BICOM

Israel’s military is on high alert today as it prepares for a fifth week of violent protests on the Gaza border.

Today’s protests will take place after a memorial ceremony for Fadi al-Batsh, a Hamas engineer who was killed in Malaysia last Saturday. The Israeli military are anticipating that Hamas may try to carry out a revenge terror attack under the cover of the demonstrations as they blame Israel for killing al-Batsh’s death.

Three thousand demonstrators attended protests last week, substantially less than the forty thousand who attended the first demonstration. Despite the decrease in numbers, the level of violence has increased and the number of women and children at the frontline of the riots has also increased. The IDF say this is a deliberately attempt by Hamas to put civilians in harm’s way.

US Ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley said in a debate at the Security Council: “Anyone who truly cares about children in Gaza should insist that Hamas immediately stop using children as cannon fodder in its conflict with Israel.”

Nickolay Mladenov, UN Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process, tweeted yesterday: “There has also been an increasing number of dangerous incidents at the fence, including the planting of improvised explosive devices — at least one of which has detonated — the throwing of Molotov cocktails, and attempts to breach the fence.”

“Israel must calibrate its use of force and minimise the use of live fire’, whilst “Hamas and the leaders of the demonstrations must keep protesters away from the Gaza fence and prevent all violent actions and provocations,” he added.

The Israeli army says that it primarily uses non-lethal tactics and targets only those taking explicit violent action against Israeli troops with stones and Molotov cocktails or who are actively trying to break through the security fence or use improvised explosive devices.

The Meir Amit Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center yesterday said that 32 of the 40 Palestinians killed last month were affiliated with terrorist organisations. Nine men were operatives in Hamas’s Izz al-Din Qassam Brigades or in Hamas’s internal security forces, while nine others were affiliated with Hamas. Ten were operatives of Fatah, two of which were members in its military branch. In addition, two of the men belonged to the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine (DFLP), one to the Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ), and one to Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP).