Report: Hamas Morale Collapsing, Terrorists Flee IDF

breitbart.com ^ | 7/25/14 | Joel Pollack

[cotton1706]

In an otherwise excellent article on the Hamas terror tunnel network in Gaza, the Jerusalem Post buries the lede. An Israel Defense Forces (IDF) soldier in the field told the Post that while Hamas fighters offered fierce resistance when the ground operation began, now Hamas operatives are fleeing, abandoning their positions, leaving behind weapons and other material that the IDF is using to expand its assault on the terror group.

The source added that in recent days, a recognizable wave of demoralization has washed over Hamas's combat battalions. "They simply escape, leaving behind weapons and suicide bomb vests that were laid out for battle. This morning we stormed a position, and they just weren't there. I don't see a determined enemy. We have encountered stronger pockets of fighting in the past. But now, I would not give them a high grade for fighting spirit."

Using further eyewitness reports, the article describes how Hamas has integrated the tunnel network into the civilian infrastructure of Gaza, constructing entrances in homes and even mosques. "I have not entered one civilian home that did not have weapons, suicide belts, or booby traps in it," the source told the Post, stressing the lengths to which the IDF goes to protect innocent civilians caught in the crossfire, regardless.

The reports of a collapse in Hamas fighters' morale lends credence to other reports that Hamas leaders were considering a temporary truce suggested by U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry. The organization has insisted in the past on making a ceasefire conditional on the removal of the international blockade of Gaza, which exists to prevent Hamas from importing weapons and materials to build its terror network even further than it has.

[DCBryan1]

Get a grip

Obama, is that you? I guess you condone this in civilian ares all over Israel:

The only way to reduce Palestinian terrorism is to reduce the number of Palestinians...mainly military aged males. Reduce that number and you reduce the number of terrorist attacks. If you need a reminder Hamas=Palestinians and Palestinians=Hamas. They are cockroaches and criminals that must be hunted down and exterminated. This is war. War is hell, but this time, Hamas signed its own death warrant, and the IDF is serving it to them.

Long live Israel, long live the West.

I'm sorry that you don't agree with that. To each his own.

[sargon]

It is a war, you realize.

Yes, it is a war, and the side who is in the right needs to refrain from acting like the savage Hamas animals they fight.

Mass executions of males simply for being a certain age and ethnicity, and in total disregard of whether they have Hamas affiliations or not, is, quite simply, a war crime.

No civilized nation would engage in such foolishness. You're making the grave mistake of equating Hamas with the entire Palestinian population. The fact is, Hamas dominates for rather straightforward reasons; they are the ones with the weapons and the passion for Israel's destruction, and they therefore "run the show", but they are not in fact supported by the entire population.

Many, many Palestinians have no use for Hamas, and in fact despise them. They want to live in peace and be left alone, just like most people everywhere. Those people deserve to be spared, including males of fighting age.

Your "final solution" rhetoric will never be the right thing to do.

The nation of Israel is a tiny speck within a huge expanse of the Arab world. The fact that Israel can do what they are doing does not mean they have unlimited power to carry on the unrestrained and, indeed, immoral form of warfare which you apparently advocate.

Genocidal pogroms are simply not the answer, and, even if there was some kind of short term benefit to such a criminal tactic, Israel would ultimately invoke their own destruction were they to follow such an ill-advised path.

Like I said, get a grip. You're hysterical if you're advocating mass castration and executions of Palestinian males simply because of their age & ethnicity. Let PM Netanyahu worry about the minutae of Israeli battelfield tactics. He's quite qualified to do so.

[kaila]

per the WSJ opinion piece:
“On some basic level, you forfeit your right to be called civilians when you freely elect members of a terrorist organization as statesmen, invite them to dinner with blood on their hands and allow them to set up shop in your living room as their base of operations. At that point you begin to look a lot more like conscripted soldiers than innocent civilians. And you have wittingly made yourself targets.”

That is what the Palestinians did- elect Hamas when they all knew they were a terrorist organization. So the Palestinians bear a lot of the responsibility of what is currently happening to them. I do not think mass executions is in order, but if they get bombed and die, that is the price they pay. They approved this war by their vote. To the winner go the spoils. It is only in this modern era that “enlightened “ armies held back, and did not try to kill civilians. That was never the case up to WW2.

[Pearls Before Swine]

Hamas has integrated the tunnel network into the civilian infrastructure of Gaza, constructing entrances in homes and even mosques.

EVEN mosques? I would have thought ESPECIALLY mosques, schools and hospitals. The mosques are as much armories as religious facilities.

[Will we know the moment]

The rules of warfare:

1. Never humanize your enemy.

2. Kill your enemy until he stops killing you.

3. There are no rules in war.

[txhurl]

If the Palestinians had so little use for Hamas, they’d be turning them into Israel, not providing shelter for them.

[kaila]

You are right. The problem with modern western warfare is that we never completely wipe out the enemy,and they continue to rise up again and again.The end result is more war instead of just finishing the battle once and for all.

[GeronL]

I hear the West Bank is starting to act up now

[Rummyfan]

Like rats from a sinking ship.*

*: take the metaphor any way you want....

[TexasRepublic]

“Many, many Palestinians have no use for Hamas, and in fact despise them. They want to live in peace and be left alone, just like most people everywhere.”

Right. I guess that is why the IDF is finding weapons, booby traps and bombs in every dwelling they enter. The populace and Hamas are one.

[EQAndyBuzz]

I am one who has a different belief. Build a pier. Fence from the dock all the way to Gaza. Have several ships available that will make the trip from Israel to northern Lebanon. Those who want to leave will get a monetary stipend that they can use to start a new life. That money will come out of US funding for Gaza.

The ones who refuse to leave are your terrorists and their supporters.

[sphinx]

a recognizable wave of demoralization has washed over Hamas's combat battalions

Someone probably had a near death experience and reported back about his 72 virgins ....

[adorno]

Hamas needs a cease-fire. To regroup and re-arm.

Then, back to business.

[rbg81]

Most civilians don’t understand that a conflict only ends when the loser decides it is. The sad truth is that these pinprick operations that minimize civilian suffering will never win a war.

[USS Alaska]

No one has the stomach for total war anymore.

Our enemies do.

In addition, our military does, but our political elite class have the balls found on small gnats.

[Sam Gamgee]

I agree with you, but be easy on him, I think we are just so sick of the anti-Israeli sentiment, we can get carried away.

[Sam Gamgee]

Totally agree.

[Sam Gamgee]

Sadly the US is constrained by a bunch of liberal lawyers in the JAG core.

[PIF]

After Japan surrendered, the Chinese had a similar moire thorough plan they intended to carry out - until they saw Hiroshima and Nagasaki - to which the comment was: You Americans do good work.

Civilized or not, the world is governed by the use of force. Wishing it was otherwise is all well and good but in the end just another fools’ errand.

In the religious war, now under way between the West and Islam, the end will only come after Mecca is wiped off the Earth, else the west surrenders - better Muslim than dead. There is no “in between” - however much one might wish it so - “in between” (shades of grey) typifies Western thinking; absolutism typifies Islamic thinking (the will of allah).

The entire population of Palestinians are the ones who elected Hamas to power, and are therefore equally complicit with those who lead the war against Israel. Islam only understands the absolute brutality of war and can only be deterred by its use. Islam can only be destroyed when the last Muslim is dead or when its greatest symbol is destroyed: Mecca/Medina.

One cannot fight a real war and some away with a clear conscience - there are always things to regret. However, one can pretend to fight with limited ROIs, nice speeches, humanitarian pauses, truce talks, calling battles wars (Iraq, Afghanistan) and so forth, which is what the West is doing now. All this does, in the end, is postpone the inevitable, increase the number of deaths, and prolong the war. For example, WWI was very brutal, but lasted only four years; WWII was extremely brutal, but lasted only from 1939-1945 or six years. This one began in 1979 with Iran’s declaration of war against the US - or 35 years with countless millions dead before the West actually joins forces against Islam.

In the end there can be either Islam and Muslims, or the West - not both. Thus an example must be made - the more brutal the better. The longer it takes for this to sink in, the more brutal and example will be needed, and the longer it takes, the more people will perish.

WWI saw deaths in the low 10s of millions; WWII saw deaths in the 100 millions - what do you suppose this war’s death count will be, unless the West comes to its senses and acts?

[PapaBear3625]

This morning we stormed a position, and they just weren't there. I don't see a determined enemy. We have encountered stronger pockets of fighting in the past. But now, I would not give them a high grade for fighting spirit."

They're making the mistake of thinking that Arabs fight like the West. They don't. Their method is to do a raid attack on an unprepared enemy, fade away, hit elsewhere, fade away, until their enemy goes down bleeding from a thousand cuts.