Reply #29: Does history of the territory of no importance? [View All]

[Idealism]

Like I noted, there was a huge legal vacuum in Gaza before the latter part of 2006, early 2007. Crimes just went unpunished. Different groups tried to continue their ways after that, and many were arrested. In one instance, a BBC correspondent was kidnapped by an extremist organization (the Army of Islam). The Hamas police then arrested the Army of Islam's spokesperson that later led to freeing the journalist. Obviously not all crimes get punished, but what would have been an acceptable incarceration rate for Israel, given the problems in Gaza and the history of lawlessness? According to http://www.terrorism-info.org.il/malam_multimedia/English/eng_n/pdf/ipc_e007.pdf">Israeli intelligence reports from July to October (before the ticking tunnel raid) there were 11 rockets and 15 mortars fired from Gaza, with some landing in Gaza. According to Wiki entries (almost all data given by the Israeli government), only one rocket attack was proclaimed as Islamic Jihad's work:

June 24, 2008
Three Qassam rockets fired from Gaza on Tuesday struck the Israeli border town of Sderot and its environs, causing no serious injuries but constituting the first serious breach of a five-day-old truce between Israel and Hamas.<59>
Islamic Jihad claimed responsibility for the attack and said it had been a response to an Israeli military raid in the West Bank city of Nablus at dawn on Tuesday, in which a senior Islamic Jihad operative Tareq Abu Ghali, 24 and another Palestinian university student Iyad Khanfar, 21 were killed. An Israeli Army spokesman said that Abu Ghali had been involved in terrorism and that he was "killed in an exchange of fire." The man killed with him was armed, the spokesman said.

It seems to me by not claiming more attacks as from Islamic Jihad or other extremist groups, they may have been afraid of the repercussions from Hamas, after seeing the Al-Aqsa Brigades being jailed more often then not after admitting their hands in attacks.