Friday, August 1, 2014

UN Clinic in Gaza housed explosives hidden in walls that killed 3 Israeli soldiers. Clinic was located over Hamas tunnels

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7/31/14, "Booby-Trapped Explosives Built into Walls of UNRWA Clinic," Israel National News, by Uzi Baruch and Elad Benari

"Over 80 kilograms of explosive material built into rigged UN-funded clinic; no response from UNRWA (UN Relief and Works Agency)."

"New details have emerged about the booby-trapped clinic explosion that killed three IDF Maglan unit soldiers in Gaza earlier this week - Sergeant First Class Matan Gottlieb, 21, from Rishon LeZion; Sergeant First Class Omar Chai, 21, from Savion; and Sergeant First Class Guy Algranati, 20, of Tel Aviv.

Over eighty kilograms of explosives were built into the UN-funded hospital's walls themselves, it was cleared for publication Thursday - revealing that the clinic itself was built to mask, and perform, potential acts of terror on the IDF.

Moreover, the clinic was built over tens of terror tunnels, according to the report.

The UNRWA (United Nations Relief and Works Agency) has yet to respond to the revelations, and has still not responded to the deaths of the Israeli soldiers Wednesday.

On Tuesday, Hamas and Islamic Jihad rocket arsenals were found in a UNRWA school for the third time this month.

After the first finding of rockets at an UNRWA school, it was reported that rather than destroying the rockets, UNRWA workers called Hamas to come remove them. [Knowing they'd be used to kill Jews.]

While it would not comment on the deaths of the three soldiers, UNRWA was quick to place blame on Israel for a rocket strike on one of their schools in Gaza.

The UN agency also immediately blamed Israel for a strike on Gaza’s Shifa hospital, resulting in the deaths of over a dozen Gazans. It was later revealed that in all likelihood, a misfired Hamas Fajr-5 Iranian-made 100 kg warhead destined for Israel had struck the hospital." image of UN building in Gaza from INN

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7/31/14, "IDF Soldiers Were Killed in Booby-Trapped UN Building," INN, By Elad Benari

"The three IDF soldiers who were killed on Wednesday in Gaza, were killed when explosives detonated within a booby-trapped UN building in Khan Younis, Breitbart reports.

An elite IDF tunnel unit was in the process of uncovering an opening to a Hamas tunnel located at an UNRWA (United Nations Relief and Works Agency) health clinic when all of a sudden the explosives detonated, causing the entirety of the building to fall on top of the soldiers....

The IDF has previously provided video evidence that Hamas fires rockets from inside schools and it is also known that Hamas has also been using UNRWA schools as storage sites for its rockets. For the third time in recent days, such a stockpile was discovered in a UN school Tuesday.

After the first finding of rockets at an UNRWA school, it was reported that rather than destroying the rockets, UNRWA workers called Hamas to come remove them.

While it would not comment on the deaths of the three soldiers, UNRWA was quick to place blame on Israel for a rocket strike on one of their schools in Gaza.

The UN agency also immediately blamed Israel for a strike on Gaza’s Shifa hospital, resulting in the deaths of over a dozen Gazans. It was later revealed that in all likelihood, a misfired Hamas Fajr-5 Iranian-made 100kg warhead destined for Israel had struck the hospital.

Deputy Foreign Minister Tzahi Hanegbi said Wednesday that UNRWA has continued to hand the missiles back to Hamas, “endangering and jeopardizing Israeli lives.”

“Instead of blaming and condemning Israel, UNRWA should make a real effort to stop being manipulated and used by the terrorist organizations,” he said, according to Breitbart."

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Washington Post Editorial Board notes deadly Hamas tactics:

7/15/14, "Hamas is playing a dangerous game with Gazan lives," Washington Post Editorial Board  


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Media "death count" as opposed to actual reporting encourages Hamas "dead baby" strategy which it's used continuously since 2005-Alan Dershowitz
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7/15/14, "Media death count encourages Hamas to use human shields," Alan Dershowitz, Jerusalem Post opinion

"By emphasizing the comparative body counts without providing the reasons for the disparity, the media plays into the hands of Hamas, and encourages that terrorist organization to continue to pursue its dead baby strategy.

The media loves to count the dead bodies on each side of a conflict. It’s much easier to count than to explain. Hamas knows this. That’s why they employ what has come to be known as the dead baby strategy”.

Hamas’ strategy since Israel left Gaza in 2005 has been exactly the same. The media response has been exactly the same. And Hamas will continue to employ a strategy that causes many Palestinian civilians to die as long as the media keeps up its thoughtless body count. 

Here’s the way it works: Hamas deliberately fires its rockets from densely populated civilian areas, using hospitals, disability centers, mosques and schools as launching sites.  
This puts Israel to the tragic choice of either allowing the rockets to endanger its civilians or to destroy the rocket launchers, thereby risking civilian casualties among Hamas’ human shields. Often Israel chooses to forgo attacking military targets, so as not to put Palestinian civilians at risk. Sometimes it has no choice, because the rocket fire against its civilians is persistent. Palestinian civilians are killed despite Israel’s best efforts precisely because Hamas wants civilians to be killed, especially if these civilians are children, women or the elderly. Hamas stands ready to parade these human shields in front of the media which is eager to show the dead and count the bodies. 

Hamas could easily reduce the death and injury toll among its civilians, by simply allowing them to go underground into tunnels and shelters which abound throughout Gaza. But Hamas has a deliberate policy of refusing to allow civilians to enter the tunnels or shelters. They reserve these places of refuge for their fighters and commanders, which explains why so few Hamas fighters have been killed. If Hamas were to reverse its policy and allow civilians into the shelters while requiring its fighters to stay above ground, the ratio of civilians to fighters killed would dramatically change. That is why in each of the wars between Hamas and Israel there have been more Palestinian than Israeli civilian deaths and injuries. It is part of Hamas’ dead baby strategy and it works, because the media facilitates it.  
 

The media also emphasizes the fact that thus far no Israelis have been killed by Hamas rocket fire. Indeed some media and international organizations seem implicitly to be condemning Israel for protecting the lives of its own citizens, by repeatedly pointing out that none have died, while Palestinian deaths have reached nearly 200. The reason there have been no Israeli deaths so far is because Israel spends hundreds of millions of dollars trying to protect its civilians, while Hamas spends its resources deliberately exposing its civilians to the risks of Israeli counterattacks.  Israel has built shelters all throughout the country and has spent a fortune on the Iron Dome system. The results have been impressive, though many Israelis suffer from trauma, shock and the inevitable long term consequences of being exposed to constant rocket fire.

How many times have you heard, seen or read the body counts:  nearly 200 Palestinians dead, no Israelis dead. This is usually accompanied by an accusation that Israel is violating the international law requirement of “proportionality.” This is a misuse of the term, which has a precise meaning in international law that reflects a broader morality. Under international law, a nation has the right to attack military targets. Period! It doesn’t matter whether the rockets coming from these launchers have as yet succeeded in their task of killing civilians. There can be no doubt under international law that rocket launchers, and the fighters who employ them are legitimate military targets. Israel is therefore entitled to attack these targets, even if no Israeli civilians have been killed, so long as it can do so without causing disproportionate civilian casualties. 

This rule was not addressed to an enemy that deliberately uses human shields to protect its military targets
and combatants against legitimate attacks. Proportionality is not judged by the number of civilians actually killed by Hamas rockets, but rather by the risks posed to Israelis. These risks have been diminished, but not eliminated by the Iron Dome system. They have also been considerably diminished by Israel’s counterattacks on the missile launchers and those who employ them. Without these counterattacks, it is highly likely that more Hamas missiles would have made it through the Iron Dome system which has been approximately 85% effective. Israel has every right under the rules of proportionality to attack these military targets, so long as they take reasonable efforts to reduce civilian casualties. They have done so by leafleting, by calling, and by other methods of warning civilians to leave target areas. Hamas leaders, on the other hand, have urged, and sometimes compelled, their civilians to remain in harm’s way as human shields.

The media, by emphasizing the comparative body counts without providing the reasons for the disparity, play into the hands of Hamas and encourage that terrorist organization, to continue to pursue its dead baby strategy. So the next time those in the media promote a body count without explanation, they should point a finger at themselves for contributing to this deadly count."

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On one side, the US government, Turkey, Qatar, the EU, Arab League, UN, and NY Times. On the other side, Israel, Egypt, the Saudis, Emiratis, Jordanians, Palestinian Authority, and the majority of Americans especially Republicans:
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July 2014 Pew Poll finds support for Israel has continued to grow among all Americans especially Republicans, 1978-2014:

7/15/14, "As Mideast Violence Continues, a Wide Partisan Gap in Israel-Palestinian Sympathies," people-press.org. (Pew Research)

















"As violence between Israel and Hamas shows no signs of abating, the sympathies of the American public continue to lie with Israel rather than the Palestinians."...

New national survey by Pew Research Center was conducted July 8-14 among 1,805 adults.
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