What the cease fire bought Hamas

NY Times:

A piercing shriek went up and a young woman fainted as the body, wrapped in a white shroud, was brought into the packed funeral hall.

On Tuesday, this fast-developing, modern port city about halfway between Gaza and Tel Aviv buried its first victim of a rocket attack: Irit Sheetrit, a 39-year-old mother of four.

The Katyusha-type rocket that killed her was fired Monday night by Palestinian militants from Gaza. It was the first to have hit this city of more than 200,000, so far north of the Palestinian territory, and underscored how rockets from Gaza were reaching farther into the country with each passing day.

As the sun set on Tuesday, rockets flying out of Gaza were landing in new places like Kiryat Malachi, to the northeast, and Beersheba, a major city in Israel’s south.

Over the weekend, Israel began its devastating aerial bombardment of Hamas targets in Gaza with the stated goal of stopping the incessant rocket fire that has plagued Israeli towns and villages close to the border for years.

More than 370 Palestinians have been killed in the Israeli assault so far, Palestinian officials said. Among the dead are at least 62 women and children, according to the United Nations, and an unknown number of civilian men. The militants have responded by firing increasingly advanced rockets with longer ranges into Israel.

Yet here, amid the sobbing of the mourners, many of them in a state of shock and disbelief, support for a sustained Israeli military campaign remained strong.

“Of course we support it,” said Rosette Alalouf, a former colleague of Ms. Sheetrit, at the funeral. “Do we have a choice?”

In his eulogy, Yehiel Lasri, the mayor of Ashdod, conveyed the prevailing spirit of resolve here. “Has not the time come to use full force and all the means at our disposal?”

Mr. Lasri added that he had watched as Sderot first came under rocket fire, then Ashkelon, a city on the coast. “We hoped they would not get to Ashdod, but we did not delude ourselves,” he said, noting that the authorities have been preparing for such a situation for two years.

...
A cease fire with a Hamas entity only buys Hamas more time to acquire weapons to kill Israelis. Hamas is a nihilistic death cult and needs to be destroyed.

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