Resilience means toughness; the capacity to withstand or to recover quickly from difficulties. This is the challenge Israel has been required to exhibit since it left the Gaza Strip to the devices of Arab terrorists who exist for one purpose only. Their purpose is to annihilate the Jewish State.
Hamas Takeover of the Gaza Strip
Between June 10 and 15, 2007, Hamas and Fatah, the two factions that control the Arab population who reside in parts of the Samaria region of Israel and the Gaza Strip began bloody fighting between themselves. This was referred to as Hamas’ takeover of the Gaza Strip.
That was a struggle for power after the Fatah faction lost the so called parliamentary elections of 2006. The battle resulted in the dissolution of the quasi unity government and the de facto division of the territories, which Israel designated for these Arabs. This created two entities, Palestinian Authority (PA), governed by Fatah, in the Samaria region of Israel and Gaza governed by Hamas.
Gush Katif Disengagement
Gush Katif, meaning the Harvest Bloc, was a bloc of 17 Israeli settlements in the southern Gaza strip. For the sake of peace Israel so badly yearned for, on August 13, 2005, Israel’s government unilaterally decided to send the army to close Gush Katif to non-residents. Just two days later, they forced civilian evacuations, known as “the disengagement.”
These scenes will forever be etched in the minds and hearts of people, especially Jews who saw these unfathomable actions as profound abuse of your own population. Israel’s Cabinet decided to forcibly remove 8,600 residents of Gush Katif from their homes.
Israel’s unilateral disengagement from the Gaza Strip, saw 17 Israeli communities demolished to the last cinderblock and all bodies of the dead exhumed.
What the Israeli authorities left behind was significant infrastructure, such as electricity, pipes and roads. The Israelis, in their naiveté, had high hopes that the Arab Gazans, now left to their own devices, would continue what the Jewish communities did for 30 years; keep Gaza as an oasis of blue Mediterranean water, white sandy beaches and impressive infrastructure similar to Singapore.
That was an insane Jewish sweet dream that turned into a nightmare for Israel.
The Arabs who came in elected the Hamas terror faction to rule them and manage the Gaza Strip. They received the Gaza Strip in its entirety; not one Jew was left living there. And instead of building there a Dubai, a Hong Kong, or a Singapore, the Gazans turned the beautiful produce yielding land into an impoverished cesspool. Then it became a launching pad for rockets and missiles, a terrorist enclave, a dreadful ongoing threat to Israel’s existence.
Rockets Fired From Gaza
In fact, a year before the Hamas takeover of Gaza, on March 28, 2006, while Israelis went to general elections, the first Katyusha rocket from Gaza was fired at Israel. The rocket fell near Kibbutz Itfah on the outskirts of the city of Ashkelon and caused no damage or casualties.
“Islamic Jihad Movement in Palestine,” commonly known as Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) claimed responsibility for firing this rocket. Islamic Jihad is an Islamist paramilitary organization formed in 1981 as an offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood. It is ideologically influenced by the Islamic regime in Iran
Gaza Rocket Salvos
In January 2008 the border between Gaza and Egypt was breached by Hamas. It allowed them to bring in Russian and Iranian made rockets with a larger range than the local made ones. In the first half of 2008, the number of rocket attacks on Israel from Gaza rose sharply, consistently totaling several hundred per month. The city of Ashkelon was hit by Grad rockets many times during this period.
On 26 February 2008 a Grad rocket hit the hospital grounds of the Barzilai Medical Center, in Ashkelon, approximately 200 meters away from the neonatal intensive-care unit. Since Ashkelon is only 6 miles from the Gaza border, the city is frequently the target of rocket attacks, as we see now, in October 2023.
And the salvos of Gazan rockets raining on Israel, at Hamas’ will, have been the Gaza-Hamas Terrorists’ joyful pastime game. After all the Hamas charter calls for the annihilation of Israel: “Israel will exist and will continue to exist until Islam will obliterate it, just as it obliterated others before it.” (Preamble).
Since 2008 up to 2022 Israel conducted approximately 11 military operations in Gaza, each of different scale, all based on explicit targets with surgical bombing, to reduce Hamas’ ability to rain rockets on Israel. These military operations lasted for a limited time. Hamas soon recovered and reorganized and then found a reason to restart firing rockets at Israel. All these attacks ended with some sort of a ceasefire that lasted a short time.
Operation Protective Edge
The Operation Protective Edge military operation in Gaza, launched on July 8, 2014, was the result of the kidnapping and murder of three Israeli teenagers by Hamas-affiliated Palestinian militants. Israel Defense Forces (IDF) initiated Operation Brother’s Keeper, in which some 350 Arabs, including nearly all of the active Hamas militants in Judea and Samaria Arab communities were arrested. Subsequently Hamas fired a greater number of rockets into Israel from the Gaza Strip, triggering a seven-week-long conflict between the two sides, one of the deadliest outbreaks of the conflict in decades. The combination of Hamas rocket attacks and Israel’s airstrikes resulted in over two thousand dead Gazan-Arabs and Israel suffered 73 casualties as well.
Gaza is densely populated. The Hamas tactic is to place their rocket launchers among civilian residential areas because they know Israel’s moral military will avoid harming civilians.
Israel also avoided entering the Strip because most of the places the Hamas militants hide when Israel troops seek to eliminate them are booby-trapped and casualties on Israel’s side could be high. Till October 7, 2023.
Kibbutz Kfar Aza a mile away from Gaza lies in ruins, filled with dead bodies of Israelis including many babies.
Hamas Causes Israel Strategy Change
The surprise incursion of an untold number of blood thirsty Hamas terrorists into Israel on Saturday, October 7, 2023, and the wholesale carnage they inflicted on Israel has changed the conflict’s trajectory, changed the fragile “status quo” Israel tried for years to manage.
The slaughter of Jewish-Israeli civilians, resembling Nazi type murder of Jews in WWII Holocaust, babies, young children, teens and youth, women, young and old, entire families, the elderly, and soldiers caught off guard for such an unexpected attack, not only shocked Israel but the entire world. Such a large massacre had not yet been seen in the West and this has been the largest mass murder the Jews have suffered since the Holocaust.
Living Side by Side in Peace
Israel’s idea has always been to achieve peace and live side by side with those who simply exist to annihilate it. It tried to better the Gazan’s lives, believing that a higher standard of living, provided to them by whom they view as their enemy – Israel – would bring them the sense that peace was worthwhile.
But Israel has failed miserably in this endeavor.
Hamas used Israel’s Achilles Heel, its kindness and the zest to achieve peace, to their own advantage. The outcome of that is the mini Holocaust perpetrated on Israeli civilians on October 7, 2023.
Israel and Jews sanctify life; Hamas sanctifies death and destruction. A Hamas shaheed, denoting a martyr in Islam, is regarded as a martyr for murdering a Jew. They see this as bringing respect and money to their family. There are no meeting grounds here. The atrocity of October 7, 2023, has made it clear: there is no future living side by side with Hamas.
Therefore, Israel’s goal now must be accomplished to its fullest scale: preventing Hamas from continuing to operate in the Gaza Strip. They have started by ending Israel’s supply to the Strip of water, electricity, fuel, work, and medicine. The second step must be removal of Hamas and its supporters from the area, as far as possible from Israel’s borders.
Israel’s Goal Must End the Existence of Hamas
In other words, Hamas must cease to exist. 98% of Israelis demand the complete annihilation of Hamas and other Hamas-like enemies. Everything Israel has ever invented or developed in the past 75 years, since the renewal of the Jewish Commonwealth in the Land of Israel was in order for the Jews in Israel to be able to live as free people and prosper in their own country. After all, after 2000 years in exile, the return of the Jewish people to their ancestral land was their greatest achievement after so many centuries of being homelandless. Hamas is an obstacle to continue achieving this goal.
It’s time to cut the head of the snake and starve the bloodthirsty beast Hamas that is around Israel and is also within the Jewish state, dwelling in the Palestinian Authority (PA) assigned territory.
Jewish blood is not cheap, never has been, though the world has thought so. Some still think it is.
A Message To Non-Jews
For the non-Jewish world around the world who may be surprised, to whatever degree, why Israel has taken the path of a complete destruction of those who are plotting day and night to kill Jews, it is suggested here to remember what the world did to the Nazis and to ISIS, it ended their existence. Furthermore, for Christians it is also suggested here to open the New Testament and start reading “Submission to Governing Authorities,” Romans 13:1-7.
Resilience
A wounded tiger is the most dangerous. A wounded, weakened Israel is a fiercer one. The level of resilience the Israelis have gathered, due to what they have gone through these past four days, is unthinkable. Perseverance and determination is in the hearts and on the minds of all Israelis now.
The extraordinary and unimaginable number of dead Israeli civilians now stands at 1200, with close to 3000 wounded. This is a reason for retaliation and an extraordinary fight, the likes of Israel’s independence War or Yom Kippur War, or even much greater.
Reports say some 1500 terrorists were killed inside Israel thus far. That means that at least 2000 Hamas and Islamic jihad terrorists had infiltrated Israel on Saturday October 7, 2023. These bloodthirsty Islamo-Nazi Jew-hater sadistic monsters may have murdered 1200 Israelis but they actually brought back to life the spirit and resilience of Israel. As sad as the situation may be, the inner division that was displayed in the streets of Israel in the past 10 months has been replaced with unity like Israelis have not had for the past 75 years.
If Hamas and its sponsor Iran, or other of Israel’s enemies banked on liberal Leftist soldiers not obeying the call for reserve service, they thought wrong; 100% of reserve soldiers in Israel or wherever they were at the time of the call in the world, that included pilots, reported back to their units. An unprecedented number of 400,000 reserve soldiers showed up and are getting ready to begin the real fight to eradicate Hamas’ military ability.
This is God’s hour to help protect the land He endowed His children with and also His children. This is the Nation of Israel’s hour, to take revenge for the unfathomable massacre of its children.
This is the hour by which the entire career of Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu will be remembered. Anything less than the complete destruction of those who rise up to murder Jews, to destroy Israel and those who train, fund and sponsor these savages will not be accepted by the Jews of Israel, by the entire nation of Israel.
I am sure the entire Jewish Nation is waiting with bated breath for Israel to start correcting the harm done, beginning with eradicating Hamas. There must be no stopping until the job is completed.
