Inside Track / Rafah is a nightmare

"The state of Israel will not tolerate the number of casualties in our forces if the Palestinians continue to equip themselves with rocket launchers and anti-tank missiles," warned a senior officer in the south yesterday. He was referring to the blowing up of the armored personnel carrier on the Philadelphi Route last week (the first APC, in the Zeitoun area, went over an explosive device), and to the justification for the actions against the tunnels and their operators. The tunnels have become a clandestine underground railway for materiel that directly threatens the IDF's motorized forces and the Jewish settlers in the Gaza Strip. "We will not put up with school buses full of children that are hit again and again by missiles," added the officer.

Four brigades are participating in Zakai's divisional operation. Zakai's operational concept was to surprise the masters of the tunnels and the terror in Rafah, for the most part the Popular Resistance Committee and the Islamic Jihad from an unexpected direction and in an unexpected way: Not to move from the Philadelphi Route eastwards, to which they have become accustomed, but rather to choose an indirect approach, and also to spare the inhabitants of the houses adjacent to the route. The choice of the Tel Sultan and Brazil neighborhoods was aimed at removing the outer shell that envelopes the refugee camps, the bastions of the organizations. The supreme imperative, Zakai told the brigade commanders, is to act with caution and to avoid casualties.

snip


When the procession with armed men in its midst set out in the direction of the forces, Zakai tried to speak with the community leaders in Rafah. The head of the Liaison and Coordination Administration, Colonel Poli Mordecai, phoned Nasser Saraj, the head of the Civil Committee in the city. Had the Liaison and Coordination Administration sufficed, they would not have needed the tank commander. Saraj, a respected individual, formerly the director-general of the Ministry of Trade and Industry in the Palestinian Authority, listened to Colonel Mordecai's pleas, but took no steps to prevent the disaster.

When men obeyed the calls over the loudspeakers to turn themselves in to the IDF authorities (and to the intelligence people who wanted to question them), they were confronted by members of the terror organizations, who opened fire on them and killed two children. A senior officer in Gaza reported yesterday that the IDF have in their possession pictures of this incident, of Palestinians killing their children. He expressed amazement as to why the army has refrained from publishing them.

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/430200.html
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"When men obeyed the calls over the loudspeakers to turn themselves in to the IDF authorities (and to the intelligence people who wanted to question them), they were confronted by members of the terror organizations, who opened fire on them and killed two children."

I find that hard to believe.

Always trying to do the decent thing, even when it hurts them
in the Worlds eyes.