What do they expect?

Day 7.  It’s started. The hand wringing from those saying Israel is being excessive, that Israel needs to be proportionate in their response, cutting off power to Gaza is a step too far and all the civilian losses in Gaza are down to Israel and need to stop.

What do these people expect? That Israel should drop a line to the Hamas leaders in Qatar and ask them to apologise and for all the Hamas terrorists to leave Gaza or just give themselves up.  Or as Douglas Murray put it, go into Gaza and murder exactly the same number of people that the terrorists murdered last Saturday, rape the same number of women and kill and dismember the same number of babies.

The IDF has a policy when it comes to destroying targets in Gaza.  They routinely drop leaflets or more recently send text messages to the Palestinian people on the ground that there is going to be an air strike and they should leave the area.  If they don’t, then it can only be because Hamas will not let them.  For them the more dead Palestinians the better, and a real bonus for them is when children are killed.

All this whilst about 150 people have been kidnapped by Hamas terrorists and are being held as a bargaining tool or just a means of taunting their families.  Those wringing their hands should be concentrating on this particular war crime not criticising Israel for protecting its population.

The latest criticism is the request from the IDF that those civilians in the north of Gaza should move south is somehow unrealistic.

Pause for a moment and think about this.  Israel has already warned Gazans in advance about air strikes and now they have revealed its plan to the world.  In what other combat scenario does this take place?  It doesn’t.

Surprise is very often a key contributor to victory and Israel gives that away time and time again.  So when civilians are killed in Gaza, the outside world needs to look further than just the statistics gleefully put out by Hamas.  Pause again.  Hamas are known to lie frequently about casualties, often including terrorists in civilian figures and so inflating the numbers in that way before adding in a couple of hundred for good measure.

The net result of the warning in relation to the advice to leave the north of Gaza is that IDF soldiers are put at greater risk.  There is a greater likelihood of deadly booby traps as well the prospect that the terrorists will melt away with the civilian population.  This though is how the IDF conducts itself so that Israel and the diaspora can be satisfied that as much effort as possible has been done to minimise civilian casualties.

Back though to the beginning.  What do politicians and journalists expect Israel to do?  Scotland’s first minister has said Israel is “going too far” and that innocent civilians in Gaza can not simply be “collateral damage”.  According to a report on the BBC website he said there needed to be a ceasefire and a humanitarian corridor to allow supplies and to allow people out.  The ceasefire idea sounds good when said quickly but time after time we have seen Hamas use that time to re-arm and re-group so they can continue fighting when the ceasefire ends.

Finally back to the nonsense concerning power and water being shut off by Israel.  Why should that matter?  It matters because for all the money poured into Gaza hardly any of it has been spent on any infrastructure.  In the 16 years since 2007 when Hamas came to power they have preferred to spend money on hate instead of power and desalination plants.  Talk of going too far should instead be concentrated on Hamas.  Their evil attack last Saturday, in so many ways reminiscent of the Nazi attacks against the Jews has left Israel with no choice.

For years I have been saying that Hamas just wants to kill Jews and tragically I have been proved right.  With so many lives wickedly taken Israel has no choice but to try at least to wipe out Hamas and rescue the hostages cynically taken.  The people of Israel deserve no less.