A Palestinian demonstrator uses a sling to hurl back a tear gas canister fired by Israeli troops during a protest at the Israel-Gaza border fence, in the central Gaza Strip January 25, 2019. REUTERS/Ibraheem Abu Mustafa A new report from the Meir Amit Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center (ITIC) concluded that 80 percent of the Palestinians killed by Israel Defense Forces (IDF) in the weekly riots at the Gaza border belong to Palestinian terror groups.
The report states that of the 187 Palestinians killed at the ongoing riots that have occurred every Friday since March 30, “150 of them were identified by the ITIC as being affiliated with some organization, most of them operatives of Hamas or affiliated with it.”
The ITIC found that 96 were part of Hamas, 36 were part of Fatah and six were part of Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ).
“According to these findings, it is evident that during the ‘return march’ demonstrations, operatives of the terrorist organizations in the Gaza Strip, especially Hamas operatives or Palestinians affiliated with Hamas, occupy the front line of confrontation vis-à-vis the IDF forces,” the report states. “In most cases, it is these operatives who throw hand grenades and IEDs at the IDF forces, and it is these operatives who approach the security fence and attempt to sabotage it or penetrate into Israeli territory. In addition, some of the operatives were also involved in attempts to carry out terrorist attacks during the demonstrations and hit the IDF troops deployed on the ground.”
Some examples of the terrorist deaths listed in the report includes Hamas operative Ahmed Hassan Abu Odeh, who went under the name Ahmed Oweidat as a journalist, and Fatah operative Abdallah Barham Suleiman al-Daghma, who was killed attempting to breach the Israeli border.
The report added that most of the civilians who take part in riots are typically positioned more toward the “rear sites,” which is why they consist of the minority of the deaths in the riots.
“The large number of fatalities from the terrorist organizations on the front line demonstrates that the violence against the IDF near the border is not ‘popular,’ as the false Palestinian propaganda wishes to convey. It is orchestrated by Hamas and significantly involves operatives of Hamas’s military wing or operatives affiliated with Hamas,” the report states. “It also shows that the IDF soldiers do not shoot indiscriminately at ‘innocent’ demonstrators but instead, in most cases, target and hit specific terrorist operatives.”
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