Tunnel vision in Gaza Strip
An expose’ of arms smuggling via tunnels from Egypt into the Gaza Strip by Palestinian Arabs remains to be done. Associated Press reporter Sarah El Deeb has laid the foundation. In a dispatch datelined Rafah, Gaza Strip (“Gaza weapons smuggling flourishes,” Dec. 17, 2006), El Deeb says that “when Israel withdrew [from the Strip in September, 2005], about 90 tunnels were operating. Now, there are at least 150, but the number is probably closer to 250, said one tunnel digger.” This though Israel military incursions have resulted in discovery and destruction of dozens of tunnels.
AP describes as “largely unhindered” a tunnel-enabled arms race between the Palestinian Hamas (Islamic Resistance Movement) and Fatah (Movement for the Liberation of Palestine) factions. This even though “after Israel’s pullout, Egyptian and Palestinian security forces were to have deployed to stop the smuggling.”
According to Israeli sources, the article continues, “anti-tank missiles, tons of explosives and thousands of rifles have reached Gaza in the past year. Palestinian miltants said they have imported longer-range Katyusha rockets — they fired one earlier this year — plus the means to upgrade their homemade rockets to reach deeper into Israel.”
Though the AP report terms smuggling through the tunnels “one of the biggest obstacles to any lasting Israeli-Palestinian truce,” it lacks specificity. Hard facts on the quantity and quality of the weapons being brought in, their distribution among terrorist factions, and detailed analysis of the military and diplomatic implications of the build-up are still needed.
Fragmentary reports have circulated for at least half a year. In October, The Los Angeles Times cited Israeli officials as saying Hamas hoped to acquire weapons like those used by Hezbollah (Party of God) against Israeli troops in Lebanon last summer. YNETNews.com, the English-language Web site of Israel’s largest daily, Yediot Aharonot, reported that Hamas had armed and trained a force of 7,500, based in part on “several dozen tunnels which were sophisticated, professionally quarried, and fully equpped with tracks and wheeled carts.” As early as last June, The Jerusalem Post said “the amount of weapons and explosives smuggled into the Gaza Strip since disengagement was bigger than the total amount smuggled … since the [1967] Six-Day War,” and included 11 tons of explosives.
The American media outlet that really tunnels into this story ought to contend for the Pulitzer Prize in foreign news coverage.
More from SNAPSHOTS
President of Bethlehem Bible College Expresses Thanks for Antisemitic Comment
January 30, 2018
Jack Sara, president of Bethlehem Bible College, either can’t recognize antisemitism when he sees it or is OK with it. In a Facebook discussion underneath one of his articles at The Christian Post, a website [...]
Civilian Bounties, Quartz, Haaretz & Lousy Translations
January 29, 2018
Quartz, which describes itself as "a digitally native news outlet, born in 2012, for business people in the new global economy. We publish bracingly creative and intelligent journalism with a broad worldview," today took heat [...]
Where’s the Coverage? Arab Enrollment in Israeli Universities Grows 78%
January 27, 2018
Part of the campus of Tel Aviv University The number of Arab students in Israeli universities has grown an astonishing 78.5% over the last seven years, according to Israel’s Council for Higher Education (CHE). Although [...]
Is The U.S. State Department Hiding a ‘Game Changer’ Report on Palestinian Refugees?
January 25, 2018
The United Nations Refugee and Works Agency (UNRWA) provides aid to approximately 5.3 million Palestinians which they categorize as “refugees”—but the actual number may be as low as 20,000, according to a Washington Free Beacon [...]
Where’s the Coverage? Palestinian Leader Buys $50 Million Private Jet
January 25, 2018
The President of the Palestinian Authority (PA), Mahmoud Abbas, has bought a private jet worth an estimated $50 million. The purchase comes after widely reported “major funding cuts from the U.S.,” as The Times of [...]
NBC’s Andrea Mitchell Takes Heat for Inaccurate Knesset Tweet
January 22, 2018
After NBC anchor Andrea Mitchell posted an inaccurate and inflammatory comment on Twitter about the Knesset, Israel’s parliament, she was quickly corrected by Israeli journalists. In her Monday morning tweet, Mitchell asserted that “the 13 [...]
Updated: AFP Photo Captions Mislead on Gaza ‘Smuggling Tunnels’
January 17, 2018
Update Appended to Bottom of Post: AFP Removes Misleading Reference to 'Smuggling' Tunnels A series of Agence France Presse photo captions earlier this week misleadingly identified the tunnel discovered under the Kerem Shalom crossing, extending [...]
In English, Haaretz Misleads on Ibrahim Abu Thuraya
January 14, 2018
Update, 8:10 am EST: For Second Time, Haaretz English Edition Corrects on Abu Thuraya’s Leg Injury Despite the fact that Haaretz’s earlier this month corrected a photo caption which inaccurately reported on the unclear circumstances [...]
Where’s the Coverage? Israel Prevented ‘Several Dozen’ Terror Attacks in Europe
January 11, 2018
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu The nation of Israel prevented ‘mass’ terror attacks on the continent of Europe, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Jan. 9, 2018. This admission—made at a meeting of Israel-based [...]