As Israel\’s air war against Hamas and Islamic Jihad fighters in Gaza entered its sixth day on Saturday, a pair of bombings threw the difficulties of the campaign into painful relief: Israel bombed a mosque, which its aerial photos indicated was harboring a weapons cache, and a center for the disabled, killing two residents and wounding three, as well as a caretaker.
A separate strike on the house of a police commander killed at least 18 people, the highest toll so far this conflict, bringing the total number of dead to at least 140, Palestinian officials said.
In response, Hamas fired a barrage of rockets at Tel Aviv, Israel\’s largest city, garnering much attention despite causing no deaths or injuries, as three of them were intercepted.
Can you tell from the above that Israel acted only after hamas fired hundreds of rockets into Israel over the past weeks and months? Or does it appear that Israel, apropos of nothing in particular, decided to wage war on Gaza, and the rockets being fired into Tel Aviv were nothing more than a response by the poor, aggrieved Gazans?
And as you look at that poignant picture of the mother crying for her children, do you get any sense that Israel – unlike any country I am aware of in the history of the world, warned Palestinian Arab civilians before firing rockets at the targets hamas intentionally placed in civilian areas? Or that hamas, which runs Gaza and elicited Israel\’s response, told its citizens to stay right where they were?
As with Erlanger\’s earlier reports, if you read the full article, you can find both sides interspersed within it. But the pictures, the first part of the article (which sets the tone for what comes next) and the general direction leaves little doubt about where Erlanger is coming from.
I\’m not saying that hamas is about to make Steve Erlanger an honorary jihadist. But a few more articles like the ones he has been writing, and I wouldn\’t be surprised if they consider it.
