GAZA

AS ISRAELI RETALIATION steps up, a Palestinian Historian says that the Hamas attack against Israel launched from the Gaza Strip has all the hallmarks of a mass jailbreak, and may be as much that as it is a military offensive.

“The first thing one notices is the sheer elation of being free that Palestinians display,” insists Dr Sami Said of the Falls University in Belfast. “Sealed up in that pressure cooker for so long, it’s as if the assault teams were merely a means of breaking out. Leaving the reservation, as the Americans say. Just to be free can be a great motivator. They will know that it will be short-lived. They will know they will pay a high price. But the taste of the oxygen of freedom is often all a prisoner seeks. Then he can return to his cell. Until the next time.”