Hamas failure
The Hamas threat to breach the Gaza border with Israel, in a similar manner to how they did at the Sinai border with Egypt last month, has failed.
It failed for two reasons, first Hamas did not have access to the Israeli border fence itself, while in Sinai they did, and they were able to set explosives against the fence waiting for an opportunity to blow it up. This is because Israel has a well-defended border and infiltrators carrying explosives are usually detected immediately as they approach the fence, presumably by electronic detectors.
Also, in Sinai the Egyptian forces were totally unprepared and overwhelmed by the human wave of thousands of Palestinians that wanted to escape into Sinai. At the Israeli border today the IDF had large numbers of men prepared for any eventuality, and had brought up an artillery battery as well as reinforcements. So Hamas and the Palestinian people knew that they could not simply walk into Israel as they did into Egypt. Troops were supposedly told to shoot at the protesters legs to prevent them infiltrating into Israel.
Hamas gave schools the day off and proclaimed that they would have a human chain for the 30 miles from Rafah to Beit Hanun, but in the event only ca. 5,000 people turned up. However, most media reports said that Hamas was going to have a human chain along the border to protest its closure, but they did not mention that there was in fact no human chain! So even though it was an actual failure, the PR effort by Hamas paid off. Their leftist-liberal media sympathizers gave the most positive spin they could on the actual outcome.
In a related event, some 2,000 activists tried to overrun the Erez border post, but probably fearing a fiasco, Hamas security forces turned them away.
Once again Hamas has announed that they are prepared for a (temporary) ceasefire (hudna) with Israel, they will stop rocket firings on the Negev if Israel ceases its "aggression." Israel has said before that their actions in Gaza only result from Palestinian rocket firing into Israel. If that stops then there would be no more military actions and the border could be opened again. Maybe their failure will teach Hamas a lesson.
It failed for two reasons, first Hamas did not have access to the Israeli border fence itself, while in Sinai they did, and they were able to set explosives against the fence waiting for an opportunity to blow it up. This is because Israel has a well-defended border and infiltrators carrying explosives are usually detected immediately as they approach the fence, presumably by electronic detectors.
Also, in Sinai the Egyptian forces were totally unprepared and overwhelmed by the human wave of thousands of Palestinians that wanted to escape into Sinai. At the Israeli border today the IDF had large numbers of men prepared for any eventuality, and had brought up an artillery battery as well as reinforcements. So Hamas and the Palestinian people knew that they could not simply walk into Israel as they did into Egypt. Troops were supposedly told to shoot at the protesters legs to prevent them infiltrating into Israel.
Hamas gave schools the day off and proclaimed that they would have a human chain for the 30 miles from Rafah to Beit Hanun, but in the event only ca. 5,000 people turned up. However, most media reports said that Hamas was going to have a human chain along the border to protest its closure, but they did not mention that there was in fact no human chain! So even though it was an actual failure, the PR effort by Hamas paid off. Their leftist-liberal media sympathizers gave the most positive spin they could on the actual outcome.
In a related event, some 2,000 activists tried to overrun the Erez border post, but probably fearing a fiasco, Hamas security forces turned them away.
Once again Hamas has announed that they are prepared for a (temporary) ceasefire (hudna) with Israel, they will stop rocket firings on the Negev if Israel ceases its "aggression." Israel has said before that their actions in Gaza only result from Palestinian rocket firing into Israel. If that stops then there would be no more military actions and the border could be opened again. Maybe their failure will teach Hamas a lesson.
posted by Jack Cohen at 9:43 PM
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