It is a clear and known fact that Hamas deliberately uses the strategy of human…
The tragedy at the school in Jebaliya
On 6 January 2009, some 40 Palestinians were killed in a heartrending tragedy at a school in Jebaliya. Israeli mortar shells exploded near the U.N. school in Gaza that was sheltering hundreds of people displaced by Israel’s attacks against Hamas militants.
Innocent civilians should not have died. However, it is vitally important to understand how this horrific incident occurred and who truly bears the responsibility for it.
According to a communiqué of the IDF, an initial inquiry by forces on operating in the area of the incident indicates that a number of mortar shells were fired at IDF forces from within the Jabalya school. In response to the incoming enemy fire, the forces returned mortar fire to the source.
According to Associated Press Writers Ibrahim Barzak and Steve Weizman, the IDF report that two Hamas militants — Imad Abu Askar and Hasan Abu Askar — were among the dead in the school bombing incident, was confirmed by local Gazan residents, who said that a group of militants fired mortars from a street near the school, then fled into a crowd of people in the streets. Israel then opened fire. The residents, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they feared for their safety, said the Abu Askar brothers were known low-level Hamas militants.
This is not the first time that Hamas has fired mortars and rockets from schools in such a way, deliberately using civilians as human shields in their acts of terror against Israel. This was already proven several months ago by footage from an unmanned plane showing rockets and mortars being fired from the yard of the same UNRWA school.
On that occasion the UN secretary general ordered an investigation into the incident in which Palestinian militants fired mortars at Israel from the UN-run school in Gaza. Ban Ki-moon condemned the abuse of UN facilities and described it a “serious violation of the UN’s privileges and immunities” (BBC News, 9 November 2007).
The human shield strategy
It is a clear and known fact that Hamas deliberately uses the strategy of human shields in its operational terrorist and guerrilla activities. I have stressed this in my article concerning the targeting of the high level Hamas leader Nizar Rayyan, who according to the Hamas website “took the initiative, two years ago, to protect homes against Israeli occupation air strikes by forming human shields.” His family was warned before the attack but did not leave the building and was killed alongside Rayyan.
Please see a comprehensive paper on the “human shield” strategy at the bellow link (open also the pdf file at the end of the document):
Another explicit example of this tactic is the Hamas video which shows Hamas militants firing mortar shells yesterday from the middle of a street in the Gaza city. The cell is formed by people dressed as civilians, flying the area of the incident after the firing of a bunch of mortars. See the video at (the title is wrong)::
I would like to add another aspect in the dispute about the humanitarian tragedies in the Middle East which I stressed in a previous paper: the double standard in responding to such incidents when Israel is seen as responsible and in cases when Arabs or Muslims kill innocent Muslims. I will present only one example:
The Nahr Al-Bared Palestinian refugee camp tragedy
In the second half of May 2007, fighting broke around the Palestinian refugee camp of Nahr Al-Bared, in the north of Lebanon. Lebanese troops began shelling the camp, near the northern city of Tripoli, after it pledged to “finish off” the radical Fatah Al-Islam group entranced in the camp. Militants from Fatah Al-Islam responded with gun and mortar fire. See some of the first reports at:
The Lebanese army artillery and air force bombed the camp for consecutive three months until they expelled the 200 Fatah al-Islam militants. The expressions of outside support and the outcry of the Palestinian residents and the PLO did not impress anyone in the Arab world. You can vision the results of the complete destruction of the camp, where some 30,000 displaced Palestinians lived. It speaks for itself. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9kwir6FUHr4&feature=related
* Dr. Karmon is Senior Research Scholar at the International Institute for Counter-Terrorism (ICT) at The Interdisciplinary Center (IDC) in Herzlyia, Israel
Senior Research Scholar, International Institute for Counter-Terrorism (ICT), Interdisciplinary Center (IDC), Herzliya, Israel Dr. Ely Karmon is a Senior Research Scholar at The International Institute for Counter-Terrorism (ICT) and Senior Research Fellow at the Institute for Policy and Strategy at The Interdisciplinary Center (IDC) in Herzliya, Israel. He lectures on International Terrorism and CBRN terrorism at the M.A. Counterterrorism Studies at IDC. He holds a B.A. in English and French Culture from the Hebrew University in Jerusalem (1964), a Licence in International Relations from the Institut d’Etudes Politiques and a Licence in Bantu languages from the Ecole de Langues Orientales, in Paris (1969). He earned his M.A. and Ph.D. in Political Science from Haifa University (1996). Associate Fellow, International Centre for the Study of Radicalisation and Political Violence (ICSR), London. Member of the International Permanent Observatory (IPO) on Security Measures during Majors Events at the United Nations Interregional Crime and Justice Research Institute (UNICRI), Turin, Italy. In this framework he participated in UN seminars preparing security at Athens Olympics (2004), Turin Winter Olympics (2006) and Beijing 2008 Olympics. Dr. Karmon briefed Shanghai authorities on security and threat assessment for the Expo 2010 event. Member of the General Assembly of the International Institute for Security and Cooperation, Sofia, Bulgaria. International Expert to the Civil Military Disaster Medicine Committee of the International Disaster Medicine Association (IDMA), Naples, Italy. Member of the Editorial Board of Revista Universitas/Relaçoes Internacionais, journal of the Centro Universitário de Brasília – UniCEUB. Dr. Karmon is member of the Atlantic Forum of Israel and is involved in NATO workshops on terrorism and on the Mediterranean Dialogue. Visiting fellow (2002) at The Washington Institute for Near East Policy, which published his policy memorandum Fight on All Fronts? Hizballah, the War on Terror, and the War in Iraq (December 2003). Has been Fellow at the Proteus Management Group (PMG), a think tank focusing on future scenarios at the Center for Strategic Leadership, U.S. Army War College, Carlisle, PA. Served as advisor to the Israeli Ministry of Defense and the Anti-Semitism Monitoring Forum of the Israeli Government Secretariat. His fields of research include political violence, international terrorism, CBRN terrorism, and the strategic influence of terrorism and subversion in the Middle East and worldwide. Has written extensively on international terrorism and strategic issues of the Middle East and has participated in numerous international conferences. His book Coalitions between Terrorist Organizations: Revolutionaries, Nationalists, and Islamists was published in May 2005 by Brill Academic Publishers (Leiden and Boston). The Center for Strategic Leadership, U.S. Army War College, published his monograph, ‘Iran–Syria-Hizballah–Hamas: A Coalition against Nature. Why does it Work?’ (May 2008). Dr. Karmon is a frequent commentator on Middle Eastern issues in the Israeli media (Haaretz, Jerusalem Post, Times of Israel, Israeli TV channels, Kol Israel, i24News TV), for the Spanish daily El Imparcial and numerous media outlets worldwide.
