Israel Matzav

Peretz demoralizes the IDF and endangers Sderot and Ashkelon yet again

I just received the following report from the Jerusalem Post's Israel Alert Service (no link yet):

A number of people were wounded in Sderot after a Kassam rocket landed near City Hall, a Sderot official told Israel Radio on Wednesday morning.

According to the official, shops in the area sustained heavy damage.

The firing occurred after an IDF tank fired at a residential neighborhood in Beit Hanun early Wednesday morning, killing at least 18 civilians.

I hope to have more on this story later today.

In the meantime, as I am sure many of you have heard, an artillery shell that was fired at Kassam launchers this morning hit a private home in Beit Hanoun. The death toll in that incident is now at 18.

Khaled Radi, a Palestinian health ministry official, said of the 18 dead, seven were children, and 13 of the dead were from the same family. He said at least 40 more were wounded, all civilians.

Remember Qana? Remember the inflated numbers of dead that turned out to be false. Remember 'Green Helmet guy'? Remember how everyone rushed to blame the IDF but it turned out that Hezbullah was shooting from that building? Israel's 'Defense Minister' Amir Comrade Peretz showed this morning that he has learned absolutely nothing from that incident.

The IDF said it had fired artillery rounds at Kassam launch sites but insisted that the firing had been aimed at open areas and not at residential districts of Beit Hanun. However, the army said it was checking whether some of the shells had misfired, Israel Radio reported.

Defense Minister Amir Peretz instructed the IDF to expedite the probe into the firing. He also decided to halt artillery fire at Gaza until the completion of the investigation.

The 'Palestinians' shoot from among civilians. By doing so, they forfeit all rights to protection under the Geneva Convention. If an IDF misfire hit a civilian building, it's because Hamas is shooting from among the civilians. Remember the beach incident last summer when a whole Gaza family was wiped out by what turned out to be a buried 'Palestinian' ammunition dump? They rushed to blame the IDF for that one too. As I wrote last summer five days after the Qana incident (just change "Hezbullah" to "Hamas"):

Hezbullah is hiding behind civilians. Those civilians have been told again and again to leave the battle areas. If they have not done so by now, it is because they support Hezbullah (as many of them do), and their remaining in the war zone is a willful act undertaken at their own risk. The 4th Geneva Convention is clear on this point (and in fact does not even require that civilian presence in the battle zone be willful). Article 28 of the 4th Geneva Convention provides:

The presence of a protected person may not be used to render certain points or areas immune from military operations.

That is precisely what Hezbullah is doing by hiding behind civilians. While Israel cannot target civilians, it can and should go after Hezbullah operatives as if the 'civilians' were not there. Given that Hezbullah built schools and residences directly above munitions depots, there is no other way except to ignore the civilian population when going after Hezbullah operatives. Therefore, for example, when the IDF issues its report on the Qana massacre fraud and the report states,

The army said that they had operated according to information that "the building was not inhabited by civilians and was being used as a hiding place for terrorists." Had they known that civilians were in the building, the attack would not have been carried out...

... and that the building was adjacent to areas from which rockets had been launched towards Israel.

it shows that the Olmert government either does not understand, or does not want to take advantage of, the rights that are granted to it under the 4th Geneva Convention. (My belief is that the problem is the latter rather than the former, which would be in keeping with the replacement of Judaism with 'liberalism' as the religion of the left).

But instead of waiting for the results of the investigation (at least), Peretz has suspended the artillery fire and exposed southern Israel even more. Peretz's suspension of fire during the investigation implies that it is at least possible (if not likely) that the IDF is to blame for what happened this morning. The IDF does not target civilians. Hamas does. While the suspension is in effect, Hamas can re-take positions that were cleared out over the last week and rain down Kassams on Israeli civilians. It gains us no points in the court of world opinion. But it demoralizes the IDF yet again. It's foolish - and characteristic of Peretz.

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 10:49 AM