Where’s the Coverage? Gaza Sniper Sought Medical Treatment in Israel to Improve Sniping Ability
Last month, The Algemeiner reported:
Israel’s General Security Service (Shin Bet), with the assistance of the country’s police department, arrested a Gazan terrorist sniper earlier this month who had requested to enter Israel on humanitarian grounds, for medical treatment that would improve his sniping ability.
[…]The detainee, Mohammed Saber Abu Amsha, – a member of the Gaza al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades from Beit Hanun – was planning “an elaborate sniping attack against an IDF patrol along the Israel-Gaza security fence in which he would act as the sniper,” the IDF said.
Suffering from “an eye condition which impaired his sniping ability,” he requested to enter Israel by way of a special humanitarian entry permit. “The attack was postponed until his return to Gaza once his eyesight was to be restored,” the IDF said.
The technical term for this is “chutzpah.” The same term applies to the media completely ignoring this news.
Strikingly, at that very time, news outlets were covering the fact that a sniper from Gaza killed an Israeli repairing the security barrier yet found no space or airtime to mention Abu Amsha, who was reportedly “the original sniper chosen to carry out the attack.”
The Israel Defense Forces blog reported on the incident:
“Israel authorizes the entrance of thousands of Gaza residents monthly for humanitarian and medical purposes,” said Lt. Col. Peter Lerner. “This instance of abuse of a permit for terrorist intentions, is loathsome, and poses a violation that jeopardizes the access for medical aid in Israel and Judea and Samaria so many Palestinians enjoy”.
In fact, according to an Israeli Coordination of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT) report:
Nearly 220,000 Palestinian Arabs were admitted into Israel for treatment in 2012. That in itself is worth reporting. But the fact that such a humanitarian gesture was exploited for the purposes of terrorism is highly newsworthy. Yet… Where’s the coverage?
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