Major (res.) Ran Levy, a social activist who heads the 'Hadromiyim' ('The Southerners') organization, that fights for the rights of residents of Israel's embattled south, accused the IDF of lying Sunday when it said the sirens that sounded in the morning hours were false alarms.
He insisted that rockets had, indeed, been fired from Gaza at southern Israel.
"I am an officer in the Home Front Command and I say, as a resident of Ashkelon, that there is no such thing as a false alarm and there never was,” he determined. “Once the system identifies a launch, it calculates within a short time the area in which the rocket is expected to fall, so there is no such thing as a false alarm.”
Levy alleged that the IDF is continuing to hide the truth from the residents of Israel for political purposes. “It may be receiving instructions from the prime minister and the defense minister, so that Israel is not required to respond, since we are in a ceasefire now. I regret to say that [Hamas] are continuing to equip themselves with raw materials, cement and iron, and carry out tests, and they tell us these are false alarms so that we do not respond.”
There were no false alarms during Operation Protective Edge, either, the officer said. “I don't believe the IDF Spokesman and the denials,” Levy repeated. “There were no false alarms during the war, so why are they occurring now? What are they waiting for? For a rocket or mortar shell to strike a school or kindergarten? And when that happens. G-d forbid, the government will have to resign, because it will not be able to lie to the citizens and I will not be the only one who doesn't believe the IDF Spokesman.”
The IDF Spokesman's Unit responded by simply stating: “The sirens that sounded this morning were false alarms.”
A senior member of Hamas said last week that ceasefire negotiations between Israel and the Palestinian Arab factionswill resume in Cairo later this month.
The Egyptian-mediated talks are meant to cement an open-ended ceasefire agreement announced on August 26 which halted Israel's self-defense operation in Gaza.
The talks are meant to discuss some unresolved issues, specifically Israel’s demand that Gaza be demilitarized and Hamas’s demands for an airport and a seaport in Gaza. Sources in Israel have been quoted as conceding that Israel has effectively given up its demands for demilitarization, however.