Did Hamas “continually disregard” the ceasefire? Is the delivery of humanitarian aid to Gaza important to Israel?
In their article entitled, “Israel’s Defensive Mission”, Rachel Goldstein and Daniel Newmann make a compelling case for the justice of Israel’s continued military action in Gaza. Unfortunately, their arguments are based on worn out claims that lack factual backing.
Goldstein and Newmann make the claim that Hamas “continually disregarded” the six month ceasefire between Hamas and Israel that began June 19th, 2009. In reality, between June 19th, the date when the ceasefire began, and November 4th when the Israeli Defense Forces carried out bombings against suspected smuggling tunnels, there was not a single rocket fired from the Gaza Strip into Israel. The Israeli military attacked these suspected smuggling tunnels not in response to actions by Hamas but rather as a preemptive measure against tunnels that they claimed were to be used to kidnap an Israeli soldiers. In response, Hamas fired rockets into Israel and the ceasefire was effectively broken at that point. It’s important to note that even official Israeli military sources claim that the November 4th Israeli attacks on Gaza were preemptive measures and were not carried out in response to any type of attack made by Hamas. In light of this evidence, to say that Hamas “continually disregarded” this ceasefire is unequivocally incorrect. The international media has made this claim since November and even CNN has now dealt with the topic of which side actually broke the ceasefire.
My second point of contention is Goldstein and Neumann’s claim that “the delivery of humanitarian relief to the affected civilians in Gaza remains an important issue to Israel”. If this is so important, then why has Israel systematically denied the entry of food, medicine, water, and fuel since Hamas took control of the Gaza Strip? It is estimated that Gaza needs 700 truckloads of food a day to meet the needs of its 1.5 million inhabitants. Since 2006, with some minor exceptions, Israel has enforced a total blockade on Gaza. That means that only a very small percentage of the needed aid has entered Gaza in the last two years. The primary purpose of the tunnels between Egypt and Gaza isn’t for importing weapons, their primary purpose is for importing food! When a population of 1.5 million people is forced to dig tunnels in order to feed themselves, that is an indication that something is very wrong. If the delivery of humanitarian relief to Gaza is so important to Israel, then how is it possible that two U.N. drivers could be killed by the IDF despite the fact that they were driving UN vehicles and coordinating with the Israeli military? Goldstein and Neumann claim that Hamas is failing to distribute the food aid effectively. That would be a valid argument if any more than a token amount food aid was getting into Gaza. Even a cursory reading of the latest news reveals that this is certainly not the case.