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Friday, December 25, 2015

12/25 Links Pt1: Glick: Israel’s homegrown enemies; The Myth of ‘Palestinian Security Cooperation’

From Ian:

Caroline Glick: Israel’s homegrown enemies
Wednesday, as Israel’s entire rabbinical and political leadership stood as one and condemned the wedding guests who glorified Jewish terrorists on the video, Fatah – the terrorist group and political party led by PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas – published a post on its Facebook page praising the terrorist murderers who the same day killed two Israelis and critically wounded a third outside the Jaffa Gate in Jerusalem.
For counterterror and law enforcement bodies, fighting Jewish terrorism poses the same challenges as fighting Islamic terrorism. In both cases, the central challenge is to target and arrest terrorists and infiltrate their networks while continuing to respect the civil rights of the surrounding population.
In both cases, when investigators are contending with active terrorist networks, they are sometimes compelled to use unpleasant interrogation techniques.
As numerous courts, ministerial oversight committees and the Knesset have determined, these techniques are not torture. They are legitimate interrogation methods and they are used sparingly and only when they are required to protect the public from terrorists who target the innocent.
This brings us back to the wedding video and the difficulty we experience in accepting that Jewish terrorism exists, support for Jewish terrorism exists, and both need to be dealt with.
There can be little doubt that Jewish terrorism would be far easier to fight today if the Shin Bet and the state prosecutors had not made malicious use of agent provocateurs to demonize the national religious camp in the 1990s. So too, if IDF commanders and the civil administration were less quick to support anti-Israel European-funded NGOs against Jewish communal interests in Judea and Samaria today, community members would have less trouble believing the worst about Jewish extremists at the fringes of society. Indeed it would be far more difficult for overzealous defense attorneys to convince anyone that suspected terrorists have undergone torture.
But while the public has legitimate grounds for suspicion, it is no longer possible to dismiss the allegations of Jewish terrorism. There are members of the nationalist camp that wish to destroy Israel.
They are willing to commit terrorist attacks against Arabs as well as Jews to achieve their goals.
As a consequence, just as the vast majority of the public demands that the government take all necessary measures to destroy Palestinian terrorist groups, so the public must demand that the government destroy Jewish terrorist groups.
Just as we decry apologists for Palestinian terrorism, so we must shun apologists for Jewish terrorism.
 JPost Editorial: 100 days of terrorism
A number of media outlets have pointed out this week that we have marked 100 days since the beginning of the present wave of terrorism – some would call it an intifada.
On Rosh Hashana Eve, Alexander Levlovich, 64, of Jerusalem was murdered. Palestinians threw rocks at his car as he was on his way home from a festive dinner. He lost control and died of his wounds.
Ever since, vehicular attacks, rock throwing, firebombings, stabbings and shootings have murdered at least 24 Israelis and wounded at least 260. And no end is in sight.
On Thursday there were several incidents: One Israeli was lightly hurt in an attempted car-ramming near Adam junction; two security guards were wounded, one seriously, in a stabbing in the Ariel industrial park; and soldiers were attacked by a Palestinian wielding a screwdriver in Hebron.
No deterrents seem to exist to stop these lone-wolf Palestinians terrorists, many of whom are very young. At the beginning of this present wave many in the security establishment hoped that potential terrorists could be deterred. The thinking was that if the young Palestinian man or woman contemplating carrying out a terrorist attack were to know that there was a nearly a 100 percent certainty that he or she would be killed either before, during or immediately after the knifing or car-ramming, he or she would refrain from carrying out the attack. Politicians, police officers and IDF officers called on Israelis with guns to carry them and to shoot to kill if they happened upon a terrorist attack. They believed this would strengthen deterrence.
Unfortunately, over the past 100-plus days it has been made abundantly clear that this thinking was hopelessly unrealistic.
2015: A turning point in WWIII
Islamism tested its fire before 2001, with bombings of American and French targets in Beirut in 1983 and of the Paris metro in 1995, but those were not clearly part of a quest to seize history and subdue the world. The September 11 attacks were.
Having that day taken its attack as deep into enemy territory as it could possibly imagine – crossing the ocean and reaching for the sole superpower’s political, financial and military nerve centers – Islamism soon kindled fires around the globe: from Madrid (2004), London (2005) and Moscow (2010), to Bali (2002), Ottawa (2014) and Timbuktu (2015).
In this regard, the elapsing year’s 11 attacks in France, Denmark, Australia and the US; a 12th on a Russian civilian flight; and about a hundred others in Nigeria, the Middle East, Pakistan and Afghanistan, don’t constitute a turning point, since they merely intensified what had been long under way. Rather, the turning point was psychological.
The year that began with the murders of journalists in their Parisian office and ended with massacres of Californian health workers and Parisian rock fans, pedestrians and café sitters has made millions this side of the war understand their role in it: they are targets.
This realization was underscored by the war’s procession from the air, where it was announced in 2001, and the land, where it subsequently spread, to the sea, where a Muslim multitude fleeing a burning Middle East now approached Christendom’s shores.
Conspiracy theories, that this migration was masterminded by Islamist strategists, are far-fetched. Moreover, the exodus is the historic fault of post-colonial Europe, which ingratiated the Arab autocrats who let their societies degenerate and their economies rot.
In 2015 the victims of this legacy came knocking on Europe’s doors only to be suspected as agents of the Islamist wrath that European passivity had helped breed.



Palestinian driver killed after trying to crash into IDF troops
A Palestinian driver attempted to crash her car into a group of Israeli soldiers in the West Bank Friday afternoon. The woman was shot and pronounced dead at the scene, police said.
No troops were injured in the incident near the Palestinian village of Silwad, north of Ramallah.
The woman was identified in Arabic media as Mahdia Mohammad Hamad, 40, a mother of four.
In a separate incident Friday, a Palestinian man was reportedly killed in clashes with the IDF east of Gaza City along the border with Israel. Palestinian news outlet Al Watan Voice identified the man as 22-year-old Hani Rafiq Wahdan.
At least nine others were injured in the clashes, a Gaza Health Ministry spokesman said.
Palestinian killed, Israeli soldier injured in Qalandiya skirmish
One Palestinian died and one Israeli soldier was injured during an exchange of gunfire in the Qalandiya refugee camp in the West Bank on Thursday.
Soldiers entered the camp, located between Jerusalem and Ramallah, to arrest suspects in a shooting attack. Once inside Qalandiya, the forces were assaulted by a violent mob, the army said.
The soldiers were targeted with guns, hit with an explosive device; Molotov cocktails and rocks were also thrown at them, the IDF said.
“In response to the immediate danger, the force fired toward the gunmen. Hits were confirmed,” an IDF spokeswoman said.
According to Palestinian media, Bilal Omar Za’id, 24, a resident of Qalandiya, was killed in the skirmish, and six others were reportedly wounded.
'I emptied the magazine into him, he kept on charging'
The terrorist is a 22-year-old man from the village Dik who works in the Ariel industrial area. He reportedly showed up for work Thursday morning but left the factory to stab the guards.
Sohet recalled the events:
"It started out as a regular day at work. By 8 a.m. all the laborers had entered and were already at work. And at around 9 a.m., suddenly the door to our booth bursts open, and a man stands there with a knife, maybe even two, I don't remember. And he shouts and starts cutting us up."
"The other guard who was with me ran out and he may have pushed the terrorist, but as I was coming out I cocked the weapon and started firing at him, and I fired the entire magazine at him, and as I changed it I saw him still coming at me, and I kept firing till he fell to the ground."
"I called the other guard and told him to enter the booth and we called for help and said there had been a terror attack. We were full of blood and it was scary."
Adelle Biton's murderers receive light sentence
The five terrorists who hurled rocks at the Biton family car in 2013 and critically wounded two-year-old baby Adelle, ultimately resulting in her death two years later, will be sent to 15 years in prison and will be found guilty of manslaughter and not murder under a plea bargain signed with their attorneys, Channel 1 News reported on Thursday.
Under the arrangement, all five terrorists will confess to and be convicted of manslaughter, receive a prison sentence of 15 years and each will pay 30,000 shekels to the Biton family. The plea agreement is set to be approved shortly by the military court in Samaria, according to Channel 1.
Adelle was critically wounded when the family car was attacked outside of Ariel in Samaria by Arab terrorists, who hurled rocks at the vehicle and caused it to veer off the road and crash headfirst into a truck.
The fist-sized rock struck Adelle directly in the head, leaving the two-year-old baby critically wounded and in mortal danger. Doctors said her recovery from the blow was nothing short of miraculous.
Adelle had been in and out of the hospital for two years following the attack in a grueling rehabilitation period, and died in February of 2015 after her condition deteriorated rapidly from a bout of pneumonia.
IDF preps home demolitions for Jaffa Gate stabbers, car-rammer
Israeli forces overnight Thursday-Friday made preparations for the demolition of the homes of the two Palestinian terrorists who carried out a fatal attack outside Jerusalem’s Old City earlier this week.
Israeli soldiers also mapped out the Qalandiya house of a Palestinian who rammed his car into Israelis north of Jerusalem on Thursday, injuring one person, and arrested five Palestinians in several different raids.
Attackers Anan Abu Habsah and Issa Assaf, both 21, from the Qalandiya refugee camp outside Jerusalem, stabbed two Israelis near Jaffa Gate on Wednesday. Rabbi Reuben Birmajer later died of his wounds. Also killed in the attack was Ofer Ben Ari, 46, who died after being mistakenly shot by police amid the chaos of the attack.
Another Israeli was badly wounded in the stabbing. Both attackers were killed on the spot by police.
The Myth of ‘Palestinian Security Cooperation’
Ramallah is the capital of the Palestinian Authority, and under the Oslo accords, the city is under the complete security control of the PA — as opposed to some other parts of the territories, where Israel has the responsibility for security. So what were Israeli Border Police doing inside Ramallah’s city limits?
“Israeli forces had been chasing Palestinian schoolchildren in the area, when a number of Palestinian police officers led by Lieutenant Akef al-Shalan arrived,” Ma’an reported.
Here we have a textbook case of how “Israeli-Palestinian security cooperation” is supposed to work. Young Palestinians were throwing rocks — a time-honored method of execution in the Middle East — in an attempt to maim or kill Israelis. Last September’s murder-by-stoning of 64 year-old Alexander Levlovitz, as he was leaving Rosh Hashana dinner with his family, is a grim reminder of how serious rock-throwing is.
So the Israelis were in hot pursuit of a group of Palestinian would-be murderers. When the terrorists crossed into Ramallah, the Palestinian police should have arrested them. Instead, the police turned against the Israelis, screaming and threatening them (as the YouTube video clearly shows) as they expel the Israelis from the area.
Writing on ForeignPolicy.com last March, Nicholas Heras and Ilan Goldenberg of the Center for a New American Security dramatically warned of “the West Bank’s potential transformation into an ungoverned space that could become a haven for terrorism” if the Palestinian Authority collapses.
Report: Netanyahu apologizes after standoff between IDF troops, Abbas' bodyguards
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu offered a personal apology to Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas earlier this week after IDF troops engaged in a tense standoff with the rais’ personal security detail just outside his home in Ramallah during a nighttime arrest raid, according to an Internet report.
The story, which was first reported by journalist Barbara Opall-Rome of the Defense News web site, claims that the Palestinians were enraged by what they viewed as Israel’s “utter disregard” of their sovereignty over Area A, the sections of West Bank land which Jerusalem recognized as the domain of the Palestinian Authority by dint of the 1993 Oslo Accords.
According to Defense News, the confrontation, which had the potential to devolve into a full-blown clash, was triggered when Israeli special forces seeking to arrest terror suspects in south Ramallah sought to enter an area adjacent to Abbas’ residence that was cordoned off by his secret service.
When the Palestinian officers refused the IDF’s attempts to further encroach on the premises, a “heated face-off ensued,” according to the report. Israeli and Palestinian commanders at the scene were engaged in heated arguments for about 15 minutes before the IDF unit decided to take an alternate route and avoid a diplomatic crisis.
Palestinians beef up Bethlehem security amid fears of IS attack
The Palestinian Authority was reportedly concerned that Salafists aligned with the Islamic State would attempt to perpetrate an attack in Bethlehem, as thousands of Christian pilgrims flocked to the West Bank city for the holidays.
Seeking to thwart an attack, PA security forces placed 16 radical Islamists in administrative detention without charge, according to an Israel Radio report.
Palestinian security was beefed up throughout the city in anticipation of an attempted shooting or bombing attack on tourists and Palestinian Christians, the report said.
The Palestinian security forces were said to have received concrete threats of an attack by IS-linked militants.
2 Palestinians arrested in West Bank for Christmas tree arson
Palestinian security forces said they arrested two suspected Islamic radicals in the burning of a Christmas tree in the northern West Bank.
A Palestinian security officer said Friday the suspects set fire Wednesday to the tree in Zababdeh, a Christian-majority village near Jenin. The officer spoke on condition of anonymity because he wasn’t authorized to speak to reporters.
He said both suspects are under investigation for possible ties to extremist Islamist groups. He also said Palestinian security forces arrested about a dozen radical Islamists on Wednesday in Bethlehem.
Falsely blaming Israel for Christianity’s collapse in Gaza and West Bank
This year, USA Today reports that the 2,000 year-old Christian community in Gaza is disappearing.
Instead of looking to Hamas, the Islamist, Specially Designated Global Terrorist Organization that controls Gaza, writer Matthew Vickery (previously with al-Jazeera) blames “[t]he ongoing Israeli blockade of the Gaza Strip and the highest unemployment rate in the world.”
The “highest unemployment rate” trope is patently false.
Blaming the blockade, such as it is, is deceptive at best. Israel blockades only materials that Hamas can use for its terrorist purposes, but Hamas is inventive and turns even mundane items into tools for terror. For instance, Hamas steals an unfathomable amount of concrete meant for civil construction and instead builds tunnels for subterranean invasion of Israel.
As important, Gaza also has a border with Egypt. Since General Abdel Fattah el-Sisi took over in Egypt, overthrowing Hamas’s Muslim Brotherhood ally Mohamed Morsi, Egypt has imposed its own blockade of Gaza. Responding to persistent Hamas tunneling and increasing terror attacks, Egypt razed buildings along its Gaza border, flooded Hamas’s tunnels. and is building a moat. Gaza is cut off because its leadership abuses commerce with its neighbors to build the tools for terror and carry out attacks, not because its neighbors are malicious.
Gaza’s Christians, like Christians in the West Bank and around the Arab and Muslim world are not suffering because of Israel.
BBC finds a carpenter at Christmas
The BBC locates a Bethlehem [shepherd] carpenter whose business isn’t doing well this year. It’s the fault of the [Jews] wall.
Actually Jack Giacaman is a wood carver not a carpenter but the Beeb always gets its terminology wrong about israel. Militant/terrorist?
Even the Guardian, no friend of Israel, had other alternative suggestions: terror attacks in Europe, the downing of a Russian plane and Palestinian uprising.
“After the Paris attacks, Europe stood up as one and decided it wasn’t coming [to the Middle East],” he (Bethlehem hotel manager) says. “We also used to get a lot of people from eastern Europe who come via Turkey and visit here, but not after the Russian plane [downed over the Sinai desert in Egypt in October]. Then there is the situation here …”
During the last intifada the hotel was closed for four years so some economic fallout shouldn’t have been such a surprise.
Guide to How Anti-Israel Activists Hijack Christmas
For years vehemently anti-Israel NGOs (non-governmental organizations), charities, and even church groups have been exploiting Christmas symbols, themes, and traditions in order to promote one-sided narratives of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
These recast religiously-themed narratives situate Israel and Jews as the villains and omit any mention of terrorism, or Israel’s need to protect its citizens from harm.
Palestinian Christians in these narratives are depicted as undeservedly maltreated by Israel. Special attention is given to how Palestinians are allegedly hurt by the security barrier surrounding Bethlehem and its adjacent communities.
No mention is made of how, during the second intifada, this area became an infiltration route for Palestinian suicide bombers, or of how Palestinian gunmen seized the homes of Christians there, terrorizing for years the nearby Jewish neighborhood of Gilo with sniper fire.
The precarious situation faced by the dwindling Christian communities living under Muslim majority rule in Gaza and the West Bank is also ignored. Moreover, the well-documented persecution of Palestinian Christians by Islamists in Gaza and the West Bank is effectively erased.
IsraellyCool: Palestinian Christmas Blood Libel: The Jews Shot Santa!
Before you decide to send Santa flowers, there is something you should know. And it’s the darnedest thing.
You see, “Santa” aka some Grinch co-opting Christmas for propaganda purposes, was not shot yesterday. Thanks to my little helper Reverse Image Search, I see that he inhaled teargas last year. According to the IDF, protesters there were hurling rocks at them, not delivering presents. Hardly the Christmas spirit.
Now think about what this “photojournalist” just did.
She searched for an incriminating photo – one related to Christmas for maximum effect – and posted it with a false description. Knowingly. In order to demonize Israel.
But while Christians celebrate the birth of Jesus today, I was not born yesterday.
Kuntar Assassination Highlights Decade of IDF Success at Breaching Hezbollah Security, Says Israeli Analyst
The assassination of Hezbollah official Samir Kuntar highlights the success of Israel’s defense establishment in breaching the terrorist organization’s security apparatus, Israeli site Walla assessed this week.
The list of Hezbollah operatives assassinated in the last decade includes some of the organization’s “all-stars,” including “chief of staff” Imad Mughniyeh in 2008; Hassan Al-Qeis (tasked with Hezbollah’s arms acquisitions and contacts with the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps); Jihad Mughniyeh earlier this year; and, most recently, Kuntar, who was leading its Golan Heights-Galilee front against Israel.
Each assassination required the gathering of extremely sensitive information on the target and his whereabouts; tight coordination between different wings of the Israeli security establishment; and absolute precision in carrying out the attack itself.
In recent years, such precision has become particularly important, due to the chaotic Syrian civil war and the entrance of foreign forces — including Russia’s and Iran’s — into the equation, further complicating matters.
US man indicted in 'Draw Mohammed' shooting hit with charges linked to Super Bowl bomb plot
An Arizona man already accused of aiding two gunmen in an attack on an event in Texas drawing cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed had also inquired about using pipe bombs and explosives during the 2015 Super Bowl in Phoenix, court documents said.
Abdul Malik Abdul Kareem, also known as Decarus Thomas, was charged on Wednesday with conspiracy to provide material support to a foreign terrorist organization, in addition to his indictment earlier this year on conspiracy and weapons charges in connection with the failed attack on the event in the Dallas suburb of Garland, according to the court papers.
His roommates Elton Simpson and Nadir Soofi of Phoenix were killed by Garland police after they opened fire with assault rifles outside the May 3 cartoon drawing event. The original indictment said Kareem supplied the two gunmen with arms and helped them prepare for the attack.
The new charges accuse Kareem of showing support for the Islamic State militant group in social media posts, researching travel to the Middle East to train with terrorists and seeking to make explosives that could be used during this year's Super Bowl, the most-watched US sporting event.
In court documents, Kareem was accused of practicing with firearms in the Arizona desert and watching Jihadist videos.
Japan probing reports of journalist abducted in Syria
Japan said Thursday it was investigating the reported kidnapping of a Japanese journalist in Syria by an armed group, after two of its citizens were beheaded by Islamic State earlier this year.
Media rights group Reporters Without Borders said Jumpei Yasuda, a freelance journalist, was kidnapped in July as he was crossing the border into the country and is still being held hostage by the group, which was not named.
Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga declined to directly confirm the report when asked about it at a regular media briefing, but stressed the government was obligated to ensure the safety of Japanese citizens.
"We are doing our best... and making full use of various intelligence networks," he added, without elaborating.
Earlier this month, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe set up a new unit to collect and analyze information on global terrorism concentrating on four areas, including the Middle East.
ISIS issues fatwa on organ harvesting, rape of slaves
Newly released documents seized from Islamic State (ISIS) backed in May in eastern Syria by US forces include fatwa Islamic religious rulings by the group on a host of issues - including organ harvesting and rape.
The documents, seized during an operation in which ISIS chief financial officer Abu Sayyaf was killed and his wife was captured, were among seven terabytes of data picked up from computer hard drives, CDs, DVDs and papers according to Brett McGurk, the Special Presidential Envoy for the US-led coalition against ISIS.
McGurk shared several of the documents with Reuters, including religious rulings by ISIS's Research and Fatwa Committee that directly reports to ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.
"Fatwa Number 64" dated from January 29, 2015, gives guidelines regarding rape, ordaining when ISIS terrorists can and cannot rape female slaves.
Another fatwa, listed as "Fatwa Number 68" from January 31, gives permission to harvest the organs of a living captive to save the life of a Muslim, even if the captive dies in the process.
In Anti-Jihad Op, Santa Blitzes ISIS with Radioactive Reindeer Poop (satire)
In a blitzkrieg Christmas Eve mission, Santa Klaus and his squadrons of hooved helpers pounded ISIS positions with atomic reindeer feces, slaying thousands of jihadis and laying waste to much of the terror group’s heavy weaponry.
“Ho, ho, ho! Merry Christmas you satanic pedophiles!” cried Santa as hundreds of nuclear excrement-armed flying sleighs discharged their lethal loads across ISIS-controlled Syria and Iraq overnight. (To avoid collateral damage, Santa selected targets away from civilian areas, instead blanketing ISIS-ruled cities – including its de facto capital, Raqqa – with heavenly eggnog, plum pudding and thermal beanies embroidered with “Don’t Mess with the Holy Kids of the Middle East.”)
“As much as I admire President Obama’s healthcare and climate initiatives, I just couldn’t wait any longer for him to get his foreign policy shit together,” Santa later told CNN. “So leave it to me, children of the world – from now until I’ve wiped ISIS off the face of the Earth, every night will be a radiant Christmas Eve!”
After deal, Attorney General announces charge against MK Zoabi
Attorney-General Yehuda Weinstein sent a letter to Knesset Speaker Yuli Edelstein on Monday informing him of the charge to be brought against Joint List MK Haneen Zoabi under a deal recently reached between the controversial lawmaker and the state prosecution.
Zoabi is being charged with disgracing a public servant, due to comments she made at a protest during a July 6 hearing at a Nazareth court. She had called Israeli-Arab police officers “traitors,” implied threats against them, and told a protesting crowd to spit in their faces.
Under the deal, Zoabi will not be charged with incitement for this incident.
As a part of the deal, Zoabi sent a letter of apology to the officers.
UK Muslim denied Disneyland trip was also barred from Israel
Eleven members of the family traveling together, two brothers and nine of their children, were not allowed to board a plane departing from Gatwick Airport on December 15, The Guardian reported.
US Department of Homeland Security officials did not tell the family why they were not permitted to fly to the US even though they had travel authorization documents.
A growing number of British Muslims are being barred from entering the US without being told the reason, according to The Guardian.
CBS News quoted an unnamed Homeland Security department source as saying that one of the adult brothers had been refused entry into Israel two years ago and that his teenage son posted links to terrorist websites on his Facebook page. Department officials also told CBS that not all 11 family members were barred from the flight.
One of the family members told London’s LBC radio that his brother was denied entry to Israel a decade ago when he traveled with other men to visit the Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem.
The Shocking Facts behind the Reconstruction of Gaza
Since the end of Operation Protective Edge, over 3 million tonnes of construction materials have entered the Gaza Strip through the Kerem Shalom crossing with Israel. This has enabled, to date, 104,587 damaged homes to be fixed, and 3,764 totally destroyed homes to be rebuilt.
All this has happened through the Gaza Reconstruction Mechanism. This trilateral mechanism was established at the end of the last war; it is officially led by the Palestinian Authority, supported by Israel and supervised by the United Nations. It is a system for facilitating the delivery of construction materials to householders whose homes were damaged in the last war or to projects advanced by international sponsors. It provides a creative, though not foolproof, means of enabling the delivery of much-needed building materials to the people whilst making life difficult for Hamas to get its hands on such materials, as it continues building tunnels into Israel and rearming itself. Israel works in tight coordination with UNOPS inspectors to prevent any leakage.
The primary problem facing reconstruction today is the lack of international donor funding. At the October 2014 Cairo Conference, states pledged $3.5 billion to support reconstruction. Of this sum, much of it double-pledged anyway, only 35% had been disbursed by the end of August 2015. As a result, reconstruction is far behind what Israel wants to see and has indeed planned for. The UN’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UNOCHA) states baldly: “Despite the generous pledges… a funding gap still exists for the reconstruction of over three-quarters (9,200 units) of the totally destroyed homes.”
The evidence is in the numbers. In Gaza today, there are 319 large-scale international projects underway. But Israel has approved 511 projects through the GRM. The gap of 192 schools, clinics or housing units not being built is a product of the international community’s failure to meet its own funding pledges. As Hamas continues to rearm and bore new tunnels, it is hardly surprising that the world fears another round of violence, which would jeopardise their investments.


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