Hamas operatives are hiding in hospitals and operating rocket launchers in densely-populated civilian areas.
Diskin also noted that large numbers of Hamas operatives are hiding in hospitals and that some are posing as medical staff. “Some are also hiding in mosques and some of those have been turned into headquarters, since they assumed Israel won’t attack them there. Their weapons’ labs have been completely destroyed and their tunnel system has been severely damaged.
“Hamas is trying to rebuild some of the tunnels in order to smuggle operative into Egypt.”
That would explain why the tunnels were hit so hard again last night.
The IAF reported Tuesday of several sightings of cells operating in densely populated areas and attempting to use Palestinian civilians as human shields.
Cells have been detected in neighborhoods in Gaza City, Jabalya, Khan Younis and Rafah.
Meantime, UNRWA is claiming that civilian casualties are a quarter of the death toll.
“A minimum of 25% of all those killed are civilians and it may well be far higher,” UNRWA spokesman Christopher Gunness told AFP.
Since the start of the Israeli offensive on Saturday at least 390 Palestinians have been killed and another 1,900 wounded, according to Gaza medics. At least 42 of those killed have been children, they say.
I should like to point out that UNRWA calls 17-year-olds “children,” even if those are 17-year-old young men who were killed fighting with Hamas. They are considered “civilian” casualties because of their age. I should also like to point out that the head of the UNRWA, Karen Abu-Zayd, was caught yesterday in a series of outright lies. She lied about Israel violating a 48 hour truce that apparently only UNRWA knew about. She lied when she said that Hamas fired “only one” rocket on December 26. So why should we believe UNRWA when they say the civilian casualty count is this high?
And lastly—even if UNRWA is correct, and the civilian casualty count stands at 25%, let’s look at the Israeli casualty count, shall we? Four deaths, three of which were civilians. The Hamas civilian death toll is 75%. The fact that fewer Israelis were killed is irrelevant. We are going by percentages of civilians killed. Why no cries of outrage from UNRWA about Israeli civilian casualties?
Yes, that was a rhetorical question.
What time is it, folks? That’s right. It’s Israeli Double Standard Time.