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Aaron Klein is a senior adviser to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Instead of outrageously criticizing Israel for targeting a terror complex disguised as an office building, it is Hamas that must be strongly condemned for its deliberate use of foreign journalists as human shields.
On Saturday, the Israeli Air Force rightfully struck an emptied 12-story tower in Gaza that was utilized by Hamas as a center for waging its latest murderous campaign on Israeli civilians. The terror tower was used as a Hamas operations base for gathering intelligence for attacks against Israelis, researching and developing weapons and positioning equipment to hamper IDF operations.
The jihad building was only targeted after the IDF first warned civilians inside about an impending strike and waited enough time for the occupants to entirely evacuate. Israeli warnings included calls and SMS to the building’s residents and “roof knocker” explosives that make loud noises but do not cause real damage.
The IDF watched as Hamas and the Iran-backed Islamic Jihad terror groups utilized the warning time to remove objects from the building, perhaps munitions to kill more Israelis.
Hamas provides no such warning when they daily commit the double war crimes of firing rockets indiscriminately into Israeli cities and launching those rockets from Palestinian civilian zones. As of this writing, Hamas fired over 2,900 rockets from Gaza into Israel, carried out border attacks and instigated violent riots across the Jewish state, killing ten Israelis including two children.
This week’s case is far from the first time Hamas used journalists as human shields. During the 2014 Gaza War, Hamas was caught red-handed launching rockets 50 yards from a Gaza hotel known to be housing foreign journalists. The same rocket launcher was positioned about 100 yards from a United Nations building flying the UN flag outside.
Following the 2014 Gaza conflict, former AP reporter Matti Friedman wrote that Hamas’s use of journalists as human shields was a routine practice. “The AP staff in Gaza City would witness a rocket launch right beside their office, endangering reporters and other civilians nearby—and the AP wouldn’t report it, not even in AP articles about Israeli claims that Hamas was launching rockets from residential areas.”
Hamas cannot be granted immunity from IDF strikes for their decision to embed their extensive terror apparatus in the same building as the Associated Press and Al-Jazeera. Yet the international condemnation wrongly aimed at Israel is providing Hamas with a victory.
Such misplaced condemnation only encourages Hamas to further endanger journalists and other civilians by strategically placing their murder machine inside civilian zones knowing that Israel will be criticized for defensive strikes against those sites.
Let’s be clear. The attacks against Israeli cities in recent days were entirely unprovoked and are being directed by Hamas for their own internal political ambitions. The latest violence is not about some real estate dispute in Jerusalem or tired and overhyped claims of fictional Israeli threats to the Al-Aqsa Mosque.
Hamas launched this latest terror war after Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas decided to unilaterally cancel next month’s parliamentary elections in which Hamas was slated to dominate and expand their rule into the West Bank.
Instead of letting Abbas’s Fatah party deny them power, Hamas is attempting to ignite the Palestinian street against Israel and position themselves as the saviors of the so-called Palestinian cause. In doing so, Hamas severely miscalculated and will fail miserably.
Israel must continue to deal the terror group a massive blow to protect its civilians and ensure deterrence so Hamas understands they will pay too heavy a price for rocketing the Jewish state again.
If the international community wants to be helpful and lower the flames of violence they should strongly back Israel’s right to defend itself. At the very least, they should stop fueling Hamas’s terrorism and its use of human shields by criticizing a democracy for protecting its own people from a terror group actively waging war on Israeli civilians from buildings housing foreign reporters.
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