Shalom Harari, a retired brigadier general told this group of American Jewish journalists on the UJC fact finding trip many things.
But the major piece of information given was that Israel doesn’t go in and blow Gaza apart simply because it doesn’t want to open a second military front.
The first front, he said, is the north.
He also showed in great detail how Hamas, with Iran’s help, has gone ahead already and prepared for such and IDF invasion, literally packing tons of TNT under major intersections at any invasion route possibility.
The general also struck a nerve when he said that in the seven years of rocket attacks, “only” eight people have been killed and “only” 40 people have been wounded, so far. The cost in lives of an invasion would be so much, much more, he implored. The fear, he said, is the “strategic Quassam,” the rocket that would with purpose hit a synagogue or a school. That, he said, would give the IDF, the country ever reason to go into Gaza. But short of that, he said the world wouldn’t be sympathetic to Israel if it went in now.
On to Sderot.