via memeorandum
AFP reports on yesterday’s violence on the border with Gaza.
Two Israeli civilians and seven Palestinians were killed on Wednesday in an explosion of violence on the Gaza Strip border after Palestinian commandos stormed into Israel.The attack came after early morning fighting left an Israeli soldier and a Palestinian gunman dead, shattering a month-long lull that followed a bloody Israeli blitz on Gaza aimed at halting rocket fire.
The Israeli army said Palestinian fighters, under cover of mortar fire, breached the border near the Nahal Oz terminal that provides Gaza with its fuel supplies, and moved into Israel.
The militants shot dead two Israelis working at the terminal in what the army called a “failed abduction attempt.”
The report notes that Islamic Jihad and two other groups took “credit” for the attack but that Israel holds Hamas accountable. The logistics necessary to carry out this kind of attack were probably significant enough that the authorities would have to have been aware of the planning. Of course, since the authorities are also terrorists, they had no reason to prevent the attack.
And this would be a breach of the “lull” or “ceasefire” or whatever you want to call it. Unless mortars and qassams are considered breaches. So I guess this qualifies as an escalation, though it’s not one that can be pinned on Israel, unless one blames Israel for responding.
Michael Goldfarb takes the obvious lesson from the continued violence from Gaza and applies it to Iraq:
Israel withdrew unilaterally, ended the occupation of Gaza, and a terrorist group took over the territory. The result is cross-border violence. The same thing happened after the Israeli withdrawal from Southern Lebanon. So tell me again how unilateral withdrawal from Iraq will lead to a different result? Granted AQI won’t be able to run across the border to kill Americans, but there is no doubt that terrorists can strike from a great distance when they are allowed to plot and train unmolested.
Last week we saw pictures of Gaza with gas stations that were out of fuel and read that Gazans were protesting Israel’s restriction on allowing gas into Gaza.
Taxi drivers queue outside a petrol station in Gaza April 7, 2008, as they wait to fill their cars with fuel. Owners of petrol stations in Gaza said on Monday that they have ran out of fuel as Israel has not allowed fuel to be supplied to Gaza everyday.
Yesterday it was the transfer point of gas into Gaza that was attacked. If Hamas doesn’t care enough about Gaza’s gas supplies to prevent this attack, why should anyone care if Israel chooses to deny Gaza the resource it needs to run and that, in effect, allows terrorist to attack Israel?
UPDATE:
Boker Tov Boulder blasts AFP for grouping all the fatalities together instead of emphasizing that the initial attack killed two Israeli civilians. The picture she mentions of a “militant” going to a funeral shows a guy with a Kalashnikov. Most funeral I’ve attended haven’t had folks show up sporting assault rifles.
Perhaps she should have saved some of her outrage for the Washington Post for it’s disgraceful headline: Gaza Fighters Attack Fuel Depot Inside Israel
Fighters?!?! At least use the somewhat judgmental term “militants.” (Yes, I know that they are terrorists, but no way the Post headline writer would use that term.)
Anyway the reporting here isn’t bad. In particular:
A Hamas spokesman denied the group had been involved in the Nahal Oz attack, but lauded it as courageous and vowed further strikes.Despite the denial, Israel said it blamed Hamas, which has controlled the territory since it seized sole power 10 months ago. The armed Islamist group won Palestinian elections in 2006 but failed to maintain a power-sharing arrangement with the rival Fatah movement, which dominates the Palestinian Authority and has strong support in the West Bank.
Israel’s Foreign Ministry said in a statement that Hamas would “bear the consequences” for the attack, which spokesman Arye Mekel said was proof that the group “really doesn’t care for its own people.”
“This is the same group that was complaining we were not sending enough fuel. Now that we’re sending enough, they try to blow the place up,” Mekel said.
This is exactly the way the attack should be viewed.
Crossposted on Soccer Dad.
This just disgusts me beyond belief. Why would they attack their own fuel terminal??? What if they’d disabled it? They wouldn’t have any fuel, and then Israel would probably be criticized for not repairing it fast enough! Unbelievable.