Keinan: ’IDF Offensive Accomplished a Drop in the Ocean’, by Hillel Fendel (Israel National News)
Excerpts;
Nissim Keinan, nationally famous for his Voice of Israel broadcasts from the Sderot and Gaza regions, told Arutz-7 the IDF Gaza offensive accomplished a “drop in the ocean” of what needs to be done.
We’re talking about looking for a needle in a haystack – because Beit Hanoun, where the offensive took place, is just a small town of 30,000 people; but what about Beit Lahiya and all its terrorists? And what about Jebalya, and the entire area of the Shati refugee camp, and the Khan Yunis area, and Dir el-Balach – I mean, the entire place is swarming with terrorists.
Keinan then moved on to the catastrophic situation in Rafah, at the Philadelphi Route between Gaza and the Egyptian Sinai. Many army generals, security experts and MKs have warned of the huge amounts of weapons being smuggled in through and under the border in that area. Keinan said, “All the arms caches that we uncovered in Beit Hanoun are zero compared to what there is in Rafah… There is no real military activity by Israel in Rafah – but the truth is that even an air attack would not be effective. It’s simply a paradise of terrorism, with barely anyone bothering the smugglers.
The IDF looks for tunnels, and sometimes finds a few, but the more they find, the more tunnels are dug. We are still very far from a real high-level strategic massive offensive that can start dealing with this largest terror arsenal in the Middle East.”
“The only way to solve the problem of the tunnels,” Keinan said, “is by flooding the area with water, as former Gush Katif Regional Council head Araleh Tzur once proposed.”
Tzur…. said that he worked on the idea with a hydrologist from Hebrew University, including how much it would cost and where the water would come from, and that it was taken seriously by the IDF when he presented it. At one point, however, it was scuttled because of what he said were
“extraneous considerations.” The entire idea is predicated upon a governmental decision to take over the area,” Tzur added – something that many security experts have been recommending of late.