The Meir Amit Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center has released their findings of people killed in Operation Pillar of Defense in Gaza (Hebrew only). They found that, as usual, far more terrorists were killed than had been reported via the Gaza Health Ministry and the Palestinian Center for Human Rights.
Among their findings:
The best estimate they can make is that 178 people were killed during the fighting and afterwards from injuries. They identified 169 of them.
Of the 168, 101 of them were known “activists” and 68 were civilians.
They list every terrorist and their affiliation.
They also find that that the Gaza Health Ministry inflated the numbers of those killed, including some who died a natural death in Gaza at the time.
Of the 101 identified terrorists, 71 were Hamas, 17 Islamic Jihad, 6 from the PRC, 3 from Fatah, 2 from the Army of Islam, one from the PFLP, and one from a Salafi group.
25 of the terrorists killed moonlighted at other jobs. Five were journalists, two were clerics.
The ITIC charges that Hamas and Islamic Jihad deliberately do not release the names of all of their members killed, in order to improve morale and to make it appear that more civilians were killed.
The report includes photos of 73 of the terrorists killed.
The report concludes that it is clear that Israel did not target civilians. Indeed, the ratio of terrorists to civilians killed is unprecedented in military operations in an urban environment.
By the way, Hamas is still slowly releasing the obituaries of those killed; here’s one from today. Remember, HRW used the absence of names being listed on the official Hamas site as evidence that they were not members of Hamas, not realizing that Hamas leaks out the information over months.
His family, neighbours and friends believe the notion that he spied for Israel is absurd – and there is much that supports their view, not least that as a prisoner Badawi was under armed guard during last week’s conflict.
Badawi was a member of the Islamist group Jaljalat – Thunder – which takes its inspiration from Al Qaeda and is more hardline than Hamas.
He had been in prison since 2009 when he was arrested on terrorism charges. It was alleged he was one of several fighters planning to launch attacks on Hamas.
Badawi’s family claim that while in prison, he was tortured until he confessed to being a traitor.
‘Ribhi was a proud Palestinian. He loved his country with a rare passion and he was more opposed to Israeli occupation than Hamas is,’ said his widow Kholoud.
‘To see the body of my dear husband dragged through the streets like an animal is truly terrible. The men who did this were wild.’
To celebrate the anniversary of the founding of Islamic Jihad, the terror group introduced a new “battalion” and paraded through the streets of Gaza City.
Keep in mind that Hamas, the ruling authority in Gaza, fully approves of Islamic Jihad parading through Gaza City with weapons.
Those Hamas apologists in the West who claim that the group is abandoning terror don’t usually talk about how Hamas is deliberately allowing other terror groups to flourish - and, when they want, to attack Israeli civilians. This is how Hamas maintains their barely-plausible deniability while still encouraging the smuggling of tons of weapons and explosives to these groups.
This past October, Hamas engineered a forcible takeover of the Gaza headquarters of the Palestinian Journalists’ Syndicate. And in March, Hamas “security forces” physically attacked three journalists while they were covering a Gaza City event, assaulting and beating them. [See this Palpress report in Arabic.] The names and professional affiliations of the victims might lead you to expect some kind of media outcry: Muhammad Masharawi, a reporter for SKY News (who suffered the additional indignity of being abducted by the Hamas thugs immediately afterwards); Adnan al-Barsh who reports for the BBC; and a journalist by the name of Amer Abu Omar.
As far as we can tell (and we’re open to being corrected) neither SKY nor BBC gave any coverage at all to what was done to their people. Sadly, there’s a long tradition of foreign news media hushing up the intimidation their field people experience in the dark corners of the Arab world.
Palestinians freed by Israel in a trade for soldier Gilad Shalit took their morning exercise on Wednesday around a luxury swimming pool overlooking the Mediterranean, instead of circling the prison yard as they have done for long years inside. There was none of the usual breakfast-room free-for-all at Gaza’s 4-star Al-Mashtal beach front hotel. The 105 special guests, looking a little uncertain, lined up to shuffle around the breakfast bar one by one, canteen-style. “The first day of freedom feels like being reborn,” said Salem Thwaib, a 30-year-old from Bethlehem who did 10 years of his life term in an Israel jail for helping a Hamas suicide bomber whose vest failed to explode. Israel released 477 Palestinian prisoners including 27 women in the first part of a swap of 1,027 for Shalit. A quarter went to the West Bank, 41 went into exile in foreign countries and the rest were brought to Gaza from Egypt, which mediated in years of exchange negotiations. Thwaib was among 165 from the West Bank who were sent to Gaza under the terms of the deal. The blockaded Gaza Strip is divided from the West Bank by a swathe of Israeli territory.
Did you bring your swimsuit? Luxury pool (Photo: Reuters)
Freed prisoner examines hotel bed (Photo: Reuters)
Ismail Haniyeh, head of the Hamas administration in the coastal enclave, authorized a grant of $588,000 for 294 freed prisoners in Gaza.
