Four more “civilians” killed by IDF

Three more terrorist-slash-“civilians” were killed by the IDF today, as well as a boy who got caught in the crossfire when the IDF tried to arrest a relative of his and were fired on.

Four Palestinians were killed Friday by Israeli forces after gunmen opened fire at troops operating in the West Bank and outside Gaza. Among those killed is an 11-year-old boy, a relative of a wanted Islamic Jihad member who was apparently caught in the crossfire.

In the village of Seida northeast of Tulkarm a special joint IDF, Border Police and Shin-Bet force conducting an arrest operation came under fire from Palestinian gunmen as they approached the home of a wanted man and a gunbattle ensued.

[…] Also Friday evening an IDF force patrolling the security fence between Israel and the Gaza Strip came under fire from two armed Palestinians, just north of the Karni crossing.

The troops then crossed some 330 feet into Gaza and killed the gunmen after a short exchange of fire. No IDF casualties were reported. The soldiers recovered AK-47 assault rifles from the gunmen’s bodies.

Officials within the Gaza battalion said the gunmen had apparently been waiting for an IDF patrol to pass by in order to attack it.

So far, AP has not picked up the story. They appear to be too busy talking about the Fatah/Hamas “protest” clashes.

Hamas security agents clashed with supporters of the rival Fatah movement Friday, firing into the air and beating journalists covering a demonstration against the Islamic militant group’s rule in the Gaza Strip.

It was the second time in recent weeks that Hamas has scuffled with Fatah protesters, a signal of possible cracks in the Islamic group’s two-month-old takeover of Gaza. Harassment of journalists and political opponents has grown increasingly common in the coastal strip.

By the way, the anarchy that’s been subdued, and the freedoms that Ismail Haniyeh and his stooges keep writing about in American op-ed pages? Not so much.

When several Hamas security men roughed up a Reuters TV cameraman and tried to confiscate his camera, protesters surrounded the Hamas men, beat them to the ground and prevented the journalist’s arrest.

The Hamas men also detained a photographer for Agence France-Presse and a cameraman for the Russian TV channel Russia Today, along with two other reporters working for local news outlets. They also broke a TV camera belonging to the Arabic-language TV network al-Arabiya.

All four detained journalists were quickly released and got their equipment back, Hamas officials and witnesses said. Later, journalists staged a protest against the crackdown.

Khaled Bolbol, one of the local reporters detained, said he was abused and ordered to speak to Hamas’ al-Aqsa television station.

But I don’t understand—the Christian Science Monitor keeps running articles that prove Hamas is moderating.

Though many observers argue that Hamas’s political agenda dictates different behavior from its days as underground opposition to the Palestinian Authority (PA), Israel’s army continues to see Hamas as a group driven by an extremist agenda. Still, a military spokesperson acknowledged that Hamas has recently resisted the kind of sustained barrages on Israeli cities that provoked escalations in the past.

“It’s a matter of interests. The interest of Hamas now is to show the world stability inside Gaza. But the stability is only visible on the outside,” says Maj. Avital Leibovich. “Take Gaza as a metaphor for something that is [being] wrapped up. When you take off the wrapping, you see something different.”

Oh, it’s the wrapping. It’s coming off. All will be revealed, certainly the moment Hamas’ Iranian masters tell them to let loose.