Gaza mother says support for wars fading

n a rare interview with Israel’s Channel 12 news on Monday, a woman who lives in the Gaza Strip described her terror during Israeli air strikes in recent days as part of Operation Breaking Dawn and said public support for the Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) terror groups was fading.

She spoke as the Palestinian coastal enclave was recovering from three days of bombardments by the Israeli military as PIJ fired over 1000 rockets and mortar bombs at Israel.

Speaking in English and on condition of anonymity out of fear of reprisals from Hamas, which rules the Strip, the woman said there has been a change in public sentiment.

“The view, the perspective, the thought of Gaza people has changed completely. In the previous wars, they were with the resistance, with Hamas and Jihad, but now people are calling for the stop of war,” she said.

“The only one who gets demolished and [is] losing is the people of Gaza, not the leaders,” she said.

The woman said she lies to her children during Israeli air strikes, telling them “it is a celebration, not a bombing”.

“They try to believe me but look at my face and see how I’m scared and know that I’m not giving the truth,” she said.

In one especially fearful moment, the woman said she was in the kitchen in her home while one of the children was in another room. “I felt a sudden bombing happen, I felt like my child would go with this bombing,” she said.

Meanwhile, Gaza’s Hamas rulers issued sweeping new restrictions on journalists in the enclave following the recent conflict, only to then rescinded them, a group representing foreign media in Israel and the Palestinian territories said on Tuesday.

Palestinians who work with foreign journalists were first informed of the new rules earlier this week in messages sent by the Hamas-run Gaza Interior Ministry. They were ordered not to report on Gazans killed by misfired Palestinian rockets or the military capabilities of Palestinian terror groups, and were told to blame Israel for the recent escalation.

The Foreign Press Association (FPA), which represents international media, including The Associated Press, said the guidelines were rescinded after discussions with authorities in Gaza.

The FPA said in a statement that “such a move would have constituted a severe, unacceptable and unjustifiable restriction on the freedom of the press, as well as the safety of our colleagues in Gaza”.

It comes after Israeli efforts to convey the truth that an explosion in Gaza that killed multiple people, including several children, was the work of a failed rocket launch by Palestinian terrorists rather than an IDF strike appeared to have paid off.

Initial reports from Gaza claimed an Israeli strike in the Jabaliya refugee camp in northern Gaza had killed seven civilians, including four children. But the IDF stated unequivocally that it had not struck anywhere in the area at the time and it had video and radar proof the explosion was caused by a rocket misfired by Palestinian terrorists.

CNN, The New York Times, AFP and others all carried the Israeli claim.

TIMES OF ISRAEL, AGENCIES