Showing posts with label Rafah. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Rafah. Show all posts

Tuesday, August 16, 2022


Islamic Jihad (PIJ) is really, really trying hard to spin Operation Breaking Dawn as a victory. 

The latest delusional logic comes from a Palestine Today  interview of PIJ political bureau member Dr. Walid al-Qatati.

 “The loss of the martyrs, especially the great leaders, saddens and pains us and leaves a great void for their families and their movement, but this does not affect the course of jihad, but rather increases it strength and vitality. vitality on the march of jihad and resistance until victory," al-Qatati stated.

If killing PIJ leaders strengthens the movement, then by all means, let's continue!

Al Qatati says that Israel tried to drive a wedge between Islamic Jihad, Hamas and ordinary Gazans, but it failed to do so. He doesn't really explain why Hamas didn't join the battle, though, or why even Islamic Jihad never claimed to be acting on behalf of Gazans. 

He also claims that Israel is hiding the extent of damage and injuries from Islamic Jihad rockets, because - apparently - Israel controls its media so well.

And what about the accomplishments that Islamic Jihad claimed when the fighting stopped, that Israel agreed to release two prisoners who have not been released? He brushes that  aside, saying that Israel is procrastinating, but the battle has achieved the most important goals of hurting Israeli security,  the continuation of the flame of jihad and resistance, and the affirmation of the unity of all the battlefields of national struggle in Palestine.

Meanwhile, in the real world, Islamic Jihad officials privately admit that the deaths of their leaders was a major blow to them. 

One senior Islamic Jihad leader told AFP that the commanders killed were replaced “within minutes,” but Ahmed al-Mudallal, from the group’s political bureau, acknowledged the impact.

“This round was difficult,” he told AFP. “We lost many major military leaders that were important to us.”

Mudallal’s son Ziad — an Islamic Jihad officer — was killed alongside senior commander Khaled Mansour in a strike in Gaza’s southern city of Rafah.
That AFP article also notes that, unlike the wars waged by Hamas, Gazans gained nothing from this mini-war - no concessions from Israel on loosening the closure, for example. Islamic Jihad's reputation in Gaza is in tatters between the selfish goals of the war to get Israel to release one of their leaders, to the rockets that PIJ shot into Gaza killing many civilians, to not extracting any concessions from Israel to stop the fighting. 



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Thursday, August 11, 2022

Defence for Children-Palestine is a rabidly anti-Israel NGO that uses the deaths of children as a means to attack Israel. 

To give an idea of how little context they give their stories, they are counting 16-year old terrorist Hussein Taha, being mourned as a jihadi fighter, as a "child" killed by Israel. 

In an article about the children killed over the weekend in Gaza, their headline is written to imply Israel was responsible for 16 children being killed:


But when you read the article, you see that they really only know about three - and the other 13 are still being "investigated."

Israeli forces killed three Palestinian children in three separate airstrikes between August 5–7, according to information collected by DCIP, while DCIP field researchers continue to investigate four other incidents where 13 Palestinian children were killed. 

Which means they know very well that the 13 were killed by Islamic Jihad rockets in four separate incidents: 
DCIP is still investigating the source of four explosions across the Gaza Strip that killed another 13 Palestinian children. Each explosion coincided with Israeli drones flying over the areas as well as the launches of rockets from Palestinian armed groups
Four children killed (plus three adults) from a rocket in front of a supermarket in Jabalya.
Five children killed from a rocket at the Fallujah Cemetery in Jabalya.
Three child siblings and their father killed in a rocket that hit their home in te Bureij camp.
One child killed and her sister injured from a rocket in Beit Hanoun. There is video of this out of control rocket corkscrewing to the ground and its massive explosion:


What about the other three (now four) children? They were either human shields or they were unfortunately killed when Israel targeted major terrorists.

One killed during the strike on Taysir al Jabari.
One killed when Israel killed southern PIJ leader Khaled Mansour in Rafah.
One killed when Israel apparently targeted a car in Jabalia (I'm still not sure if this was Israel or a PIJ rocket.)
One killed when Israel targeted two PIJ terrorists in Khan Younis.

This is not irresponsible. This is how wars are fought - do everything possible to avoid civilian casualties but civilians cannot shield legitimate military targets of great value.

Defence for Children Palestine, despite trying to spin these deaths as being from Israeli airstrikes, knows quite well they were killed by Islamic Jihad. And they are not defending those children.




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Wednesday, August 10, 2022

As sure as the flower after the rain come the obviously staged photos in the rubble of any Israel/Gaza fighting.

Like these:




I don't know if the AFP photographer told the subjects where to stand, or if the Palestinian terror groups that run Gaza set up an event for kids in the rubble and called the photographers. (As we will see, it is probably the latter.) 

Either way, this is not close to spontaneous. It is staged for maximum effect.

The photos were taken in Rafah. Israel destroyed the building where Khaled Mansour, the Islamic Jihad commander for southern Gaza, was. The total damage is restricted to that building and surrounding buildings - less than one city block.



If you want to cheer up kids, why take them specifically to the most dangerous place in all of Rafah? Why set up a pop-up summer camp in on top of unstable rubble and exposed electrical wires, when you can move a short distance away and be in a neighborhood that looks like this?




And look at how many photographers there were to cover this story!



Photos like this don't reveal the truth: they are specifically meant to hide it. And the journalists happily do their part, to show Gaza the way Hamas wants it to be shown - and nothing else. 


(h/t Yoni)



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Sunday, February 25, 2018


Over the weekend, the the head of the Qatar National Committee for the reconstruction of the Gaza Strip, Mohammed Al-Emadi, criticized PA president Mahmoud Abbas over his collective punishment of Gazans to pressure Hamas, which includes withholding medicines, fuel and salaries.

Al Emadi told reporters, "I've said to President Abbas before: You are the president of the Palestinian people in full, give something to your children, leave the politics aside and do not give anything to Hamas or anything else; just give something to your people."

He warned that the humanitarian situation in Gaza is on the verge of "total collapse...where the citizens have no one to help them.. There is a government that does not fulfill its duty, ... and only the people pay the price."

"We told Israel that the situation in Gaza is intolerable. You have to find a solution to this. You have the key and you are the jailers. There is also blame for the Palestinian Authority and blame for Egypt, which does not open the Rafah crossing," he said.

The head of the Fatah media office Mounir Jagoub responded that "Qatar's statements themselves deny the human character, and reflect incomprehensible positions that are abusive to the Palestinian leadership."

Jagoub continued, "Al-Emadi's political statements before the news agencies against Brother Abu Mazen is an attempt to exploit the tragic situation in Gaza, disguising what we offer our people there under our duty of support as we share with them money and medicine. " He called on Al-Emadi to "retreat from his positions, which are consistent with the campaigns aimed at perpetuating division and spreading division among our people."

Qatar has been boycotted by other Gulf states for its refusal to cut ties with Iran, and the country has been on a charm offensive centered on right wing American Jewish leaders, who have surprisingly allowed themselves to be used in this cynical way to provide cover for the country.

Qatar has been trying for years to position itself as an honest broker in the Middle East, talking with anyone - including Israel - presumably to increase its own prestige as a power player. And it has done the same in Gaza, cooperating with Hamas in providing aid to Gazans.

And yet, the impression I've gotten from watching its actions in Gaza is that despite its political ambitions and its current setbacks, Qatar is the only Arab country that seems to care about actual Gazans and their welfare. Much of its help has been towards purely humanitarian projects - housing, medicine and the like. It is true that when Hamas had full control over Gaza, Qatar's funding made it easier for Hamas to abdicate its own responsibility as the de facto government there, and instead put its money into building a terror infrastructure. Still, Qatar's willingness to put hundreds of millions into Gaza has shows that the other Arab nations' pro-Palestinian rhetoric is hollow.

Hamas is willing to use Gazans as human shields. The PA is willing to hurt them in its attempt to retake Gaza. Egypt has nothing against Gazans themselves but it will not risk its own security just to help them out. Saudi Arabia and the other Gulf states consider Hamas to be the enemy both because of its Muslim Brotherhood origins and its friendliness with Iran, so they only  pay lip service to  Gaza.

Qatar is no paradigm of morality, but it seems to care more about Gaza than the rest of the Palestinians themselves do, let alone the rest of the Arab world and the many supposedly "pro-Palestinian" NGOs that will never say a word against anyone besides Israel.




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Thursday, August 17, 2017


Times of Israel reports:
 A suicide bomber killed a Hamas guard in southern Gaza early Thursday when forces tried to stop him from infiltrating into Egypt, members of the terror organization said, in what sources described as a rare attack against the Islamist group.
“Early this morning security forces stopped two people approaching the southern border (with Egypt),” an interior ministry spokesman in the Hamas-run territory said in a statement.
“One of them blew himself up,” it added.
Later a medical source confirmed a member of Hamas had died in the attack.
The source named the man as Nidal al-Jaafari, 28.
Here is the late Mr. Jaafari.







Notice that he is a member of the Al Qassam Brigades, Hamas' "militant wing." But he is also a guard - which means according to the Goldstone report and the PCHR, he is a civilian.

Hamas doesn't distinguish between civilians and their "militants." Yet the world keeps pretending that there is a distinction.

Another thing to keep in mind is that the Rafah crossing is open now for the first time in four months, as Egypt is allowing Hajj pilgrims to leave. Practically no one has been reporting on the actual siege by Egypt on Gazans for four long months - months during which Israel allowed thousands to pass through its own Erez crossing.

More interesting is the reaction of other terror groups to this suicide bombing, apparently by a Salafist.

Islamic Jihad condemned the bombing in Rafah as "outside religion, culture and morality."

The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine stressed that it is "against the use of weapons, abuse and assault" describing the suicide attack as a  "dangerous violation."

Fatah called it a "terrorist act."

The Popular Struggle Front called this a "dark act that must be combatted"

Yes, the Islamists who innovated suicide bombings as suddenly aghast at the idea of becoming the victims of Islamist suicide bombings. It's so immoral!





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Wednesday, July 29, 2015

Right after I posted my last article on Amnesty's latest report based on its executive summary, the actual Amnesty report about the fighting in Rafah last year was released. It took me about two minutes to identify the first lie.

An engineer corps soldier who took part in the incursion told Breaking the Silence that his orders were “to make a big boom before the ceasefire”, without being given any specific targets
The Breaking the Silence quote shows that this soldier was not in Rafah to begin with! He was talking about a completely different battle in northern Gaza.

And even his testimony shows the exact opposite of Amnesty's thesis of a bloodthirsty, vengeful IDF:

Before the first ceasefire they told us we were going in [to the Gaza Strip] to take down a house. We went down quick and got the gear we needed ready and then we asked, “Which house are we taking down?” And they said, “We want to make a big boom before the ceasefire.” Like that, those were the words the officer used, and it made everyone mad. I mean, whose house? They hadn’t picked a specific one – just ‘a’ house. That’s when everyone got uneasy. At that moment we decided pretty unanimously that we would go speak with the team commander and tell him we simply aren’t going to do it, that we aren’t willing to put ourselves at risk for no reason. He chose the most inappropriate words to describe to us what we were being asked to do. I guess that’s how it was conveyed to him. “We’re not willing to do it,” we told him. It was a very difficult conversation. Him being an officer, he said, “First of all, so it’s clear to everyone, we will be carrying this thing out tonight, and second, I’m going to go find out more details about the mission for you.” He returned a few hours later and said, “It’s an ‘active house' (being used by combatants for military purposes) and it’s necessary you take it down, and not someone else, because we can’t do it with jets – that would endanger other houses in the area, and that’s why you’re needed.” In the end the mission was miraculously transferred to a battalion with which we were supposed to go in, and we were let off the hook. After the ceasefire a bulldozer and emulsion trucks (transporting the explosive liquid) and the driller (a drilling system for identifying tunnels) came to our area, and work started on the tunnels in our zone.
All Amnesty wants you to get out of this is that some IDF officer said he wanted to make a big boom on a random house, and it is clear that this was not the mission at all. And the very idea of such a mission is so anomalous and disgusting to IDF soldiers that even when they think their commander is ordering them to do so, they refuse!

Amnesty, of course, has no problem lying and claiming that this is proof of Israeli war crimes miles away.



Meanwhile, I am looking in the full report for quotes to support Amnesty's claim in their executive summary that
Public statements by Israeli army commanders and soldiers after the conflict provide compelling reasons to conclude that some attacks that killed civilians and destroyed homes and property were intentionally carried out and motivated by a desire for revenge – to teach a lesson to, or punish, the population of Rafah for the capture of Lieutenant Goldin.
What public statements support that conclusion? Amnesty's full report supplies exactly one that does no such thing:
Israeli army spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Peter Lerner said Israel’s assaults were mostly aimed at convincing Hamas never to try it again: “When they come out of their bunkers and they look around, they are going to have to make a serious estimation of whether what they have done was worth it.” These statements indicate an intention to generate material damage as a deterrent.
Lerner's statement does not in any way indicate that the IDF intended to inflict damage as a deterrent. He was talking about damage that occurs during the course of a war where Hamas chooses to hide among civilians, necessitating the destruction of civilian buildings that Hamas turned into military targets.  Amnesty has no shred of evidence that the IDF chose a single target for non-military reasons.

And this is the quote that Amnesty is using as proof of Israeli war crimes. It betrays not only their willingness to twist the facts to reach their pre-conceived notions, but also a willful ignorance of how modern armies make their decisions.

Amnesty chooses to anthropomorphize the IDF as a vindictive person, not as an organization with multiple layers of checks and balances - and there is plenty of documentation that shows every step that goes into IDF decision making that contradicts Amnesty's blanket statements.

The organization is beneath contempt.

Saturday, February 25, 2012

From Ma'an:
The Gaza Strip has not received enough fuel to resume normal electricity levels, a Gaza energy official told Ma'an on Saturday.

The deal as described by al-Nunu includes longer-term measures to increase the capacity of the power plant and link Gaza's electricity grid to Egyptian infrastructure. The shorter-term requirement is the delivery of fuel into Gaza, but a disagreement on the route of the fuel still appeared to be pending agreement.

Egypt wants to stop the use of underground tunnels for delivery of Egyptian fuel purchased by Palestinian authorities, and has severely reduced supply through the tunnel network, prompting the current crisis.

The Gaza government is pressing for the Rafah terminal between the countries to be equipped for fuel transfer, and is reluctant to accept fuel to be delivered via the Israeli-controlled Kerem Shalom crossing.

The government fears Israel will use control of supplies to squeeze the coastal strip.

However, Rafah currently is only fitted for passengers, and its development is restricted by an agreement between Egypt, Israel and the West Bank-based Palestinian Authority.

"We are still waiting for the Egyptian agreement to let fuel enter Gaza officially and legally," Abu al-Amreen told Ma'an.
As I have noted several times, Israel never restricted the flow if fuel to Gaza except for logistical reasons, and was regularly supplying all of Gaza's power plant needs until January 2011 when Hamas refused the shipments.

So when you cut out all the double-talk, Hamas is less interested in helping Gazans than it is in refusing to get fuel through Kerem Shalom. Hamas is using the crisis as an excuse to gain politically - and Gazans are the ones suffering because of it. Hamas knows that if the fuel goes through Kerem Shalom, there would be no political pressure on Egypt to prioritize other delivery methods, so Hamas prefers to keep Gaza in the dark - endangering  the electric supply to hospitals, water treatment plants and other infrastructure - to get its message across.

The entire crisis is an exercise in cynicism and disregard for the lives of Gazans, and yet the world is still fooled by Hamas' subterfuge.

Do you think that "pro-Palestinian" activists would ever say a word against Hamas? Have they ever?

Wednesday, December 29, 2010

Today, Hamas raided and closed the headquarters of a group called the Democratic Union of Palestine in Rafah, confiscating some of the group's files and arresting and beating its leaders.

Hamas also detained and beat 14 Fatah members.

These sort of events are happening pretty much every day, yet one would have to look long and hard to find any Western so-called "human rights for Gaza" organization mentioning them, let alone condemning them. Nothing from Free Gaza, or Viva Palestina, or IHH, or any of the other groups who so publicly claim to care about the human rights of Gazans.

Which just goes to prove that there is no such thing as a "pro-Palestinian" activist. They are anti-Israel agitators, period. And that is how they should be referred to.

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