Likud MP admits failure of Israeli military aggression on Gaza

Israeli Likud lawmaker Yisrael Katz admitted the failure of the Israeli military aggression on the Gaza Strip, asserting that Israel did not achieve its goals in the war which resulted in hundreds of casualties in the ranks of its troops.

Katz said that the military operation in Gaza did not succeed after Israeli premier Ehud Olmert announced a unilateral ceasefire, pointing out that Israel neither eliminated the strength of the Palestinian resistance factions, nor reached an agreement to stop arms supplies to Gaza or get Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit released.

The Observer, one of the best-selling newspapers in the UK, said that the war on Gaza inflicted a moral defeat on Israel.

The newspaper considered that the concept which says that security problems can be resolved by the unilateral use of force is only a delusion dominating the mindset of Israeli politicians.

It added that such a way of thinking did not take into account the fact that an all-out war in the densely populated Gaza against the Palestinian resistance would be essentially an attack on the civilian population of Gaza.

The newspaper noted that Israel would insist on saying that it was able to limit the ability of the Palestinian resistance to fire rockets, but the newspaper recalled that the apparent target of Israel”s war was the destruction of that capacity completely.

The truth, however, in the eyes of the newspaper is that the popularity of the Palestinian resistance has increased because of the brutality of the Israeli military aggression on Gaza.

For his part, Dr. Abdelsattar Qassem, a professor of political science at the Najah national university in Nablus, said that the battle in Gaza was settled in favor of the Palestinian resistance in terms of its steadfastness after 22 days of Israeli aggression.

Dr. Qassem stressed that the popularity of the Palestinian resistance spearheaded by Hamas doubled among the Palestinian people and in the Arab and Islamic arenas and would gain further momentum at the expense of the PA in Ramallah.

The professor added that Israel failed to break the back of the Palestinian resistance and to achieve any of its stated goals such as changing the situation in Gaza, bringing back the PA and invading the Gaza Strip cities.

He underscored that Israel is aware now that its achievement of military victory is over because it had been already defeated by the Lebanese resistance and now it made the greatest failure when it failed to invade Gaza despite the fact that it is a small stretch of land under siege for years, besides the Palestinian resistance”s defense capability in Gaza is not as that owned by the Lebanese resistance.