Hamas's
Systematic Use of Civilians to Promote Terrorism
by Yaakov Lappin
Special to IPT News
March 4, 2019
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Since seizing power in a 2007 violent coup, Hamas has developed a range
of cynical ways to exploit civilians in the Gaza Strip to build up its
military wing and promote lethal terrorist activities.
Within Gaza, around its borders, and away from it, Hamas's military wing
sends out tentacles disguised in civilian camouflage.
These tactics including importing equipment for its military build-up
program, embedding rocket launchers in civilian neighborhoods, using human
shields to protect its armed operatives, digging attack tunnels into
Israel, and exploiting civilian infrastructure needs for terrorist
purposes. Hamas regularly exploits humanitarian efforts, designed to save
Gazan lives, in order to enable terrorist atrocities designed to kill
Israelis.
Suspicious packages
Hamas even exploits Gaza's civilian mail service.
Israeli border control officers from the Defense Ministry recently
intercepted 11 packages containing dual-use equipment – items that can be
used for both civilian purposes and terrorist activities. Security officers
are especially vigilant to watch out for such items, which Hamas orders
online and imports through the mail.
At the Erez border crossing between Gaza and Israel, border control
officers announced the seizure of gun scopes, diving flashlights
(equipment likely destined for Hamas's naval commando cell) and electronic
equipment.
Officers from the Gaza Civil Liaison Administration, a department in the
Israel Defense Forces (IDF) that provides daily assistance to Gazan
civilians, also found digital microscopes, biometric equipment, cell phones
designed for rugged field conditions, and fiberoptic cables. All of this
equipment, security officials say, was destined to help Hamas's military
wing strengthen itself and prepare future attacks on Israelis.
Hamas's attempts to flood Gaza with dual use equipment is constant. In
recent years, security officials that scan packages report finding
chemicals that fuel rockets, generators for tunnel digging, and drones.
"Hamas is abusing Gaza's postal service to build-up its military
power," a senior Israeli security official stated in May during a
briefing for journalists.
Drilling and digging equipment, assault rifle magazines, binoculars, and
military uniforms are just some of the things concealed in such packages.
The attempt to import dual use items came after Hamas repeatedly tried and
failed to use the Kerem Shalom border crossing with Israel for trucks to
sneak in weapons and combat equipment. The trucks carry vital goods for
Gaza's population, and hundreds of them pass through Kerem Shalom every
day, bringing food, medicines, medical equipment, construction material,
and other critical supplies. This makes Kerem Shalom a lifeline for Gaza's
civilians. But Hamas had no issue with risking this artery by repeatedly
trying to use it to smuggle war materials in on board the trucks. Israeli
border checks have prevented these attempts for years.
Hamas responded to this failure by turning to the Erez Crossing with
Egypt instead, where mail and people move back and forth. It began trying
to smuggle combat equipment in pieces, using small mail packages to do so.
As one example, inspectors in Israel last year found a propeller in one
box and a motor in another. Together they form the components for Hamas to
build drones that it can later use to drop grenades over southern Israeli
towns.
Even a package containing slippers from Turkey turned out to
be something very different. Border inspectors found enough military boots
hidden inside for an entire Hamas battalion.
Gaza border disturbances
This continual smuggling effort reflects a larger paradox for Hamas. It
remains a terrorist entity, tirelessly organizing terrorist cells in the
West Bank, and turning Gaza into a heavily armed Islamist base, filled with
rockets and Hamas battalions.
Yet since 2007, Hamas has also been a government, becoming the first
Muslim Brotherhood branch to gain sovereignty over a territory.
The result is that Hamas still tries to plot bomb attacks on Israeli
buses and shooting attacks on civilians, and at the same time, manage an
economy with an unemployment rate that surpasses 40 percent.
If Gaza's economy collapses, Hamas's regime will be in jeopardy. One
route Hamas has to rescue itself from this situation is to force an outside
entity to come in and take responsibility for Gaza's economic needs, so
that Hamas can focus on its military-terrorist project.
To achieve this goal, for the past year, Hamas has been organizing
weekly violent disturbances on the Gaza-Israel border, providing another
example of how it uses civilians to promote its radical goals.
The "popular protests" that Hamas organizes on the border are
designed to pressure Israel, Egypt, the Palestinian Authority, and the
international community to allow major funds to pour into Gaza. This would
take the pressure off the Hamas regime, allowing it to focus on
manufacturing rockets, mortar shells, tunnels, rocket-propelled grenade
launchers, and bomb boats.
While most of Gaza's 1.8 million civilians keep away from the border,
unwilling to heed Hamas's calls to endanger themselves, Hamas still buses
many thousands of rioters to the border, interspersing armed operatives
among them, turning them into human shields.
The Meir Amit Terrorism Information and Intelligence Center published an analysis Jan. 21 of the casualty rate from
the so-called "return marches." It found that over the 42 weeks,
150 out of the 187 Palestinians killed in these events were
"affiliated with Hamas or other terrorist organizations," and
that 45 fatalities were members of the Hamas military wing.
Hamas uses these events to threaten Israel's borders with large crowds,
which conceal among them bomb-planting cells, as well as
operatives armed with grenades, guns, and axes.
This is a prominent example of how Hamas uses civilian shields to
promote its terrorist activities. The modus operandi repeats itself every
Friday during the disturbances, which Hamas attempts to present as
civilians who are tired of their situation, rather than border attacks
launched by a terrorist entity that place many civilians in danger.
Operatives armed with fence cutters launch regular attempts to burst
through the border and threaten Israeli communities located nearby.
Such tactics, which place Palestinian minors in grave danger, have
attracted the recent condemnation of the Palestinian Authority. Columnists
in Palestinian Authority daily newspapers accuse Hamas of using the deadly disturbances as
"a bargaining chip for improving [their positions] in the path towards
calm with Israel, in order to serve the Muslim Brotherhood emirate project
[in Gaza]."
Civilian structures as weapons storage facilities
Within the Gaza Strip, Hamas's military wing, the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam
Brigades, hides its most valuable military assets in the heart of civilian
areas. Civilian apartments and basements in residential buildings
double as weapons storage facilities and command and control centers.
Medical clinic rooftops additionally serve as rocket launch sites and weapons
bunkers lie in the middle of heavily populated urban areas.
During the 2014 conflict with Israel, Hamas fired rockets on Israeli cities from Gazan
schools, hospitals, and medical clinics in a bid to restrain Israel's
return fire, thereby taking advantage of Israel's efforts to limit harm to
Palestinian noncombatants.
Gaza casualty counts come despite
Israeli efforts to limit them, including direct warnings for people to
clear out of areas before they are targeted.
The IDF acted "within the parameters of the Law of Armed
Conflict" and "in some respects exceeded the highest standards we
set for our own nations' militaries" in its effort to avoid harm to
noncombatants," said a report by the High
Level Military Group (HLMG), comprised of 11 former NATO military
leaders and officials. It examined Israel's 2014 conflict with Hamas. The
report added that "the entire military machinery of Hamas was embedded
in civilian locations, private homes and a plethora of sensitive sites such
as medical facilities, mosques and schools."
Still, Hamas uses unintended civilian deaths to score media points
against Israel in the court of public opinion.
While Israeli security measures are neutralizing Hamas's cross-border
tunnel network, inside Gaza itself, a complex network of tunnels continues to grow, for the
movement of armed operatives and weapons.
Israel describes this as part of an "established strategy" of digging
combat tunnel deep in civilian areas, and using homes, schools, mosques,
and hospitals as shields.
The IDF has said that Hamas deliberately places such terror sites near
and within civilian buildings hoping an IDF strike will result in Gazan
deaths that can damage Israeli legitimacy. "In the process, they
sacrifice the citizens they claim to defend," the IDF said.
These actions led the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) to condemn Hamas after a terror tunnel was found running
near two UN schools.
Exploiting humanitarian traffic
Hamas frequently tries to exploit Israel's practice of allowing
humanitarian crossings in from Gaza to send cash and explosive materials to
its West Bank terror cells.
For example, when the Palestinian Authority stopped medical equipment
supplies to Gaza, as part of its pressure tactics against Hamas last May,
and reduced the number of medical referrals for Gazans that allow them
treatment in West Bank hospitals, Israel increased the number of permits
allowing Gazans to visit Israeli hospitals.
Israel did this despite having multiple intelligence warnings of Hamas
intentions to take advantage of the measure.
A 65-year-old Gazan woman, received a permit last April to receive
cancer treatment in an Israeli hospital. The woman was stopped at the Erez
border crossing with enough explosives to blow up four buses.
Gazan civilians who wish to cross into Israel must first pass a Hamas
checkpoint, where they may be approached with an offer they cannot refuse
to deliver cash or explosives over the border.
Israel's defense establishment regularly intercepts such efforts, including attempts
to hide cash in shoes. Hamas used an elderly Gazan woman who received an
Israeli permit to cross the border for medical treatment in November to pass along secret instructions to a Hamas operative in
the West Bank.
Civilian infrastructure in the service of terrorism
Hamas regularly siphons off infrastructure materials Israel transfers
into Gaza for material to build its arsenal.
Examples include the theft of pipes sent to Gaza to build waste plants
and water filtering sites, which Hamas uses to build rockets that are later
fired at Israeli cities.
Generators end up in underground terror tunnels heading towards Israeli
cities.
According to Israeli security sources, Hamas has even taken some medical
oxygen tanks that Israel sends into Gaza for hospitals and uses them to help
tunnel diggers breathe as they work 30 meters (around 100 feet)
underground. Israeli warnings about such actions risking future
humanitarian transfers have had no visible effect on Hamas's pattern of
conduct.
Prior to Israel installing a monitoring mechanism, Hamas siphoned off cement entering Gaza for civilian
construction and used it to dig tunnels.
Last May, Hamas instigated rioters to torch Gaza's only fuel pipeline on the Palestinian side
of Kerem Shalom. The resulting 10 million shekels of damage, and weeks of
disruption of regular fuel supplies, reflects Hamas's casual willingness to
hold the needs of its own people ransom.
A conveyer that delivers agricultural feed and gravel for construction
at the site was also destroyed by rioters following Hamas's instructions.
Israel's national electric corporation supplies Gaza with 125 megawatts
per day (paid for by the Palestinian Authority), which is delivered over 10
power lines. Israel also sends trucks of natural gas into Gaza, which help
power the Strip's sole power plant. Yet Hamas has regularly decreased the
electricity supply to civilians while keeping the electricity running in
its combat tunnels, rocket production facilities, and border demonstration
tents.
Decreasing the power is another means that Hamas has used to pressure
its own people, in a reckless bid to export pressure in the direction of
Israel, the Palestinian Authority, and the international community.
Exploiting Gaza's fishermen
In a measure to assist the Gazan economy, Israel has repeatedly sought
to expand the zone that fishermen can work in off the Strip's Mediterranean
coastline. Expanding the fishing zone increases the number of people
working in Gaza's fishing sector.
Yet Hamas often exploits this area, too. Israel Navy officials report
intercepting multiple attempts by Hamas to use fishing vessels to smuggle
rocket manufacturing materials from Sinai via the Mediterranean Sea.
Hamas has also ordered civilian fishing boats to sail up to the maritime
border to initiate friction with Israel. This action caused Maj. Gen.
Kamil Abu Rokon, the IDF's coordinator of government activities in the
territories, to warn Gaza's fishermen that provocations won't be ignored
even though "the Hamas terror organization is exploiting the fishermen
of Gaza who are simply working to make a living, and is forcing them to
participate in the provocations and disturbances of the peace taking place
in the maritime area."
Hamas banned Gaza's fishermen from going out to sea last May, as part of
the same ransom-style tactics to increase the pressure on the
long-suffering Gazan people. Hamas then uses this suffering to call out to
the world to come and save Gaza by investing money in it, thereby freeing
up Hamas's own funds for the military wing.
The list of Hamas's use of civilian needs to promote violent and radical
objectives goes on. In one of the latest examples, the Meir Amit
Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center noted this week that Hamas routinely disguises its
military wing operatives as journalists to "increase their
survivability" and to take advantage of protection afforded by Israel
to members of the press.
Yet Hamas is likely aware that it is walking on a tightrope. Its
greatest fear appears to be a rebellion by Gazans against its rule, meaning
that Hamas tries to calculate its moves to avoid reaching a 'red line'
situation.
So long as it is in charge of Gaza, however, Hamas will continue
exploiting every avenue that it can to misuse civilian needs for its
radical agenda.
Yaakov Lappin is a military and strategic affairs correspondent. He
also conducts research and analysis for defense think tanks, and is the
Israel correspondent for IHS Jane's Defense Weekly. His book, The
Virtual Caliphate, explores the online jihadist presence.
Related Topics: Yaakov
Lappin, Hamas,
civilian
casualties, violent
protests, rocket
launchers, tunnels,
smuggling,
border
crossings, Kerem
Shalom, Meir
Amit Intelligence and Information Center, High
Level Military Group, IDF,
UNRWA
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