The UNRA school – tens of Gazan civilians dead. The killers identity: Immad & Hassan Abu Askar, a Hamas mortar team. The weapon: Israeli Mortar.

By Dr. M. Nazarathy

Here are the facts, as uncovered by the Shin-Beit a few hours after the incident: The two terrorists named above, a Hamas mortars team from a well known Hamas family situated themselves on the roof of the school, which was packed with civilians taking refuge from the fighting, and fired their mortars at an Israeli paratroop force. The force returned fire, also by mortar (most likely unaware of the identity of the place they have been fired upon), and hit the Hamas team and inadvertently the civilians. The death of the two terrorists who hijacked the school and caused the civilians’ deaths was also confirmed.

120% Hamas responsibility. Just one of an endless number of incidents, endemic on a vast scale, in which the Hamas has been taking hostage, abusing and causing the death of the very civilians it is supposed to govern and protect. Shocking examples:

1. Hamas is stealing humanitarian aid, in particular intercepted the flour and medicine of yesterday’s convoy inserted through Israel’s border, diverting supplies (intended for the population for free) to its militant needs and reselling supply at high price to the desperate inhabitants.

2. Senior Hamas terrorists drag kids by their ears to shield themselves, as they transit through the alleys, in order not to be targeted by the Israeli helicopter gunships.

3. The civil rule of Hamas has virtually disappeared. There is absolutely nothing done by them to aid the population in its plight, all Hamas members including those who were responsible for civilian operations have gone underground. Hamas has completely abandoned its duty as the “government” (recall that two years ago Hamas staged a coup-de-etat, in the course of which it murdered 161 Fatah members and took over as Gaza’s “government”).

4. The only interaction with the population is to deploy them as human shields. Another example: Hamas set roadblocks preventing the population from fleeing South, so as to get the civiliansin the way of the fighting which is concentrated in the North.

5. While people are still afraid to go publicly against Hamas (where, on Hamas TV?), the level of frustration of against Hamas is on the rise. Palestinian sources claim that there is growing resentment against Hamas, which is perceived as having caused the destruction of Gaza on the altar of Iranian interests. While naturally resentment against Israel is very strong, alongside it, it is apparent that Hamas is losing its most important asset – the projection of its image as a social movement which represents the interests of its people.

6. An example from the first week of the war, during the air campaign, as aired on Hamas TV (footage available). An Israeli bomb struck a “mosquegrad” (a mosque used to store Grad missiles), and an 11 years old girl came out of a neighboring building, raffled but unscathed. The Hamas TV reporter asked her in Arabic “who is responsible?”. With a child’s candor she said: “Hamas is”. Needless to say the interview which barely started went off the air…

7. Hamas is striving to exaggerate and magnify the dimension of the humanitarian crisis in the hope that the world will pressure Israel into stopping its just fight. A grotesque example: it is uncovering the bodies of its dead terrorists and cladding them in civilian clothes and bringing them to hospitals in order to artificially increase the civilian dead count.