Hamas May Have Pre-Evacuated Rafah – IDF Col.

According to IDF Col. and Nachal Brigade Commander Yair Zuckerman, Hamas may have pre-evacuated Palestinian civilians from Rafah, in a major departure from it’s behavior throughout the war in Gaza, Zuckerman told the Jerusalem Post.

According to Zuckerman, the reasoning for this would be to give Hamas more time to set more booby traps for the IDF once it entered the area.

In all prior battles with Hamas – whether in northern Gaza, central Gaza, or Khan Yunis – the Gazan terror group pushed to prevent Palestinian civilians from following evacuation orders.

There were even numerous documented cases in which civilians who were able to speak to the IDF or terrorists who were later captured admitted that large groups of civilians had been held as human shields.

Sometimes dubbed Hamas’s “Human Shield” or “Human Sacrifice” strategy, Hamas has always acted to maximize Palestinian casualties, in order to increase international pressure on Israel.

However, Zuckerman noted that Hamas’s booby-trapping of Rafah was far more extensive than anywhere else in the Gaza Strip. It would have been unlikely Hamas could have set up so many booby traps if civilians were still living in their homes.

Additionally, the international community was surprised at how fast the majority of Rafah’s civilians left the city.

The US predicted that evacuating 1.4 million people would take four months, while the IDF expected it to take four weeks. However, the evacuation took only 2 weeks.

The theory goes, that if Hamas believed, based on the many other experiences it had with evacuation successes, that an evacuation was inevitable anyway, Hamas could benefit from extra time to set up a more extensive booby trap system.

It is important to point out that there are no other indications Hamas is abandoning it’s strategy to maximize civilian suffering.

{Matzav.com}