Israel Matzav: Population control, Gaza style

Tuesday, February 19, 2013

Population control, Gaza style

There's actually some good news coming out of Gaza for a change. Qatar has decided to take Gaza's finances upon itself, at least to some extent. And at least some of the jihadi's are running off to Syria to fight and be killed. This is from the first link.

“The money is flowing into Gaza,” a security source told The Jerusalem Post recently.

The Qatari funds are being used to pay for a series of ambitious construction projects and improving the Strip’s infrastructure, including roads and buildings. This month, a request for a tender was issued by the Hamas regime for a project to improve the Salah Al-Din road, linking central Gaza to Rafah in the south. The works will cost 60 million dollars.

“And that’s just one road,” the source noted.

Giving a Hamas a financial stake in keeping the peace may be just what the doctor ordered.

“This is the test,” the source said. “Will Hamas’s military wing cooperate?” Hamas is still reeling from the damage caused by the Israel Air Force’s attacks on 1,500 terror targets – many of which were hidden in civilian areas.

The terrorist organization is fully aware of the fact that, should it provoke another conflict with Israel, the construction and assistance money will have been a waste.

And while Hamas and Islamic Jihad still wish to turn Gaza into a missile base, many bored terrorists are leaving Gaza to go to Syria, where they can fight and be killed.

Recently, however, there has been an increase in the number of Palestinians who left the Gaza Strip to join the anti- Assad rebel forces, the sources added.

The sources told the Palestinian Al-Quds newspaper that most of the Palestinians who have joined the rebels in Syria were members of radical Salafi and Jihadi groups in the Gaza Strip.

Some of the Palestinians used to belong to Hamas and its armed wing before joining the more radical Islamist groups, according to the sources.

The last two months saw a sharp increase in the number of Palestinians from the Gaza Strip who headed to Syria, while many others have expressed their desire to join the rebels, the sources said.

Abu al-Ayna al-Ansari, a leader of one of the Salafi groups in the Gaza Strip, confirmed that many of his supporters had joined the Syrian rebels. Ansari said that the Palestinians left the Gaza Strip to join the “mujahideen [warriors] of Jabhat al-Nusra, which is fighting against the criminal regime in Syria.”

Established in January 2012, Jabhat al- Nusra was recently designated by the US as a terrorist organization.

Ansari said that all the Palestinians who headed to Syria did so voluntarily. He refused to say whether the men had been sent to Syria as part of pre-planned coordination with the Syrian Free Army.