Israel Is Finally Treating Gaza’s “Small” Jihadi Acts Like the Acts of War That They Are

Avi Abelow | Meta

DM Israel Katz. Photo by Itzhak Harari / Knesset Archives, CC BY-SA 4.0, Wikipedia

Finally, Israel Is treating Gaza’s “Small” jihadi acts like the acts of war that they are.

Over the past several days, jihadis in Gaza have launched several kites that crossed the border and landed in or near Israeli communities. For years, terrorists used similar kites as weapons of arson, setting Israeli fields and nature reserves ablaze and causing enormous destruction.

Finally, Israel is changing its strategy, confronting this jihadist threat before it is allowed to escalate into something far more deadly.

Defense Minister Israel Katz issued the kind of statement that should have been Israeli policy years ago:

“We view every launch as an act of war in every sense.”

Katz instructed the IDF to respond “immediately and forcefully” to any kite, balloon or drone launched from Gaza toward Israel, whether or not it carries explosives.

His message was clear:

“A balloon is treated like a kite, and a kite is treated like a drone, with or without explosives.”

And most importantly:

“We will not allow a return to the reality of before October 7.”

Finally.

This is not merely a statement about kites. It represents a desperately needed change in the way Israel understands the enemy.

For years, Israel’s political and defense establishments allowed legal restrictions, international pressure and a disastrous doctrine of restraint to handcuff our soldiers and normalize terrorism from Gaza.

When terrorists began launching incendiary kites and balloons across the border in 2018, thousands of acres of Israeli farmland and nature reserves were burned. Crops were destroyed. Wildlife was killed. Israeli families watched their fields go up in flames.

Yet instead of treating every incendiary device as an act of war, Israel absorbed it.

We allowed an absurd distinction to take hold: A rocket was considered a serious attack, while a burning kite that crossed a border fence and deliberately set Israeli land on fire was treated as a limited disturbance requiring a measured response.

But jihadi terror is terror.

A primitive weapon does not become harmless merely because it costs a few shekels instead of thousands of dollars.

The enemy learned the lesson: Israel could be attacked without paying a decisive price.

At the same time, Hamas organized violent mobs along the Gaza border fence under the propaganda label of “protests.” These were not peaceful demonstrations. They included attempts to breach the border, damage security infrastructure, plant explosives, throw grenades and attack Israeli soldiers.

Yet the dominant legal and operational IDF culture forced our troops to distinguish, in real time, among rioters, demonstrators, instigators and terrorists, all while Hamas deliberately blended them together.

The military legal bureaucracy, the attorney general’s influence, fear of international condemnation and an entrenched doctrine of restraint all contributed to an atmosphere in which commanders too often worried about lawyers and headlines while terrorists tested the fence, leading our IDF soldiers on guarding the border fence to be defenseless.

The horrifying result was seen on August 21, 2021.

Border Police officer Barel Hadaria Shmueli, hy”d, was stationed behind the Gaza barrier during a violent Hamas-organized riot. A Hamas operative reached the wall, pushed a pistol through a firing slit and shot Barel in the head at point-blank range.

Barel fought for his life for nine days before dying from his wounds.

How did a Hamas terrorist get close enough to place a gun through the wall and shoot an Israeli officer at point-blank range?

Why were violent mobs permitted to reach the barrier at all?

Why did Israel accept a reality in which our soldiers were placed inches away from a jihadist crowd, forced to react only after the danger became immediate?

The strategic failure by the legal and defense establishment that instituted such harsh conditions and distinctions for our IDF soldiers to act allowed Hamas to create that situation in the first place.

October 7 showed us where that doctrine leads.

Hamas studied us for years. It tested our fences, our soldiers, our cameras, our response times and our willingness to absorb provocations. It learned that Israelis had been conditioned to dismiss each escalation as an isolated incident.

It is only a protest.

It is only a balloon.

It is only a kite.

It is only a few people approaching the fence.

It is only a hole in the barrier.

Until suddenly it was thousands of terrorists, and unarmed civilians invading Israel, murdering approximately 1,200 people and kidnapping 251 others, with our soldiers unwilling to shoot because not all of the infiltrators had guns!

That is why the latest kites cannot be dismissed.

The kites found in Israeli communities reportedly did not carry explosives or incendiary material. But that does not mean they were innocent.

We do not yet have public proof of who launched each kite or under whose orders. Yet anyone who understands Hamas’s methods must recognize the obvious possibility: Israel is being tested again.

Can objects cross the border without being detected?

How quickly does the IDF respond?

Will Israel investigate but do nothing?

Will civilians become accustomed to seeing kites overhead?

Can the launches gradually become more frequent and then become weaponized?

This is how jihadist organizations operate. They probe for weakness. They normalize the abnormal. They begin with something the West can dismiss, then expand once they learn that the response will be limited.

That is why Katz’s new standard is so important.

Israel must stop the threat before it develops not after an Israeli field is burning, not after an explosive lands in a kindergarten and certainly not after another soldier or civilian is murdered.

Every object deliberately launched from enemy territory toward an Israeli community must be treated as a potential weapon.

Every organizer must know he is a target.

Every Hamas commander who enables the launches must understand that he will pay a price.

Every neighborhood or position used to threaten Israel must lose the immunity Hamas believes civilian surroundings provide.

This is how deterrence is restored.

Not through statements of concern.

Not through investigations that conclude months later.

Not through another appeal to international mediators.

Through immediate, unmistakable consequences.

The Middle East does not interpret restraint as goodwill. Our jihadist enemies interpret restraint as weakness. They view every Israeli hesitation as an invitation to test us again.

That does not mean acting recklessly. It means recognizing hostile intent early and preventing an emerging threat from becoming another established reality.

The responsibility of the IDF is not to preserve normal life for Hamas-controlled Gaza while Israeli communities are tested and terrorized.

Its responsibility is to protect Jewish life.

The responsibility of Israel’s legal establishment is not to make warfare impossible for our soldiers. It is to provide them with a clear framework that enables them to defeat the enemy while defending the country.

And the responsibility of the government is to ensure that never again will our soldiers stand with their hands effectively tied while jihadists approach the fence to test, attack and murder them.

This must become the new Israeli doctrine:

A threat is stopped before it grows.

A border violation receives an immediate response.

Those directing attacks pay the price.

Israelis do not wait to be murdered before being allowed to defend themselves.

For too many years, we allowed the enemy to establish the rules of the game.

October 7 taught us the price.

Now Israel must establish new rules and enforce them without hesitation.

No more “containment.”

No more accepting “limited” terrorism.

No more waiting for kites to become incendiary devices, incendiary devices to become explosives, riots to become invasions and threats to become massacres.

Finally, Israel appears ready to stop this dangerous nonsense before it grows into something far more deadly.

May Defense Minister Katz stand by his words.

May the IDF implement them decisively.

And may every jihadist enemy understand that the Jewish people are finished waiting passively to see what comes next.

We are here to protect Jewish life.

We are here to defeat our enemies.

And we are never returning to the reality before October 7.

Ultimately, we must aim to liberate all of Gaza, enable its jihadist population to relocate elsewhere and rebuild Jewish Gaza on a scale even greater than before Israel’s disastrous 2005 withdrawal. That is the decisive victory our enemies must see: Israel will protect its people, reclaim its land and defeat jihad without being restrained by a legal or defense establishment still trapped in the failed thinking that led us to October 7.

It is up to us. No to jihad. Yes to Jewish liberation of Jewish lands, while getting rid of the evil from God’s Holy land that he entrusted to the Jewish people.

Strengthen your faith. We got this!

Am Yisrael Chai!!!

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