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IDF officer killed in operation “gone bad” in Gaza

The situation on Israel’s southern frontier has yet again escalated into a violent confrontation. During the course of last night, the IDF conducted an operation in the southern Gaza Strip, east of Khan Yunis city. According to various reports, which were confirmed by TV7, an elite IDF special forces unit infiltrated the Hamas-run territory, after intelligence reports revealed the location of the architect responsible for the Hamas’ tunnels network. An intelligence source, who requested to remain anonymous, revealed that the Israeli force entered Gaza by means of a civilian vehicle that was provided by a Palestinian collaborator, with the aim of capturing the Islamist suspect. The source explained that the Israeli force was instructed to retrieve the terrorist, who could provide Jerusalem with detailed information with regard to the extensive terror-tunnel-network that had been dug by Hamas underneath the Palestinian strip. The mission was initially reported as a failure, however – that after a malfunction forced the Israeli troops to abandon their objective and return back to the Jewish state. During the course of their retreat, the Israeli troops’ were uncovered by a local Hamas militant cell – leading to a heavy exchange of fire, during which one Israeli officer was killed and another was moderately wounded. An Israeli military aircraft was dispatched to the area, to assist the Israeli forces, during which a heavy bombardment reportedly killed six Hamas militants, including the architect of Hamas’s tunnel-network, who also served as the Khan Yunis Brigade commander of Hamas’s military wing, the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam brigades.

As the incident evolved, residents of Israel’s southern communities were instructed to go into their bomb shelters. Shortly thereafter, Palestinian Islamist launched some 17 rockets indiscriminately toward the Jewish state. Three rockets were reportedly intercepted by the Iron Dome anti-rocket defense system, while the remainder of the rockets exploded in uninhabited areas. Thankfully, no injuries were reported, yet some damage was caused to one community in the Eshkol Regional Council.

In response to the incident, a senior Hamas official, Ismail Radwan, vowed to respond to what he termed as “Israel’s aggression.” Radwan insisted that Hamas was not eager for a new war with Israel, but underscored that Hamas was well prepared “if a war were forced on it.”

As a result of the events in Israel’s south, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu cut short his visit to France, where he attended a peace forum commemorating the 100’s anniversary of the armistice of World War I. During the developing situation in Gaza, the Israeli leader held a series of consultations with Israel’s security establishment, after which it was decided to return to Israel for further consultations. The deteriorating situation vis-à-vis the Gaza Strip had apparently come as a surprise to the Israeli leader, that after he announced in a Paris press conference that Israel seeks to avoid “an unnecessary war with Gaza.” Netanyahu stressed that while he is subject to criticism, the measures taken by Israel aim at preventing the humanitarian collapse of 2 million Palestinians that are held hostage by the Islamist Hamas organization. “I do the minimal things necessary to maintain our security and to prevent the collapse of the humanitarian situation of the 2 million Palestinians who are held hostage by this Hamas, this terrorist organization,” PM Netanyahu said.

 

While Israel is actively seeking to improve the lives of the Palestinian population in Gaza, through coordination with regional Arab countries, Netanyahu stressed that unless Hamas recognizes Israel’s right to exist and stops its aspired goal of annihilating the Jewish State – no political resolution can be realized with the internationally recognized entity. “Hamas is not about to except the Jewish State, by the way if it did then there is a solution, there is a vision, there is many possibilities that I think are available. But it starts with that, if your enemy wants to destroy you, what can you talk about the method of your annihilation. You can talk about bringing prisoners and fallen soldiers. You can talk about humanitarian arrangements but you cant have a political resolution with those who are committed to your dissolution, to your destruction to your destruction, that’s absurd, that’s the situation,” Netanyahu said.

 

When asked whether a resolution with regional Arab powers was subject to Israeli-Palestinian peacemaking, Netanyahu underscored that the Arab world understands that Israel is not to blame for the Palestinian dysfunctionality. “The fact that this taboo is been broken that is that Arab states are saying that what we know Palestinian politics are, they know and you know too, anybody who looks at it objectively understands that  half of the Palestinians are held hostage by radical Islamist and the other half cant stand up to them or has its own dysfunctionalities in there politics, ok. So to blame Israel for the fact that they are unable or unwilling to come to the table or don’t want us anyway near the table don’t want us walking on the face of the earth is absurd, Arab countries understand that Arab governments understand that, they want the benefit of cooperating with Israel,” Netanyahu said.

 

Prime Minister Netanyahu also took the opportunity to condemn the international community for their continued efforts to preserve the nuclear agreement with Iran, a regime that openly seeks the annihilation of the Jewish state.  “Here is a regime, Iran that wants our destruction they repeat it more often than Hamas, so what’s the world doing with them how does it deals with them? I ask that question. In fact I face the entire world, all the great powers, quite a few opposition in my own country. I said how can you make deals that pave the highway to a nuclear bomb within a few years and give them billions  of dollars with which they can build their empire of aggression and terror and we just uncovered two of their terror efforts here on the soil of Europe, how can you make this deal with them, how?,” Netanyahu said.