Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Wednesday, August 20, 2014

08/20 Links Pt1: Rockets shot toward Tel Aviv, airport; terror chief Deif believed killed

From Ian:

David Horovitz: Cynical, Israel-loathing Hamas cannot be easily deterred

Hamas is not seeking freedom for the people of Gaza when it demands the “lifting of the siege,” a seaport and an airport, and when it fires rockets because its demands are not being met. It is, rather, seeking the capacity to further its goal of wiping Israel out by getting all those irritating restrictions lifted on its capacity to build a still nastier war machine. The Israeli-Egyptian security blockade did not predate Hamas’s violent seizure of Gaza in 2007; it was imposed after the Islamists took control, and would be removed if Israel’s security was no longer threatened by Hamas and its fellow Islamist terror groups. Want to ease the suffering of ordinary Gazans and ordinary Israelis? Remove Hamas. The “siege” would instantly disappear, and there’d be no impediment to open border crossings, a seaport and an airport. Want to ensure increased suffering for ordinary Gazans and ordinary Israelis? Lift the blockade with Hamas still in control. Ongoing bloodshed would be guaranteed.
As of this writing, Netanyahu has called home his negotiators from Cairo — because Israel will not negotiate under fire — and the IDF is responding to the Hamas rocket fire with strikes on targets in Gaza. If the rocket fire continues, Israel will keep hitting back.
But only if Hamas believes its survival is in danger, its capacity to live to fight Israel another day in doubt, will it call a long-term halt to the fire — the kind of halt that would constitute the attainment of Netanyahu’s sought-after sustained calm. And that would require a far more significant military operation than the Israeli government, mindful of the likely consequent losses, has been prepared to authorize. It would also require a more astute assessment of the conflict from the international community than we have seen to date, providing more dependable support for Israel.

Caroline Glick: Why Israel is losing the information war

For most Israelis, the international discourse on Gaza is unintelligible.
Here we were going along, minding our own business.
Then on a clear night in June, apropos of nothing, Palestinian terrorists stole, murdered and hid the bodies of three of our children as they made their way home from school.
Before we could catch our breath from that atrocity, they began shelling our major population centers with thousands of rockets, missiles and mortars, and infiltrated our communities along the border with Gaza through underground tunnels to kidnap and murder us.
And as the Palestinians did all of these things, they used their civilian population and the foreign press corps as human sandbags. They ordered their own people not to evacuate their homes from which Hamas, Fatah and Islamic Jihad terrorists launched their missiles, rockets and mortars at Israel. And they launched missiles at Israeli cities from outside the hotel where the foreign reporters were staying.
It doesn’t take a PhD to understand what the game is. And Israelis – even many with PhDs – understand what is happening.

Alan Dershowitz: Was Israel Justified in Going after Hamas Terrorist Tunnels?

The key question—both legally and morally—in evaluating Israel's recent military actions is whether the Israeli government was justified in ordering ground troops into Gaza to destroy the Hamas tunnels. This question is important because most of the deaths—among Palestinian civilians, Hamas terrorists and Israeli soldiers—came about after Israeli ground troops attacked the tunnels.
These tunnels went deep underground from Gaza to Israel and were designed to allow Hamas death squads to cross into Israel and to kill and kidnap Israeli citizens. No reasonable person can dispute that these terrorist tunnels were legitimate military targets. Nor could there be any dispute about their importance as military targets, since Hamas was planning to use them to murder and kidnap hundreds if not thousands of Israeli civilians and soldiers. And Israel had no way to discover from the air the exit points of these tunnels on the Israel side of the border, since they were hidden from view and known only to Hamas. The only way to disable them was through boots on the ground.
If Israel had the right to try to destroy the tunnels, then the resulting deaths of Palestinians must be deemed proportional to the military value of Israel's actions, since it is unlikely that the tunnels could have been destroyed without considerable loss of life, because their entrances had been deliberately placed by Hamas in densely populated areas.

Times of Israel Live Blog: Rockets shot toward Tel Aviv, airport; terror chief Deif believed killed

Israel targets Hamas commander in Gaza, still unclear if he was hit; thousands attend funeral of Deif’s wife, son, call for revenge; rocket hits home in Hof Ashkelon region; Egypt calls to resume ceasefire talks; military recalls 2,000 reservists

Islamic Jihad took credit for at least four mortars targeting the Kerem Shalom crossing - from which Gazans get nearly all of their medicine, food, fuel and humanitarian aid.

There were additional rocket attacks against the crossing today.

Hundreds of truckloads of goods have been sent into Gaza daily through the crossing. Yesterday, 240 trucks carrying 4,303 tons of goods and supplies entered.

Usually, Kerem Shalom is forced to close when it gets attacked, depriving Gazans of food and medicine.

Yet I cannot find any condemnation of the rocket attacks on Kerem Shalom by any of the so-called "humanitarian" organizations - the ones that ship their aid through that crossing. The UN nor its agencies like UNRWA are condemning it. Oxfam is silent. "Free Gaza" and the mindless human drones protesting an Israeli container ship in Oakland have nothing to say.

You almost get the impression that they would prefer to have Gazans starve, so they have something else to blame on Israel.

Hamas issues fake outrage over "civilian" deaths - as it admits to targeting civilians

The initial reaction on the Al Qassam Brigades website on yesterday's IDF response to rocket fire is instructive.

The Martyr Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades, the military wing of the Islamic Resistance Movement "Hamas", challenged the Zionist enemy to announce the real reason behind this cowardly act in the bombing of a house belonging to the Dalou family.

The military battalions said the Zionist enemy was violating the truce and committing a massacre in the Dalou family home will open the gates of hell itself.

The group said: "...The enemy committed a massacre against our people, especially in the barbaric bombing of the Dalou family home in the Sheikh Radwan neighborhood north of Gaza City." and added that their response is only an initial response, and that the enemy in this treacherous action may open the gates of hell on himself, and pay dearly, God willing. The Qassam Brigades defied the Zionist enemy to announce the real reason behind this cowardly act in the bombing of the Dalou house."

Funny, the Qassam Brigades never issued such a statement when any other houses were bombed over the past five weeks. Only this one seems to have caused such wrath (and, of course, nearly a hundred rockets.)

As we now know, the reason is that the IDF was targeting the leader of the Qassam Brigades, Mohammed Deif:

Hamas has neither confirmed nor denied on Wednesday that the commander of its military wing was killed in a Tuesday night attack which claimed the life of his wife and son.

Izzat al-Risheq, one the group's political leaders, said Wednesday morning that "we have no choice but to struggle and to win." The security cabinet is expected to meet around noon in Tel Aviv.

Following the late night attack in Gaza, Palestinian sources reported three casualties: Mohammed Deif's 28-year-old wife and his eight-month son, as well as 18-year-old Ahmed Rabah al-Daulo.

Hamas called on members of the public to attend the funeral procession of Deif's wife and baby son, which will leave from the Jabalia refugee camp in the northern Strip.

Hamas leader Mousa Abu Marzouk charged on Wednesday after Gaza truce talks collapsed in a spasm of violence that Israel had targeted the group's armed wing leader Mohammed Deif in one of its air strikes on Tuesday in the coastal territory.

Note that the Qassam Brigades didn't say a word about Deif, and indeed its website still doesn't say anything about him or his family, only the Dalou family house that they were hiding in. (Hamas denies that Deif was killed.)

In other words, for as long as possible, the Qassam Brigades is pretending that Israel was targeting civilians and not their terrorist mastermind.

At the same time, Hamas again admitted that it is targeting civilians:

The city of Tel Aviv which is the head of the economy, and the Zionist Ben Gurion airport, has become a strategic goal for the Qassam rockets.

The Jerusalem Post reports:

Two organizations in Israel have cautioned against accepting casualty figures coming out of Gaza.

Both the Meir Amit Intelligence and Terrorism Center and NGO watchdog organization NGO Monitor this week criticized the verification methods of the left-wing human rights group B’Tselem – The Israel Information Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories - for its claims of Gaza casualty numbers that were recently released for Operation Protective Edge.

...In an email to the Post on Sunday, Roy Yellin, a spokesman for B’Tselem, sharply rejected the findings of the NGO Monitor report.

”B’Tselem is dedicated to provide accurate information, and therefore investigates and verifies any data independently, never relying solely on official sources neither in Israel or on the Palestinian side,” he said.

“B’Tselem does have field researchers on the ground in Gaza and has the professional capacity and evidence to support its publications.

For example, the difference in the death toll figures between B’Tselem and Palestinian Ministry of Health report is due to our strict verification measures,” he added.

I've reported on how B'Tselem determines whether people are civilian or terrorist by asking their families and trusting their answers, making the absurd assumption that Gazans who have been specifically instructed to lie to Western officials are telling the truth to B'Tselem.

B'Tselem itself admits that usually these questions are usually answered on the phone!

With the current military campaign ongoing, B’Tselem is taking testimony from Gaza residents, mainly by telephone. B’Tselem verifies, to the best of its ability, the reliability and precision of the information reported; nevertheless, in these circumstances, reports may be incomplete or contain errors. Given the urgency of informing the public about events in Gaza, B’Tselem has decided to publish the information now available. When the military campaign ends, B’Tselem will supplement these reports as needed.

Even B'Tselem admits that its verification measures aren't "strict" as its spokesperson falsely claimed. At the same time, it admits that it would prefer to release terrorist propaganda about civilian casualties (after a perfunctory "verification") rather than wait and do the job right.

Because vilifying the IDF is an urgent matter that simply cannot wait.

If and when B'Tselem finds out that their error rate approaches, say, 50%, they will bury it in a report nine months from now that would get no coverage. Because the truth isn't as "urgent" as publicizing the lies today. After all, B'Tselem's funding is dependent on generating headlines, and no Western organizations will fund B'Tselem if it insisted on taking the time necessary to do a proper verification..

(h/t NGO Monitor)

08/19 Links Pt2: Chloe Valdary: It is not enough; Forget ice: Take the Hamas vs. hummus challenge

From Ian:

Chloe Valdary: It is not enough

We may think that it is sufficient to sit with folded hands and silent lips on our college campuses and ignore groups that claim we have no right to live in our land.
But it is not enough.
We may think that it is sufficient to overlook the mainstream media’s invectives spewed at us — both their subtle biases and overt accusations hurled at us — that these will eventually pass, and that since there is nothing new under the sun, disregarding such things will make them go away.
But it is not enough.
We may think that it is sufficient to refrain from challenging our professors who claim our state is a racist one, and who claim that Jews are not entitled to self-determination; that Jews are not allowed to defend themselves; that Jews are not allowed to live anywhere we desire — especially not in our heartland, Judea & Samaria.
But it is not enough.

Fear (of global anti-Semitism) and loathing (of Obama) in New York

When pro-Palestinian demonstrators took to the street in New York’s Diamond District on July 25, Kerri Lavine furiously ran outside the store where she works. She just couldn’t take it anymore.
Lavine wasn’t the only one to rush outside. Scores of people joined the spontaneous pro-Israel counterdemonstration, seeking to drown out chants of “Free Palestine” and “Free Gaza” with chants of “IDF.” Because the Diamond District, between Fifth and Sixth Avenues, is home to many Jewish owned and operated stores, the pro-Palestinian march was seen as a march against them as much as against Israel.
“I am just so enraged about everything that’s going on. My heart is over there and I can’t stop watching the news,” Lavine said in a subsequent interview, speaking from behind a glass display case of twinkling diamond eternity bands and earrings. Fearing business repercussions, the 52-year-old asked the store not be named.
Across the city, from the Diamond District to the Upper West Side, from Murray Hill to the Lower East Side, New York Jews were quick to share their views on Israel, Operation Protective Edge and the Obama Administration’s handling of the crisis.

Palestinians: The Invented People.

“The history of the Palestinian people goes back as far as”… This is where Arab “historians” disagree.
Some say the “Palestinian people” have a proud 4000-year history; others say 10,000 years, 30,000 years, and even –don’t laugh- 200,000 years, which makes the Neanderthals pretty young people compared to the “mysterious Palestinians”. But although Arab historians do not agree on the “insignificant” details like the age of the “Palestinian people”, they do agree that this people is incredibly ancient-far more ancient than Jews, Romans or Greeks.
In the glorious history of the “Palestinian people”, there is only one “small” problem; nobody in history ever found them.

HRW's Ken Roth explicitly supports Hamas war crimes

Ken Roth, of Human Rights Watch, just tweeted this:

Can you tell if Hamas tunnel used to attack/capture combatant (IHL allows) or take hostage/attack civilian (illegal)? pic.twitter.com/HgVe8rAcN6
— Kenneth Roth (@KenRoth) August 19, 2014

As I have pointed out before, the Geneva Conventions explicitly and without reservation considers hostage taking to be against international law. No distinction whatsoever between whether the victim is civilian or a soldier.

The ICRC elaborates:

Common Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions prohibits the taking of hostages.[ It is also prohibited by the Fourth Geneva Convention and is considered a grave breach thereof. ...[I]n addition to the provisions in the Geneva Conventions, practice since then shows that the prohibition of hostage-taking is now firmly entrenched in customary international law and is considered a war crime.

The prohibition of hostage-taking is recognized as a fundamental guarantee for civilians and persons hors de combat in Additional Protocols I and II. Under the Statute of the International Criminal Court, the “taking of hostages” constitutes a war crime in both international and non-international armed conflicts. Hostage-taking is also listed as a war crime under the Statutes of the International Criminal Tribunals for the former Yugoslavia and for Rwanda and of the Special Court for Sierra Leone. Numerous military manuals prohibit the taking of hostages. This prohibition is also set forth in the legislation of numerous States.

The International Convention against the Taking of Hostages defines the offence as the seizure or detention of a person (the hostage), combined with threatening to kill, to injure or to continue to detain the hostage, in order to compel a third party to do or to abstain from doing any act as an explicit or implicit condition for the release of the hostage. The Elements of Crimes for the International Criminal Court uses the same definition but adds that the required behaviour of the third party could be a condition not only for the release of the hostage but also for the safety of the hostage. It is the specific intent that characterizes hostage-taking and distinguishes it from the deprivation of someone’s liberty as an administrative or judicial measure.

Although the prohibition of hostage-taking is specified in the Fourth Geneva Convention and is typically associated with the holding of civilians as hostages, there is no indication that the offence is limited to taking civilians hostage. Common Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions, the Statute of the International Criminal Court and the International Convention against the Taking of Hostages do not limit the offence to the taking of civilians, but apply it to the taking of any person. Indeed, in the Elements of Crimes for the International Criminal Court, the definition applies to the taking of any person protected by the Geneva Conventions.

This is as clear as international law gets.

The very thought of a supposed human rights defender publicly renouncing international humanitarian law, defending a war crime and denying the human rights of Israelis is scandalous.

Ken Roth has proven, irrevocably, that he is unqualified for this position. He is actively campaigning against human rights. His stated position is simply immoral. His bias is clear to all. He has singlehandedly turned Human Rights Watch into a punchline.

Terrorist listed as a 13-year old civilian by "human rights" orgs (UPDATE)

The Hamas Interior Ministry reported (Al Jazeera link) that 13-year old Ibrahim Jamal Kamal Naser was killed on July 19.

The Palestinian Center for Human Rights reported on July 19:

At approximately 01:55, Israeli drones fired 2 missiles at a number of Palestinian civilians who were sitting near their houses in Khan Yunis refugee camp. As a result, 9 civilians, including 3 children, were killed: Yahia and Mohammed Bassam al-Sir, 20 and 17 respectively; Mohammed Mustafa Darwish Slahiya, 32; Mohammed, Mustafa and Wassim Rida Mustafa Salhiya, 22, 21 and 15 respectively; Ibrahim Jamal Kamal Nasser, 13; Mohammed ‘Awadh Fares Nasser, 25; and Rushdi Khaled Fares Nasser, 25.

The Al Mezan Center for Human Rights likewise reported that 13-year old Ibrahim Nasser was killed on that day.

Here is the shahid poster of "13-year old" Ibrahim Nasser, killed on that same day in that same place, by the Abu Rish Battalions of the Al Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades:

Does he look 13 to you?

This is proof that despite the claims of the UN, of PCHR and of the Al Mezan Center, they do not investigate the actual deaths the way they pretend to - they often just take the Hamas data and republish it without checking.

And the UN reports this data as fact - and so does the rest of the world.

Hamas is telling reporters and NGOs that dead terrorists are children, both to hide the number of terrorists killed and to inflate the number of children killed. The ever-compliant Gaza NGOs are knowingly going along with the scam - if they had so much as visited the hospital and viewed the body they would have instantly known that Ibrahim was not 13. They simply repeated Hamas' lies to the world.

In other words, the NGOs that are trusted by the international community are as corrupt as the Hamas itself.

The Abu Rish Brigades made a similar poster about one other of their members killed in the same attack, Mohammed Slahiya (probably the 22-year old listed above):

Slahiya's 15-year old brother, Wassim, was killed in the same attack. Of course, the same "investigators" reported him as a civilian - after all, he was only 15!

But the Abu Rish Brigades published a martyr poster of their members killed - and guess who is on the upper right corner?

Yes, that is Wassim - 15 year old Fatah terrorist, but a "civilian" according to PCHR and Al Mezan. (Ibrahim Nasr is on the top left. The Terrorism Info center verified that Wassim was indeed 15.)

(Update): All nine people on this poster are Abu Rish Brigade terrorists, and all nine were counted as a "civilian" in the PCHR report above - including three "children."

Here is another case where terrorists are reported as civilian.

Wassim indeed is a child, but so-called "human rights" organizations are not going to say a word of condemnation for terror groups recruiting children. (!5 year olds are too young to be fighters according to international conventions.)

PCHR and Al Mezan are not human rights organizations - they are propagandists. The UN, by relying on these liars as their source for casualty figures, is complicit in these lies. And the many journalists who mindlessly parrot the UN figures should realize that their information sources are suspect.

These are hardly the first confirmed terrorists to be identified as "civilian" by these organizations. And we've already shown that B'Tselem's methods to determine the status of the dead is incredibly naive and inaccurate as well.

What will it take for the world to wake up and realize that political organizations with an agenda cannot be trusted to produce accurate information?

(h/t Josh K referring me to the latest Meir Amit Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center report.)

(h/t Ibn Boutros)

08/19 Links Pt1: Rockets resume, Israeli envoys leave Cairo; Britain’s anti-Semitic whiff of Weimar

From Ian:

Natan Sharansky: Don’t set a double standard for Israel on norms of war

The pictures of destruction and mourning in Gaza that have filled media around the world for the past several weeks have been very painful and sad to view. One would be hard-pressed to find an Israeli who does not sympathize with the suffering of Gaza’s victims.
Yet there are also few Israelis who feel we are responsible for this suffering. For us, the tragedy of Gaza is inseparable from the tragedy of the entire Middle East. Over the past three years, in countries around our tiny state, more than a quarter of a million people have been killed in the most horrific ways. This wave of terror recognizes no official borders. The only border at which the savagery stops is Israel’s.
Hamas and Hezbollah are doing their best to change this. So what protects us? The United Nations or human rights groups? No. Only the military power of the Israel Defense Forces. In response to our enemies’ relentless campaigns, the army is constantly developing new ways to defend us. One new weapon, Iron Dome, has in the past few weeks protected civilians from almost 3,000 missiles.
But while Israelis have developed missile shields to protect children, Hamas has been using children as shields to protect missiles. This perverse strategy is the brainchild of a society that hails death. For Hamas, using living shields serves the double function of increasing the number of martyrs and galvanizing a free world that values life to pressure Israel to stop fighting.

Decorated Army Chief Accuses Hamas of War Crimes, Praises Israeli Restraint

A highly respected and decorated Army chief, Col. Richard Kemp, has accused Hamas of multiple war crimes including the targeting of Israeli civilians and the use of Palestinian children as human shields and suicide bombers.
Speaking at the National Rally for Israel and Peace in Brighton yesterday, Col. Kemp gave a comprehensive account of the conflict in Gaza, drawing from first-hand experience to accuse Hamas of war crimes whilst praising Israeli restraint and desire for peace.
He said: “I’ve been there [in Israel and Gaza] for four weeks. I’ve watched closely what’s happening [in this conflict]. Hamas have used the two weapons at their disposal, and they have only two weapons. Those weapons are not rockets and are not attack tunnels ... they could not hope to defeat the might of the state of Israel with her allies around the world using rockets and attack tunnels. They did not intend to defeat the State of Israel, they know they couldn’t. So what were their weapons? Human shields – their own old men, women, babies and children to be sacrificed for their own purposes. And lies and propaganda. Those two weapons combined are what they used to try to exert international pressure on Israel to get concessions for them as part of their ongoing campaign to ultimately exterminate the state of Israel and to annihilate every Jew around the world as called for by their charter. … Their agenda is an agenda of genocide. That’s all it is.

UN Watch: Col. Richard Kemp on the 2014 Hamas-Israel War

Douglas Murray: Britain’s anti-Semitic whiff of Weimar

There is a whiff of Weimar in the air in Britain. Barely a week now passes without some further denigration caused by anti-Semitic, sorry, pro-Palestine demonstrators targeting businesses run by Jews/stores selling products produced by the Jewish state. You know, like Sainsbury’s, Tesco, Marks and Spencer, Starbucks and so on. Most of this fairly random targeting of whatever business sounds a bit Jewish goes unnoticed. Sometimes protestors manage to get the business closed – as with the Ahava store in liberal, enlightened Brighton. Generally they just succeed in intimidating shoppers and making it easier for people to shop elsewhere in some non-Semitic store.
Sometimes the protestors, like this young man in Manchester, are open about their feelings and taunt any nearby Jews by telling them, for instance, how highly they think of Hitler (‘I love Hitler. I’m big on my boy Hitler’ says this nicely integrated young man):

The Letter From A Jewish Londoner That Went Viral

I work in an office. I go to football. I like eating out. I enjoy the arts. I am a proud family man. I give up time for charity work. I try to be a decent contributing member of society. I pay my taxes honestly. But there appears to be something that sets me and my kind apart.
At park gates in East London a friend of mine gets told to f**k off for photographing a flag. At a pub in Bath my wife gets called scum when she mentions her background. In a student hall in Manchester a friend’s son is asked to leave as the specially prepared food he chose to eat is not permitted because it carries a label written in a language used by a country that is “banned” by the student union.
In Belfast a historic blue plaque is removed to deny part of my history. In theatres in Edinburgh and London I am told to denounce my opinions or lose the right to perform. A sportsman in Ireland tweets if he sees my kind he’ll punch us in the face and recommends others follow suit.
Protesters across the country show no shame in shouting that my historical persecutors were right and social media is rife with vitriol towards me (even from so-called friends). And in Bradford I’m told that I am not even permitted to enter the city.
What is this? Racism. Where is this? Britain and Ireland. When is this? Now. Who am I? I am a Jew.
Never again, we say, never again.

The Yemen Economist has a scoop!

Apparently, they have infiltrated Jewish schools worldwide to find out their curricula!

All from a country that has only a handful of Jews remaining.

According to the article:

Jewish teachers instill a hate of every non-Jew in their children.
Jews teach children that there is no choice but to always use violence.
Scandalously, Jews teach they they have the right to live in Israel.
Teaching that Jews are superior, the Chosen People.
Teaching fanatical concepts of Zionism based on the Talmud and the Protocols of the Elders of Zion.
Falsifying history to achieve their goals.
Teaching kids to hate Arabs, saying that they are "savage and cutthroat and bloodthirsty and terrorist and aggressive by nature."

Good thing they ethnically cleansed those disgusting, lying Jews, isn't it?

The article goes on to berate (I think) Israel's curriculum for Arab students that teaches the Arabs that they are second-class citizens and that downplays how terrible Jews are.

The same newspaper has an article saying that Israel is worse than ebola.

Corrupt, pro-Hamas UN offers to "monitor" cement imports into Gaza

AFP reports:

UNRWA aid bag found in tunnel

The United Nations is ready to check imports of construction material sent to Gaza in order to ease Israel's concerns that supplies could be used to rebuild cross-border tunnels, a UN envoy said Monday.

UN Mideast envoy Robert Serry told the UN Security Council that reconstruction of Gaza remained the main priority once a durable ceasefire is agreed between Palestinian factions and Israel.

"Construction material must be allowed into Gaza to this effect -- aggregate, bar, and cement. And their access to Gaza must be facilitated in such a way that fulfills Israel's security concerns," Serry said.

"The United Nations stands ready to lend its support in this regard."

That's really funny.

Because UNRWA couldn't even monitor its own cement being imported into Gaza that was earmarked for only their projects.

UNRWA praised illegal smuggling of cement into Gaza back in 2011, after Hamas had already made it clear that it was prioritizing terrorism over building Gaza, a fact that UNRWA officials could not have been ignorant of.

UNRWA refused to condemn Hamas using scarce building materials, quite openly, for its own propaganda. In fact, UNRWA refuses to condemn Hamas even for putting Gazans' lives directly at risk.

UNRWA doesn't have its own drivers to bring cement from Kerem Shalom; it hires Gaza truck drivers who happily divert part of their cement to Hamas or the black market.

Hamas' redirecting cement donated by international aid was known back in 2010.

Most importantly, the union leaders representing UNRWA workers in Gaza are overwhelmingly associated with Hamas.

In Gaza, Hamas controls UNRWA.

The UN offer to keep track of the building materials entering Gaza is a complete joke.

Good luck finding a reporter who is willing to actually do research on the ignoble history of the UN empowering Hamas and helping enable its terror infrastructure, though.

Why is paralyzed Maha still in a Gaza hospital? (update)

We have been following the story of Maha Sheikh Khalil, the paralyzed 7-year old girl in Gaza who has been the subject of many articles.

The last we heard (see update), Israel had approved her being transferred out of Gaza for treatment overseas on July 26, but for some reason her family and the hospital administration were unaware of the approval. Israeli authorities urged the hospital to resubmit the paperwork and said that she would be approved immediately.

That was on August 12.

On August 15, in a Facebook post, it was reported that Maha was on her way to treatment in Turkey.

That is clearly not true.

Yesterday, Maha celebrated her eighth birthday at the same Gaza hospital, room 526:

The stories about Israeli cruelty at preventing her from leaving Gaza have dried up now that Israel showed that it approved her traveling once and was quite ready to do it again. We don't know if that second request was ever sent. even if the first one disappeared in a bureaucratic snafu; it seems unlikely that the hospital administrators wouldn't be making hourly phone calls to ensure that a new request would be approved quickly.

Yet she is still in Gaza.

Perhaps her condition deteriorated making it harder to safely move her. Perhaps there wasn't any hospital in Turkey willing to take her and that story was made up to avoid her being treated in Israel. Perhaps the PA lost her paperwork again.

Or just maybe, she is worth more to Hamas leaders, who are holed up in the basement of that same hospital, as a living martyr who attracts headlines than she would be if she wasn't in Gaza.

While this may be a cultural thing, it sure seems strange that a hospital, with oxygen equipment, would allow a birthday cake with sparklers, let alone candles.

(h/t Bob Knot)

UPDATE: Apparently, Maha was transported to Turkey on Wednesday.

Hamas leader said in 2009 that terror infrastructure was higher priority than houses

The Meir Amit Terrorism Info Center has documented over the years a statement that Hamas leader Khaled Meshal gave in 2009:

On November 12, 2009, Khaled Mashaal met with several senior figures at a meeting of Arab parties in Damascus. One of his main themes was that Hamas would continue the path of "resistance" [i.e., terrorism], and therefore most of Hamas' money and efforts in the Gaza Strip were invested in military preparations. His main talking points were the following (Paltimes.net):

Most of Hamas’ efforts in the Gaza Strip are invested in military preparations: “On the surface, [statements in the Gaza Strip] refer to reconciliation [between Hamas and Fatah] and rebuilding, however, what is not revealed is that most of Hamas’ funds and efforts are invested in the resistance and military preparations... We are intent on the resistance.”

This was after almost a year of international aid to rebuild Gaza after Cast Lead. It is now apparent that Hamas diverted much of the aid meant to rebuild houses and instead used it to build a terror infrastructure.

If all the protesters truly cared about the lives of Gazans, such news should prompt them to have mass rallies against Hamas, which is clearly the enemy of ordinary Gaza civilians.

But we aren't seeing that. On the contrary, we are seeing the supposed leaders of the "pro-Gaza" movement doing everything they can to strengthen Hamas and to allow Hamas to continue to steal aid from Gazans.

Many of the supposed pro-Gaza leaders, in fact, actively work against the PA and for Hamas - so that the next round of aid will go once again to build rockets and tunnels instead of schools and hospitals and apartments.

It is almost as if those who donate money to Gaza want to fund Hamas' terrorist infrastructure.