Hamas Has A Trained and Armed Military of 7,500 Troops
In case you keep track of these things, elections in the Palestinian territories have really paid dividends. The result of a decade's worth of international pandering and Israeli concessions has really bought Israel some good will:
The Hamas organization in the Gaza Strip has assembled an armed and trained force of about 7,500 fighters. A senior military official emphasized that it was not just a large guerilla force, but an organized military force. This new Hamas army consists of several specialized units, including a short-range missile unit, a long-range missile unit, an anti-tank unit, and a sniper unit, among others. Intelligence sources estimated the army would reach operational capacity, and be capable of confronting the IDF as soon as the coming summer, if the flow of arms, military experts, and money into the Gaza Strip was not stopped... According to military sources, the strengthening of Hamas’ army was a calculated aspect of a long-term plan that began with the rise of the Hamas government, and did not cease for a single day since then. Even recent internal struggles and IDF operations did not hinder the moving forward of the plan. The manufacturing of short-term missiles took place in Gaza, and there was evidence of anti-tank missiles entering the Strip.
When Israel goes in and has to destroy this thing - which is essentially a professional army hiding in civilian areas, enjoying all of the benefits and meetings none of the obligations of legal warfare - the din of "atrocity" and "massacre" from the international community will be deafening. And forgotten in everything will be the very basic, apparently-too-unsophisticated fact that the Palestinian people elected these people to represent them and armed them to fight a war. Because Israel will eventually have to go in and destroy this army - the Palestinians aren't going to settle for launching rockets at Israeli civilians every few days forever, ya know.
But that's probably not important. What is important is that this is all Israel's fault - if only Israel would have offered the Palestinians their own state, none of this would have happened. Oh wait...
The Hamas organization in the Gaza Strip has assembled an armed and trained force of about 7,500 fighters. A senior military official emphasized that it was not just a large guerilla force, but an organized military force. This new Hamas army consists of several specialized units, including a short-range missile unit, a long-range missile unit, an anti-tank unit, and a sniper unit, among others. Intelligence sources estimated the army would reach operational capacity, and be capable of confronting the IDF as soon as the coming summer, if the flow of arms, military experts, and money into the Gaza Strip was not stopped... According to military sources, the strengthening of Hamas’ army was a calculated aspect of a long-term plan that began with the rise of the Hamas government, and did not cease for a single day since then. Even recent internal struggles and IDF operations did not hinder the moving forward of the plan. The manufacturing of short-term missiles took place in Gaza, and there was evidence of anti-tank missiles entering the Strip.
When Israel goes in and has to destroy this thing - which is essentially a professional army hiding in civilian areas, enjoying all of the benefits and meetings none of the obligations of legal warfare - the din of "atrocity" and "massacre" from the international community will be deafening. And forgotten in everything will be the very basic, apparently-too-unsophisticated fact that the Palestinian people elected these people to represent them and armed them to fight a war. Because Israel will eventually have to go in and destroy this army - the Palestinians aren't going to settle for launching rockets at Israeli civilians every few days forever, ya know.
But that's probably not important. What is important is that this is all Israel's fault - if only Israel would have offered the Palestinians their own state, none of this would have happened. Oh wait...
