From an Israeli Press Review, English translation:
In Friday's Yedioth Ahronoth's, military affairs analyst Alex Fishman lays out how Israel and Gaza got to where they are now and says it was by mistake. "A
series of misunderstandings by both sides, along with mistakes in the
IDF's intelligence estimates, led to a great confrontation." To begin
with, he notes that the kidnapping of the three yeshiva teenagers surprised the Hamas leadership,
which was not looking for an escalation in Gaza. But Israel's response
of arresting Hamas MPs in the West Bank was not acceptable to them and
they felt especially bad about the re-arrest of those released in the
Shalit deal, Fishman wrote. He goes on to explain that until June 30th, there was no discussion of a military conflict with Hamas in Gaza and Hamas
even denied shooting any of the rockets. But that night, Israel
responded to rocket fire and attacked 34 sites in Gaza and killed,
apparently by mistake, a Hamas activist, which Hamas saw as a
provocation against the organization and it responded with rockets for
the first time. On the 2nd of July,
the Palestinian youth Mohammed Abu Khdeir was kidnapped and murdered
and in response rockets were shot at Ashkelon and Beersheva. "Israel saw
the increasing rocket fire by Hamas not as a response to what was
happening in the West Bank or as revenge for killing one of its
activists, but as preparations for a massive terror attack that was
[supposedly - OH] supposed to take place under heavy fire. That was an
error," writes Fishman. "In response to the rocket fire, Israel attacks
numerous sites on 6 July,
including tunnel shafts, in an attempt to thwart the massive terror
attack. Hamas people are killed, their friends go wild and shoot dozens
of rockets (at Israel). Israel no longer has any choice and it begins
Operation Protective Edge. In retrospect, it is understood in Israell
that there was an over assessment of Hamas moves and that the sites that
Israel attacked were not part of that big (terror) event that Israel
was waiting for." Fishman later writes,"Today
it is completely clear that despite the great danger, none of the
tunnels leads to any kibbutz. Most of the tunnels are known, and there
was prior warningabout
most of the infiltrations from the tunnels. With proper military
leadership, most of the casualties from the tunnels could have been
avoided."
No comments:
Post a Comment