Amnesty Presents the "Hamas Report" as Theirs!!

Amnesty's report on this summer's conflict between Israel and the Hamas terror group accuses Israel of wrongdoing while producing no evidence. It is a report which could easily be interpreted as a plagiarized Hamas report

The report ignores documented war crimes perpetrated by Hamas, including the use of human shields, as well as ammunition storage and firing at Israeli civilian population centers from within schools, hospitals, mosques and civilian neighborhoods in Gaza.

The report does not mention the word terror in relation to Hamas or other armed Palestinian groups, nor mentions tunnels built by Hamas to infiltrate Israel and perpetrate terror attacks. By ignoring the nature of the enemy Israel faced in Gaza - a terror group recognized as such by the European Union, the United States and others - Amnesty's report fails to contribute to the important discussion needed to solve the conflict. Instead, Amnesty serves as a propaganda tool for Hamas and other terror groups.

In Israel, investigations are currently underway by several bodies, inside and outside the Israel Defense Forces, into over 90 incidents. Two criminal investigations are underway. These measures are dismissed by Amnesty as insufficient yet in comparison to Israel's rigorous procedures Amnesty's own methodology raises questions: The report was not written by Amnesty staff but by local contractors not mentioned by name and referred to only as "field workers". Their own credibility in producing the testimonies detailed in the report is never questioned; independent verification of their claims apparently not deemed necessary.

The extreme bias of the report is best displayed in its recommendations: Hamas is not mentioned, as if the group has no responsibility for the bloodshed; meanwhile, the report dismisses Israel's security challenges. Amnesty should understand that producing a narrow, decontextualized report restricts its capability to advance positive change. 

Israel`s Contribution to Palestinian Healthcare in 2013.

(With thanks to Charles Abelson of TbT – Truth be Told)

Quick Overview:

Since 1967, when Israel captured the areas of Judea and Samaria, Palestinian infant mortality has been reduced from approximately 100/1,000 to 13.49/1,000. Gaza: 15.46. Life expectancy has risen by about 10 years.

1)  Life Expectancy

a)    Judea, Samaria 75.69 years

b)    Gaza 74.64

c)    Jordan 74.10 years

d)    Egypt 73.45 years.

e)    Turkey 73.29 years.

f)     Israel 82.1 years (higher than USA)

2) Mortality Rate

Palestinian Territory’s low rate of Infant mortality also belies any accusation of "genocide".

Infant mortality rate compares the number of deaths of infants under one year old in a given year per 1,000 live births in the same year, and is often used as an indicator of the level of health in a country

Both the West Bank and Gaza have a lower rate of infant mortality (13.49 and 15.46) than Egypt. (22.41 deaths per thousand births), Syria (15.79), Jordan (15.73) and Turkey (21.43).

In spite of all evidence to the contrary, the enemies of Israel and the enemies of truth continue to bandy about spurious accusations of "genocide".

Massacre? Genocide? “Do not care”? You decide.

2013 Judea, Samaria:

Health Permits: Israel permits the transfer of Palestinian patients for treatment in Israel whenever required due to inadequacies in the Palestinian health system. The number of medical permits issued were (previous years also stated):

2011:   197,713

2012:   210,469

2013:   225,410

Due diligence: for each patient, one permit was issued for a family member accompanying the patient. Thus for 2013 there were about 110,000 patients (over 400 each weekday) and about 120,000 permits for family members.  

Massacre? Genocide? “Do not care”? You decide.

Emergency transfers:

In emergency situations the rapid transfer of patients in dire need of advanced medical treatment to be examined in Israeli hospitals is permitted.

In 2013 the number of emergency medical evacuations rose, with Israel providing 2,207 evacuations by ambulance (up from 600 in 2012) and 11 medical evacuations by helicopter (up from 10 in 2012).

Israel also arranged for the overseas treatment of five Palestinians whose medical needs were unable to be met in Israel.

Massacre? Genocide? “Do not care”? You decide.

Children:

The number of Palestinian children from the West Bank who received medical treatment in Israel in 2013 stood at 40,000, an increase from the previous year's 21,270.

Israel was responsible for the coordination and funding of 10 "fun days" for 250 Palestinian children, who were also joined by members of their families.

Israel spent more than a million NIS to provide various treatments for dozens of Palestinian children hailing from families unable to afford the necessary medical bills (probably unable to afford Palestinian health insurance payments).

Massacre? Genocide? “Do not care”? You decide.

He who saves a life saves the world. The story of one Palestinian child, Yakub Bachziat, 16, Bethlehem

Yakub was born at Sharei Tzedek Hospital (Jerusalem) in Israel and was immediately diagnosed with acute kidney failure. His condition led to several other medical problems, and he had to undergo several treatments in the hospital. None of his family members were compatible donors, so the family, completely despondent, turned to Dalia Basa, the Israeli Health Coordinator with the Palestinian Health Authority for help. Three days after Dalia met with the child, a donor was found: a deceased Israeli child whose parents had agreed to donate his kidneys. Immediately, Yakub was transferred to Schneider Medical Center (Petach Tikva) for the life-saving transplant. The operation and medical expenses at Schneider were covered by Israel, at the cost of 200,030 NIS. Since the surgery Yakub has maintained perfect health.

Training

Israel promotes the development of the Palestinian health system through several different programs and training.

 In 2013, 2,314 Palestinian doctors, nurses, and other medical health care professionals attended 159 courses, conventions and programs that Israel hosted.

Israel provides a special program for training physicians, nurses and technicians at Israeli hospitals, for  the sake of operating hospitals in Judea and Samaria, and to improve the Palestinian health system.

Hadassah Ein Kerem Hospital (Jerusalem) trains 60 Palestinian interns who are replaced every year. Also, technicians and nurses from the Bet Jala Hospital (Palestinian Authority) are trained in cancer treatment, while a program operates out of Augusta Victoria Hospital regarding diagnostic medicine.

During May 2013, the Palestinian Minister of Health, Dr. Hanni Abadin, paid an unprecedented visit to Hadassah Ein Kerem Hospital in Jerusalem. Dr. Abadin thanked Hadassah for the opportunity to visit and for its services, visited Arab children hospitalized at Hadassah and gave them gifts.

Massacre? Genocide? “Do not care”? You decide.

2013 Gaza:

Health: Erez Crossing (People)

The Erez crossing is open between the hours of 08:00-16:00 Sunday through Thursday, and 08:00-14:00 on Fridays. However, it is staffed 24/7 in the event of emergency.

Medical Permits for Gaza Palestinians

In cases of dire need, Israel permits the entrance of patients in need of medical treatment in Israel. Medical Evacuations- High priority is given to the processing of medical requests. The services requested by those who received permits to enter Israel included hospitalizations, long-term treatment, and short-term emergency medical care. In 2012  there were 9946 cases

In 2013, 13,734 permits for healthcare in Israel were granted, of these - 4,519 were in need of specialized medical transport, which was provided for them.

Despite frequent claims that Israel turns away ambulances carrying people in desperate need of medical services, in 2013, out of the 1,189 ambulances which requested permits, 1,188 received them, and only one was refused.

Amongst the Gazan residents treated in Israel were the sister and granddaughter of Hamas`s leader, Ismail Haniyeh.

Health: Kerem Shalom (trucks)

In 2013, Israel coordinated the entrance of 2,311 truckloads of medical supplies, carrying thousands of tons of medical equipment into the Strip. Included in these shipments were large amounts of polio vaccines, as periodic tests turned up positive for poliovirus in the area. In order to ensure the health of residents in Gaza, Israel took special measures to ensure sufficient shipment of the needed vaccine.

Massacre? Genocide? “Do not care”? You decide.

How did Hamas make payment for these healthcare services? In 2013, a relatively quiet year, there were only 41 rocket attacks on southern Israel.

Gazans Speak Out: Hamas War Crimes

 Mudar Zahran September 19, 2014

Full report at http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/4706/gazan-hamas-war-crimes#

Mudar Zahran is a Palestinian writer and academic from Jordan, who resides in the UK.

"If Hamas does not like you for any reason all they have to do now is say you are a Mossad agent and kill you." — A., a Fatah member in Gaza.

"Hamas wanted us butchered so it could win the media war against Israel showing our dead children on TV and then get money from Qatar." — T., former Hamas Ministry officer.

"They would fire rockets and then run away quickly, leaving us to face Israeli bombs for what they did." — D., Gazan journalist.

"Hamas imposed a curfew: anyone walking out in the street was shot. That way people had to stay in their homes, even if they were about to get bombed. Hamas held the whole Gazan population as a human shield." — K., graduate student

"The Israeli army allows supplies to come in and Hamas steals them. It seems even the Israelis care for us more than Hamas." — E., first-aid volunteer.

"We are under Hamas occupation, and if you ask most of us, we would rather be under Israeli occupation… We miss the days when we were able to work inside Israel and make good money. We miss the security and calm Israel provided when it was here." — S., graduate of an American university, former Hamas sympathizer.

While the world's media has been blaming Israel for the death of Gazan civilians during Operation Protective Edge, this correspondent decided to speak with Gazans themselves to hear what they had to say.

They spoke of Hamas atrocities and war crimes implicating Hamas in the civilian deaths of its own people.

Although Gazans, fearful of Hamas's revenge against them, were afraid to speak to the media, friends in the West Bank offered introductions to relatives in Gaza. One, a renowned Gazan academic, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said that as soon as someone talked to a Western journalist, he was immediately questioned by Hamas and accused of "communicating with the Mossad". "Hamas makes sure that the average Gazan will not talk to Western journalists -- or actually any journalists at all," he said, continuing:

       "Hamas does not want the truth about Gaza to come out. Hamas 
        terrorizes and kills us just like Daesh [ISIS] terrorizes kills Iraqis. Hamas           is a  dictatorship that kills us. The Gazans you see praising Hamas on TV           are either Hamas members or too afraid to speak against Hamas. Few               foreign [Western] journalists were probably able to report what Gazans             think of Hamas."

Many more comments in the full report at  http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/4706/gazan-hamas-war-crimes#

Mahmoud Abbas’s Dangerous Grandstanding

Washington Post Editorial Board, September 29  

For full article go to   http://tinyurl.com/m5azgul  

  

THE GOOD news from the Middle East is that the truce between Israel and Hamas in the Gaza Strip has held for a month, and Hamas appears ready to make concessions to avoid a resumption of fighting. Last week the Islamist movement renewed its agreement with the secular Fatah party to turn over Gaza’s government and security control of its borders to the West Bank-based Palestinian Authority. Though it’s not clear that the accord will last, Hamas is emerging as the loser of the summer war. According to Israel, as much as 80 percent of Hamas’s military arsenal has been destroyed, and its poll ratings among Palestinians are sinking as it fails to deliver the gains it promised from the conflict.

Hamas’s diminution might seem to create new possibilities for agreement between Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Mr. Abbas, after all, denounced Hamas’s embrace of carnage and refused to support a simultaneous uprising in the West Bank. Yet Mr. Abbas delivered a bridge-burning speech to the U.N. General Assembly last week, mendaciously accusing Israel of “a new war of genocide” and declaring that a return to negotiations was “impossible.”

For several years Mr. Abbas has oscillated between half-hearted participation in peace talks and attempts to advance the Palestinian cause through unilateral action at the United Nations. The latter initiatives have no chance of substantive success and risk being self-defeating, as the Palestinians should have learned from Mr. Abbas’s last such gambit in 2012. Then their lobbyists were unable to win enough support for a U.N. Security Council resolution even to force a U.S. veto, and a compensatory symbolic measure in the General Assembly provoked Israel to impose painful financial sanctions.

Mr. Abbas nevertheless is trying the Security Council again, after refusing to respond to a U.S. framework for peace talks painstakingly developed by Secretary of State John F. Kerry. He proposes a resolution that would mandate the creation of a Palestinian state based on Israel’s 1967 borders in a set period of time; when it is voted down or vetoed by the United States, the Palestinians hint that they will seek a war crimes investigation of Israel by the International Criminal Court. That, in turn, would almost certainly prompt retaliatory sanctions by Mr. Netanyahu’s government and possibly by Congress, which supplies the Palestinian Authority with much of its funding.

Mr. Abbas has repeatedly rejected violence, and he has convinced a series of U.S. and Israeli negotiators that he has a realistic view of the terms for a Palestinian state. Yet he has now rejected platforms for a settlement on two occasions from two U.S. presidents. He persists in grandstanding gestures that he must know will only delay the serious negotiations that must precede the creation of a Palestinian state and that undermine those in Israel who support such talks. He has spoken for years of retiring but, at 79, he clings to his post four years after his elected term expired. Hamas has done the most harm to Palestinians and their cause in recent years. But Mr. Abbas has done little good.

Palestinians and the "Death Boats" Scandal

Khaled Abu Toameh  September 27, 2014  

Full article http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/4734/palestinians-and-the-death-boats-scandal

Summary

As the past few weeks have, shown, hundreds, if not thousands, of Palestinians would rather risk their lives at sea than live under Palestinian governments and leaders whose only goal is to enrich their bank accounts.

Instead of creating job opportunities for young men and women, Hamas and the Palestinian Authority have spent the past seven years fighting over money and power. They are now busy planning how to lay their hands on the millions of dollars that are supposed to go to the reconstruction of the Gaza Strip. Hamas wants to use the Palestinian Authority as a tool through which the international community channels funds to he Gaza Strip — a move that would  ultimately empower Hamas to tighten its grip over the Palestinian population there.

They said that Hamas officials are providing the emigrants with forged visas and travel documents to to enable them to enter Europe.

=======================

Over the past few weeks, dozens of Palestinian immigrants from the Gaza Strip have been killed or injured while trying to reach Europe by sea.

At least 500 Palestinians have gone missing after the boats carrying them sank in the sea. Some reports have suggested that rival gangs deliberately sunk the boats. The gangs are fighting for the cash the Palestinians are prepared to pay to leave the Gaza Strip. Palestinians refer to the situation as their "Death Boats" scandal.

The Palestinian immigrants are said to have paid thousands of dollars to Hamas officials and Egyptian smugglers to facilitate the exodus from the Gaza Strip. Palestinian Authority Foreign Minister Riad al-Malki claimed that each Palestinian paid $1,000 to Hamas personnel at the Rafah border crossing with Egypt. Others are believed to have paid $5,000 each to leave the Gaza Strip.

Malki said that preliminary investigations have revealed that the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip have fallen victim to Hamas and Egyptian gangsters who managed to lure them with false promises.

According to various reports, some 13,000 Palestinians have already fled the Gaza Strip to Europe with the help of the gangsters. Most left through Hamas's smuggling tunnels or by bribing its security officials at the Rafah terminal. Another 25,000 Palestinians from the Gaza Strip have applied to various European countries for immigration.

Although Hamas has denied any connection to the mass exodus, Palestinians in the Gaza Strip revealed that the Islamist movement had set up special offices to register those wishing to start a new life in Europe. They said that Hamas officials are providing the emigrants with forged visas and travel documents to enable them to enter Europe.

A Palestinian journalist in Gaza City said that at one of the mosques in the southern Gaza Strip, a leading Hamas preacher told worshippers: "Those who are not happy can always emigrate to Europe. We do not force anyone to stay here."

Most of the immigrants left the Gaza Strip through a two-kilometer tunnel belonging to a senior Hamas operative. Survivors told a Palestinian Authority Commission of Inquiry that when they reached the Egyptian side of the border, Egyptian gangsters intercepted them and robbed them of their money.

"Hamas gangsters worked in cooperation with gangsters on the Egyptian side of the border," said a senior Palestinian Authority official involved with the inquiry commission. "They operated like a real mafia, exploiting the predicament of the people, especially young men who were hoping to find jobs and better lives in Italy and other European countries."

Palestinians say that the emigration began long before the last military confrontation between Hamas and Israel. But the trend has witnessed a dramatic increase since the end of the fighting in late August.

"Hamas has failed to help the Palestinians ever since it came to power in 2007," said Ahmed Bader, whose son managed to leave the Gaza Strip through a tunnel one week after the end of the fighting. "There is nothing for the young people to do in the Gaza Strip: no jobs, no entertainment and no security. Young men who graduate from universities cannot find work if they are not members of Hamas."

Both Hamas and the Palestinian Authority bear responsibility for the tragedy of the Palestinian immigrants. The two rival parties have failed to improve the living conditions of their people in the Gaza Strip.  Instead of creating job opportunities for young men and women, Hamas and the Palestinian Authority have spent the past seven years fighting over money and power.

Hamas says that Palestinians are fleeing the Gaza Strip because their leader (Mahmoud Abbas) is a helpless 80-year-old man "who suffers from half the diseases of the universe." The Palestinian Authority, for its part, says that the Palestinians are fleeing the "hell of Hamas.". Hamas and the Palestinian Authority are trading allegations and abuses while their people are being exploited emotionally and financially, then robbed, drowned and fed to sharks.

Hamas and the Palestinian Authority are now busy planning how to lay their hands on the millions of dollars that are supposed to go to the reconstruction of the Gaza Strip.

At last week's "reconciliation" talks between the two sides in Cairo, they completely ignored the tragedy of the Palestinian immigrants. Once again, Hamas and Fatah officials exchanged kisses and hugs as they announced yet another agreement to implement a previous agreement. 

In fact, this is what Hamas and Fatah have been doing since 2006 – signing one reconciliation agreement after the other without tangible results. Needless to say, so far none of these agreements has been implemented. Skeptics say the most recent agreement between Hamas and Fatah is also likely to remain ink on paper due to the wide gap between the two parties.

Hamas appears to be willing to bring the Palestinian Authority back to the Gaza Strip not because it has changed its ideology. Rather, Hamas wants to use the Palestinian Authority as a tool through which the international community channels funds to the Gaza Strip – a move that would ultimately empower Hamas to tighten its grip over the Palestinian population there.

But many Palestinians in the Gaza Strip have obviously lost their confidence in both Abbas and Hamas. As the past few weeks have shown, hundreds, if not thousands, of Palestinians would rather risk their lives at sea than live under Palestinian governments and leaders whose only goal is to enrich their bank accounts.

Co-existence in the Children’s Ward

Debra Kamin September 11, 2014,

http://www.timesofisrael.com/co-existence-in-the-childrens-ward/

 

At Rambam Hospital in Haifa, kids from Israel, Gaza and the West Bank are studying together in between treatments

Hodaya is 8 years old and her favorite color is pink. She is small for her age, and over her tiny, pale face she wears a green paper surgical mask.

Hodaya would have loved to join the millions of Israeli students who went back to school on September 1, but she couldn’t. That’s because Hodaya is suffering from an aggressive form of bone cancer, and like dozens of other children at Haifa’s Rambam Hospital, she can’t leave the building.

Instead, Hodaya goes to school for a few hours a day inside of the hospital building. And while she doesn’t have the shiny new backpack, the gleaming locker or the pages upon pages of homework that other students in Israel have, she has something that none of them can even dream of: friends from Gaza and the West Bank, who are hospitalized alongside her and learning in the same classroom.

At Rambam, which is the largest medical center in the country’s north and one of Israel’s most renowned, pediatric education follows the same model as it does in hospitals across the country: the Education Ministry oversees curriculum and coursework, and sets mandates for the number of hours each day that hospitalized children must attend class.

But when you have 5-year-olds on dialysis and 11-year-olds undergoing chemotherapy, nothing, not even math homework, is normal. And at Rambam, where on average half of the beds in the pediatric wing are filled by children from Gaza and the West Bank, the banalities of reading, writing and arithmetic become even more surreal.

 

Dima Chamra, an Arab art therapist at Rambam, greets

17-year-old Sana Charoob, a patient from Jenin (left),

while Amtaz Manfor, a Druze teacher at Rambam, stands

behind 8-year-old patient Simdosh Chansan Jamal, also

from Jenin (right). (photo credit: Ofer Golan)

“We try to make them feel as normal as possible, even though it’s not a normal thing to be hospitalized,” says Ilana Levy, who manages all of the hospital education centers in Haifa, including that of Rambam. “We don’t care where you are from. We have Jews here, Christians, Arabs. We have children from Gaza. During the war, while there was fighting every day, we had children from Gaza sitting next to religious Jews in class. It doesn’t matter. We love all the children here and want to keep their lives as normal as possible.”

Classes at Israel’s hospitals ramped up on the first day of September, just as they did at schools around the country. Classrooms, which are divided by age group, all have an Arab-speaking teacher and a Hebrew-speaking teacher, and several have special assistants like art therapists or volunteers doing their national service. Classes generally run from 8:45 a.m. until 2 p.m., as they do in schoolhouses throughout Israel, but students come and go depending on their treatment schedules and how they are feeling each day.

“They come and they learn, and we really get attached to them,” says Lila Yahiach, one of the teachers in the oncology unit. Yahiach is Muslim, and she shares her classroom with Yehudit Levy, a religious Jew, as well as a Jewish national service volunteer named Hodaya Toledanu (no relation to the patient). Yahiach speaks in Arabic to the Arabic-speaking students, Levy speaks in Hebrew to the Jewish students — but both insist they feel the same connection, and the same responsibility, for everyone in their classroom.

Shilat Levy, a five-year-old patient at Rambam, is

Jewish and from Haifa. (photo credit: Ofer Golan)

Asked if she believes the students inside of Rambam can sometimes learn more about the outside world than their peers in Jewish-only or Muslim-only schools in the region, Yahiach immediately says yes. “Some of the students come here, and they speak only Arabic, but, it’s like anywhere – they make friends,” she says. “So they also want to learn Hebrew. And they start to, so they can talk with each other. They are kids. Of course they want to talk to each other.”

The ratio of Jewish to Muslim students is always in flux, although hospital officials say it generally sits at an even split. This week, as the school year opens, there are four students from Gaza, all of them hospitalized full-time. Some of them have been at the hospital for years, living there with their families while they undergo intensive treatment. There are 12 students from the Palestinian Authority, including five from Jenin. In the past the hospital also housed a number of Syrian children who were brought across the border for treatment. (The Gaza and PA kids’ treatments are paid for by the Palestinian Authority and they come to the hospital as medical tourists. The education costs are covered by the hospital and the Education Ministry, which stipulates that all kids in Israeli hospitals get schooling regardless of where they live.)

One of those students from the West Bank, Muhammad, is 12 years old. He shares a classroom with Hodaya in the surgery department, and while Hodaya practices writing the Hebrew alphabet with her Hebrew-speaking teacher, he sits alongside his instructor, a Druze teacher named Amtaz Manfor, and together they practice reading and writing English.

“English is the language of the world,” Muhammad, who also wears a mask to protect himself from contamination in the classroom, says. “So I like learning it. And my teacher likes speaking it.”

Manfor, who wears the traditional white veil of Druze women, hugs Muhammad and laughs. “I do like English,” she says. “And he is a good student.”
Also in the classroom are two girls from Gaza, who are gluing multi-colored sequins onto pieces of white paper with Dima Chamra, a Christian Arab who is a trained art therapist.

“It’s stressful here,” she says in English before giving a direction to the girls in Arabic. “The art is really helpful for them. It gives them an outlet. Some of them are here for a very long time.”

Dr. Rafael Beyar, Rambam’s director general, says that inside of a hospital, there is no place for politics.

 “This is really a way for us to show that coexistence can happen,” he says of the classrooms in the pediatric wing. “We have Jewish and Muslim kids, Arab kids, kids from Gaza, kids with cancer, kids with kidney diseases, kids that stay here for a very long time. The hospital becomes their home. And whn you live together and you also learn together.”

Rambam has recently undergone a series of massive renovations and reconstructions, including the unveiling of a cutting-edge hybrid parking garage/underground hospital facility that is fully fortified. The shimmering Ruth Rappaport Children’s Hospital, a cheerful, light-filled new pediatric building, had its soft opening this summer. The children interviewed for this story are still being housed in the old building, but Beyar says that once all the pediatric cases have been moved to the new unit, classes will be larger and offer more chances for children from across the region to learn alongside each other and even become friends.

“A life is a life,” Beyar says. “It doesn’t matter where the patient comes from or what his religion or opinions are. We are care for patients, we educate the children who live here at the hospital, and we stay out of political arguments.”

IDF’s Dogs in Gaza - Man's Best Friend

September 9, 2014 

http://tinyurl.com/q2c9l3h 

During Operation Protective Edge, the dogs of the IDF’s Oketz unit battled terrorists in Gaza.

Many of them were wounded in combat, but that didn’t stop them from continuing the fight.  

Only ten days after suffering a severe injury in Gaza, Whiskey – a dog in the IDF’s Oketz unit – returned to the battlefield. He wasn’t alone. During Operation Protective Edge, several of the IDF’s canines were wounded in clashes with Hamas terrorists. Like Whiskey, many of them continued fighting despite their wounds.

Oketz (Hebrew: ‘Sting’) is the IDF’s elite canine unit and the best of its kind in the world. The unit’s soldiers undergo intense training to lead infantry forces and special units into battle. They prepare year round to join IDF troops in all sorts of situations, from basic missions to the most complex operations.

“Our dogs are filled with motivation, and they rarely reveal that something is wrong with them,” explained Major A, one of the unit’s senior veterinarians. On the first day of the operation’s ground phase, a bullet entered Whiskey’s leg near a major artery. Despite his injury, he continued to carry out his mission alongside IDF soldiers.

More than two hours after Whiskey’s injury, his handler noticed that he was limping and needed urgent medical attention. IDF soldiers immediately evacuated him to a hospital in Israel, where veterinarians performed surgery and saved his life. Only ten days later, Whiskey returned to the battlefield. “He was determined to keep going,” Major A explained. “His wound was very dangerous, and he survived it almost by a miracle.”

A bond between warriors

Kimba, another of the unit’s canines, and her handler were wounded after terrorists fired a mortar in their direction. After suffering shrapnel wounds to the head and chest, Kimba underwent surgery in an Israeli veterinary hospital. Throughout her period of recovery, she received regular visits from her IDF handler, who insisted on coming to see her despite his own wounds.

The IDF honors its canines much like its soldiers. When four dogs were killed in Gaza, Oketz held a moving ceremony in their memory. Dozens of handlers came to pay their respects to the fallen canines – a sign of the strong bonds between the unit’s handlers and their dogs.

Oketz fighters do everything possible to save the lives of wounded dogs. “They’re like fighters on four legs, and we take the evacuation of an injured dog very seriously,” Maj. A said. “We decide how to evacuate each dog according to the severity and urgency of each injury, whether by car or helicopter. In Gaza, there were always veterinarians in the field who treated dogs when they were injured.”

“All of our wounded dogs suffered trauma,” explained Major Y, another senior veterinarian in the unit. “They were hit by shrapnel in places that would disable a human being, but all of them kept going. Many of them continued fighting because they insisted on hiding their wounds.”

Hamas: Give Us West Bank So We Can Destroy Israel

 Khaled Abu Toameh  September 7, 2014

http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/4676/hamas-west-bank

What Hamas and Iran are saying is that if and when Israel pulls back to the pre-1967 lines, they, together with other Palestinians, would bring weapons into the West Bank to achieve their goal of eliminating the "Zionist entity."

Abbas's initiative also ignores that Hamas could easily seize control of the West Bank through force or through the promised free and democratic elections, which recent polls show Hamas is assured of winning. Abbas is demanding something that would bring about his own demise.

If the West Bank had one quarter of the weapons that the Gaza Strip has, Israel would be eliminated in one day. This is what Hamas leader Mahmoud Zahar told worshippers during a sermon he delivered on September 5.

Zahar, who delivered his first sermon since the Egypt-brokered cease-fire between Hamas and Israel was announced in late August: he chose to remind Palestinians and the rest of the world of his movement's dream to destroy Israel.

"If only the West Bank had one quarter of what Gaza has of resistance tools, the Israeli entity would end in one day," Zahar declared, reiterating the claim that Hamas had scored a "big victory" in the war.

The Hamas leader went on to criticize those who still have doubts as to whether Israel could be destroyed.

"Those who were skeptical as to whether Palestine could be liberated are no longer doubtful after the enemy was hit from the Gaza Strip," Zahar said. "Can you imagine what would happen if the enemy is targeted from the West Bank, which makes up 20% of the size of Palestine?"

Zahar's wish to see the West Bank flooded with rockets and mortars and other "tools of resistance" was echoed by other Hamas and Islamic Jihad leaders and spokesmen after the recent war in the Gaza Strip.

Zahar himself was quoted recently as saying that Hamas's goal now was to "move the Gaza example of resistance" to the West Bank.

Even the Iranians seem to think that the time has come to turn the West Bank into a launching pad for attacks on Israel.

During the war in the Gaza Strip, a senior Iranian commander of the Revolutionary Guard Corps, Mohamed Reza Naqdi, announced that Tehran had plans to "arm Palestinians in the West Bank" in order to destroy Israel.

Naqdi boasted that the weapons used by Hamas and other Palestinian groups during the recent war had been manufactured and supplied by Iran.

The threats by Hamas and Iran regarding the West Bank show why it is critically important for Israel (and the Palestinian Authority) to insist on the demilitarization of the Gaza Strip as part of any long-term cease-fire agreement.

Even more significantly, these threats underline the need to keep the West Bank a demilitarized area in any future peace agreement, especially one that would see the establishment of an independent and sovereign Palestinian state.

Moreover, these threats support Israel's insistence on maintaining permanent security control over the border with Jordan. Without such a presence, Iranian-made weapons would easily find their way into the West Bank.

What Hamas and Iran are saying is that if and when Israel pulls back to the pre-1967 lines, they, together with other Palestinians, would bring weapons into the West Bank to achieve their goal of eliminating the "Zionist entity."

Zahar does not even believe that there is a need for large amounts of weapons – just one fourth of what Hamas and Islamic Jihad already have in the Gaza Strip are sufficient, in his eyes, to destroy Israel in one day.

In the aftermath of Operation Protective Edge, it is not difficult to understand why flooding the West Bank with weapons poses an existential threat to Israel.

But this is also something that would wreak havoc on Palestinians in the West Bank.

Fortunately, Mahmoud Abbas and his Palestinian Authority are fully aware of attempts by Iran and Hamas to turn the West Bank into a base for terrorism and jihadis.

Thanks to Israel, they are also aware of Hamas's effort to topple the Palestinian Authority and replace it with an Islamist government.

Last month, Israel announced the arrest of more than 90 West Bank Hamas members who planned to stage a coup against Abbas and renew terror attacks against Israelis. Were it not for Israel's effort, Abbas and his top officials would have been either killed or imprisoned by Hamas.

That episode explains why Abbas has now ordered a massive crackdown on Hamas members 

and supporters in the West Bank. During the Gaza war, Abbas refrained from such measures against his Hamas rivals out of fear of being accused of "collaboration" with Israel.

Since the cease-fire went into effect, Abbas's security forces in the West Bank have detained more than 80 Hamas men. They have also stopped Hamas-affiliated preachers from delivering sermons during Friday prayers.

Abbas will be able to rein in Hamas in the West Bank only if he pursues security coordination with Israel.

However, it would be unrealistic to expect Abbas or any Palestinian government to disarm Hamas and its allies in the Gaza Strip.

Abbas and the Palestinian Authority would not be able to survive for one day in the West Bank without the presence of the IDF, especially given Hamas's rising popularity among Palestinians in the aftermath of the war.

Last week, Abbas sent two senior officials, Saeb Erekat and Majed Faraj, to Washington to present his "new peace initiative" to Secretary of State John Kerry.

Abbas's initiative envisages the establishment of a Palestinian state within three years either through negotiations or by having the UN Security Council impose a solution on Israel.

Abbas's initiative, however, ignores the threat from Hamas and Iran to use the West Bank as a launching pad for destroying Israel. It also ignores that Hamas could easily seize control over a future Palestinian state by force or through the promised free and democratic elections, as assured by a recent public opinion poll published by the Ramallah-based Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research.

Abbas is demanding a full Israeli withdrawal to the pre-1967 lines (including the border with Jordan). But he cannot offer any assurances that Hamas and Iran would not use this border to smuggle weapons into the West Bank.

In fact, Abbas is demanding from the Israelis and Americans something that would bring about his own demise. His only option for now is to hold onto power in the West Bank and continue to work with Israel against the common enemy – Hamas. The day Hamas agrees to lay down its weapons and abandon its dream of destroying Israel, he will then be able to go to the U.S. and Security Council and ask for an independent state next to Israel.