Muslim & Jewish Conflict

On Saturday, December 27, 2008, the Israeli Air Force (IAF) carried out a massive air strike on Hamas targets throughout the Gaza Strip in retaliation for the terrorist group’s continued rocket fire on Israeli civilians. The attack, dubbed “Cast Lead” was directed at Hamas security installations, training camp, weapons manufacturing plants, and other Hamas military facilities. Sources from both sides of the conflict admit that there was not a single Hamas facility that did not suffer major damage. A report by Israel National News said that experts called it “the most lethal single day of bombing in the region in at least 41 years.” The casualty count is 282 dead (including several top Hamas commanders) and 330 wounded, but that should rise as more bodies are recovered from the rubble. Even Arab sources are admitting that Israel managed to keep the casualties almost entirely to Hamas fighters. All Israeli planes and pilots returned home unharmed.

In 2005, Israel unilaterally evacuated the Gaza Strip after 38 year there with to give the Palestinian Arabs a chance to run their own area. Jewish groups purchased the hot houses previously used by evacuating Israelis to successfully grow vegetables in the arid Gaza soil; and they donated the hot houses to the Palestinians. It was hoped that the agricultural bounty provided by the hot houses, along with the extensive Gazan employment in Israel would be the basis for a successful Gaza economy. Almost immediately, however, the plans started to unfurl. Video footage showed Arabs triumphantly desecrating evacuated synagogues and destroying infrastructure left for them by the evacuating Israelis. The hot houses were destroy or misused by Arabs and never produced the product that had produced earlier. Moreover, in January 2006, Hamas won an electoral victory in Gaza and in June 2007, ousted all Fatah forces in a military takeover. Soon after that, Hamas turned Gaza into a base for terrorist attacks on Israel, forcing the latter to close the crossings that brought both terrorists and workers into Israel. Since 2005, Palestinian Arabs have fired over 6,000 missiles onto Israeli civilians, according to Israeli and Arab sources.

Israeli defensive efforts put an end to Hamas’ suicide bombers and terror attacks on the Jewish state and so Hamas and its surrogates began firing rockets and missiles indiscriminately into Israeli civilian areas located in the Negev region in Israel’s south. After the Hamas-Hezbollah War in the summer of 2006, the Israel and Hamas agreed to a truce. Every Hamas truce—or hudna–is temporary and engaged in only until the terror group believes it might have the strength to fight Israel. That war was started by an unprovoked raid by Hamas into Israeli territory and its kidnapping of Israeli, Gilad Shalit. Hamas has refused to allow the Red Cross or other international bodies see Shalit, and his fate remains unclear to this day. Despite the hudna, there were regular rocket attacks on Israeli civilians by Hamas until Israeli efforts forced a temporary halt. But on December 19, Hamas unilaterally voided continuation of the truce and resumed regular rocket attacks on Israeli civilians. In the week that followed, the terror group launched over 200 rockets onto Israeli civilian areas. Ultimately, that is what forced Israel’s hand.

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Tags: conflict, israel, middle-east, palestine, war