KHAN YUNIS

“TRYING TO FILTER out Hamas fighters from the general population in Gaza is like trying to find a single needle in a pile of needles. It’s the basis of guerrilla warfare: the guerrilla secretes himself in the civilian population, and until he picks up a gun he’s virtually undetectable.”

The Israeli officer sitting on the chest of a dead Hamas fighter who had literally emerged from a tunnel between the officer’s legs, pulled out a cigarette and smoked it while he talked.

“You see all this,” he remarked, “I know they’re there, like we know insects are all around us, but we just can’t see them until they show themselves. Only these guys don’t do that. Sure we kill a few of their leaders but that’s propaganda speak for ‘Look We Can’t Destroy Hamas But We Can Force Their Leadership To Look For A Pay Rise’. War by single assassination doesn’t really work. And you run the risk of someone better than the idiot you killed – hey, he got himself caught – rising to the top. One needle down, another three million to go. And the world asks us to go easy on these needles. Did Britain go easy on Germany’s needles? Did America go easy on Japan’s? If Gaza elects Hamas then Gaza gets what Hamas gets. Not that it will make a difference. My son might be doing this some day. My father did it. Shit.”

The officer was hit by a Hamas sniper a day later. From a tunnel ten metres behind him.