel Defense Forces killed in Gaza in the 2014 Israel-Gaza conflict. In their sleep, in their play, as they fled; in their beds or in their parents’ arms.
Try to imagine – the army killed 546 children in the course of 50 days. More than 10 children a day, a classroom every three days. Try to imagine.
But these updated, verified figures, released by the B’Tselem NGO on the second anniversary of the killing, are hard to imagine. It’s easier to dismiss them with a shrug, a look in the other direction or the lame excuses of Israeli propaganda.
The figures that should have haunted Israeli society and keep it awake at night – that should have sparked a stormy public debate and shaken it– are of no interest at all. Any natural disaster at the end of the world would have evoked more human feelings here than this slaughter, which Israel committed an hour’s drive from Tel Aviv.

As usual, Levy is only telling a small part of the story.

Because most of these innocent children were human shields. It is Palestinian society which is so sick as to willingly put their own children (and many other family members) at risk in the hopes that Israel would not attack their terrorist relatives.

(Continue to Full Post)

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. 

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Yo! 'Who You Callin' a Human Shield?' - by Eric Rozenman

...It’s worth noting Washington Post usage in this case, and keeping it mind the next time the press deals with civilian casualties among populations ruled by Hamas and Hezbollah as a result of Israeli responses to the groups’ aggressions. What’s good for ISIS ought to be good for them too.

Eric Rozenman..
CAMERA Snapshots..
20 July '16..
Link: http://blog.camera.org/archives/2016/07/who_you_callin_a_human_shield.html

It should not go unnoticed that a major U.S. news organization—in this case The Washington Post—used the term “human shields” in its own voice when describing the practice of an Islamic terrorist movement embedding itself among civilians and holding them hostage.

In an article headlined “Iraqi troops retake Fallujah; One of Last Havens of Islamic State; Humanitarian crisis grows as thousands flee” (June 18, 2016 in print, June 17 online), Post correspondents Loveday Morris and Mustafa Salim wrote, among other things:

“There have been concerns about the plight of civilians stuck inside Fallujah. When the operation began in late May, as many as 90,000 people were believed trapped in the city, with the Islamic State holding them to use as human shields [emphasis added].”

The Post does not say who believed as many as 90,000 people were trapped in Fallujah or that the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria planned to use them as human shields. However, based on past actions by the group, the description no doubt seemed probable.