Israel Matzav

The State Comptroller on Sunday issued a harsh report on the government's allegedly failed attempts to protect the Jewish communities in the vicinity of the Gaza Strip from Palestinian terrorists firing Kassam rockets and mortars during and since the disengagement.

"The facts [disclosed by the State Comptroller] demonstrate that there were severe failures in dealing with the matter," wrote State Comptroller Micha Lindenstrauss. "The fact that the work was not completed by the appointed time was caused primarily by problems in the allocation of funding from the state budget."

The report on the actions taken to reinforce the Israeli settlements in a circumference of seven kilometers from the Gaza Strip boundary is the first of three reports prepared by the State Comptroller on the subject of the disengagement from Gaza. The other two reports, dealing with civilian aspects of the withdrawal, are due to appear in about two weeks. [I can't wait to see the other two reports. CiJ]

Lindenstrauss found that it has been 17 months since the government formally decided to withdraw from the Gaza Strip and "the reinforcement of the communities that are most in danger is still not completed. In fact, in some of the settlements, the work hasn't even been started." In some instances, the Ministry of Defense has still not reached agreement with the treasury on the amount of money to be allocated for the reinforcement of the communities.

Does anyone still want to claim that the rush to expel the Jews from Gaza had nothing to do with the criminal investigations of the Sharon family?