Hamas Sends Out Women and Children to Protect its ‘Fighters’
Hamas’ human shields – and the world’s deafening silence.
By Hugh Fitzgerald
Hamas knows that the IDF tries to protect Palestinian civilians as best it can. Exploiting Israel’s “purity of arms,” and its fundamental decency, Hamas sent out one hundred women and children to block IDF soldiers from continuing to attack fighters in a key Hamas compound inside the Jabaliya camp. Hamas knows these civilians’ appearance will at least slow down the Israeli advance, and may even cause the IDF to call off the assault altogether, until the women and children can be rounded up and moved to a safer space. More on this latest example, among so many, of how Hamas uses its civilians — and especially its women and children — as human shields, can be found here: “Israel accuses Hamas of using over 100 women and children as human shields in Gaza,” Times of Israel, November 2, 2023:
Hamas sent a large group of women and children to act as human shields against Israel Defense Forces troops who were attacking a key compound of the terror group in the Gaza Strip, according to soldiers.
Two IDF soldiers were killed in the Tuesday assault on Hamas’s Central Jabaliya Battalion compound, located in the Jabaliya refugee camp inside Gaza. Israel is battling to destroy Hamas and end its rule over the Strip after the group’s devastating terror attack earlier this month that killed over 1,400 people in Israel, mostly civilians.
According to a report Thursday by the Ynet news site, Hamas sent a group of 100 women and children to act as human shields to protect the compound.
“We are prepared for more incidents of such cynical and blatant use of the population,” said an unnamed IDF officer who apparently witnessed the incident.
The report did not say how troops dealt with the situation, but the compound was captured by the IDF.
The army said the large amount of intelligence material seized from the base is already aiding in other Gaza battles, according to the report.
An initial investigation found that IDF Sgt. Roei Wolf and Staff Sgt. Lavi Lipshitz, both 20, were killed as forces were withdrawing from the compound. Palestinians fired an anti-tank missile that hit a wall of the building, killing the soldiers and injuring others. The remaining soldiers returned fire while an evacuation operation was carried out….
The IDF report is silent on the matter, but could it be that the IDF forces that withdrew perhaps been doing so to avoid having harm come to the women and children whom the Hamas “fighters” were using as protection — and that contributed to the deaths of those two soldiers?
Among the demonstrations in support of Hamas now taking place in too many places all over the Western world, are there any that will protest in the slightest against Hamas’ cowardice and cynicism, in sending out women and children to protect their “fighters”? Hamas knows that the IDF soldiers, far from being what those demonstrators have claimed about them, have a history of calling off assaults if too many civilians may get hurt. That is what the IDF may have done in the latest instance — stopping, albeit temporarily, their attack on the Hamas compound inside the Jabaliya camp, which of course put their own soldiers at much greater risk. No, of course not. Anything that damages Hamas’ image helps Israel, and we can’t have that.