A ceasefire agreement without the return of abducted soldier Gilad Shalit, without control of the Philadelphi Corridor and without forcing Hamas to cease its fire unconditionally is “a security crime” and “diplomatic folly,” MK Uri Ariel of the National Union said Sunday.
Leaving Gaza without taking control of the Philadelphi Corridor is “an invitation to the next war, after Hamas renews its abilities, its armament and the flow of instructors from Iran,” Ariel claimed.
An IDF withdrawal without Gilad Shalit, Ariel predicted, would cause the world to ask – “how could you leave without him? Why on earth did you go to war and cause so many casualties and damage on the other side?”
Hamas, he said, will be able to improve its image and international standing, too, after the flood of international reporting that will show “the humanitarian disaster” caused by Israel.
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Dr. Michael Ben-Ari, who is fourth on the National Union's Knesset list, said that if the point of the operation was “to go into Gaza in order to go out later” then it was unfair to send soldiers to risk their lives in the fighting.
"I am sorry to say,” he explained, “that in all of Israel's wars, including the Six Day War and the Yom Kippur War, Israel did not take the war to its end, because there is an attitude here that believes in showing the world that we are nice guys, while a vicious enemy needs to be dealt with to the bitter end.”
"We should have come to the Hamas people and told them – if you don't come out of Shifa Hospital now with your hands raised we will bomb the hospital with its occupants,” he added.
Hamas's leaders hid underneath Shifa Hospital, on the assumption that the IDF would not bomb them for fear of killing patients in the hospital and causing a medical crisis.