 |
 |
 |
|
|
How soon they forget. Military officers carry the coffin of Oded Sharon during his funeral in the town of Gan Yavne in southern Israel Thursday Jan. 20, 2005. Sharon, 36, a Shin Bet agent, was killed Tuesday Jan. 18, 2005 when a Hamas militant blew himself up near an intersection where a main Palestinian road crosses an access road to a bloc of Jewish settlements in the Gaza Strip. Seven Israelis were wounded in the attack. (AP Photo/Tal Naveh, IDF spokesman)
|
|
|
|
|
|
| By Israel Insider staff and partners January 23, 2005 |
|
| |
In the official report of the weekly cabinet, it was reported that "IDF Chief-of-Staff Lt.-Gen. Moshe Yaalon briefed ministers on security matters including the calm that has begun to prevail in the area in recent days." Media reports say Yaalon told the cabinet that "there is absolute quiet in the [Gaza] Strip."
Despite Mofaz's claim, there were a string of terrorist attacks on Saturday and more on Sunday in the Gaza Strip.
Aaron Lerner of IMRA noted:"Yaalon knew it. The Cabinet members knew it. The Cabinet Secretariat knew it." Lerner asks, rhetorically. "So what message does this send to the Palestinians? That Jew hunting season is over in Sderot but continues beyond the Green Line? That we are back to "Oslo mode" where instead of reporting the truth we have army officers-future politicians saying what they think their future political allies want to hear?"
The IDF Spokesman's Office did not report Saturday night on the firing of a mortar shell in southern Gush Katif, and reported another incident in which a house was damaged as having caused "no damage."
The latter incident occurred in Kfar Darom Saturday night, and lasted for at least a half-hour, according to residents. "We know very well the difference between terrorist shooting and our soldiers' return fire," a resident told Arutz-7's Ariel Kahane. "There is no doubt that the terrorists fired directly at our houses throughout the incident. One bullet shattered a window in one home - only miraculously was no one hurt - and a tree branch fell elsewhere and damaged a playground."
The residents reported the shooting to Gush Katif spokesman Eran Sternberg, who notified the reporters. However, the item never made it into the papers because the IDF Spokesman in the Southern Command did not confirm it. He merely told them, "It was a single burst of terrorist fire that caused no casualties and no damage."
The IDF Spokesman reported on an anti-tank rocket fired at Ganei Tal last night, but said nothing about a mortar shell that landed near Gadid in southern Gush Katif.
Gush Katif residents say that the IDF is anxious to conceal incidents or reduce their scope in order not to impair the public impression that Palestinian terrorism in Gaza has ended.
Furious over what he called attempts by the IDF to cover up shooting attacks in Gush Katif, Sternberg said ""The government is interested in covering up what is really going on since Sharon doesn't want to ruin the peace festivities," he said. "It is very comfortable to lie and to say that things are quiet when they really aren't."
"There is no ceasefire," longtime Alei Sinai settler Avi Farhan said. "The government thinks that since there aren't Kassams landing in Sderot and people aren't getting killed then there is a ceasefire when in reality attacks are continuing against the Gaza Strip settlers."
|
|
 
|
|
|
|
Click on the blue headline to read a Talkback comment and respond to it. Click on the  icon to send a private email to the talkback writer. The icon appears only if the writer has decided to be contacted. If no popup window appears, please make sure your popup blocker allows israelinsider.com.
|
|
| |
|
|
