Palestinians Flee Hamas, Ask Israel to Imprison Them

by Khaled Abu Toameh
December 12, 2014 at 5:00 am

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/4948/palestinians-israeli-jails

Translations of this item:

"I'm sad that I'm back in the Gaza Strip. I went through happy times [in Israeli detention], where I had food, calm, good work, although I did not receive a salary. Those were unforgettable days where I had delicious food that we don't have in the Gaza Strip." — Rabi, 16, who crossed the border from Gaza and was held in detention for three months before being sent back home.
Not only is Hamas unwilling to accept any kind of responsibility, but it continues to hold everyone but itself responsible for the tragic situation n the Gaza Strip.
Instead of working to improve the living conditions of its people, Hamas is continuing to prepare for the next war against Israel. In recent weeks, Hamas increased its rocket and mortar firing tests out to sea.

Palestinian youths prefer to spend time in Israeli prison than to live in the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip.

Over the past two months, more than 20 Palestinians have been arrested while trying to cross from the Gaza Strip into Israel, according to Palestinian sources. A number of Palestinians have also been killed or wounded during their infiltration attempts.

The increase in the number of Palestinians who try to infiltrate Israel comes as Egypt continues to keep the Rafah border crossing closed. It also comes as the power struggle between Hamas and Fatah intensifies, hampering international efforts to rebuild the Gaza Strip and improve Palestinians' living conditions in the aftermath of last summer's military confrontation with Israel.

The situation has become so miserable in Gaza that some Palestinian youths are prepared to endanger their lives by approaching the border with Israel.

Palestinian sources note that 12 Palestinians recently managed to cross the border from the Gaza Strip into Israel.

The Palestinian news website, Al-Watan Voice, interviewed two of the youths who embarked on the dangerous adventure. The two young men said they prefer the "comfort" of Israeli prisons to life in the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip.

Ahmed al-Rai, 19, never made it into Israel. As he approached the security buffer zone along the border between Israel and the Gaza Strip, he was shot and moderately wounded by IDF troops. Al-Rai has lost a leg and is now lying in bed at the Nasser Hospital in the Gaza Strip.

"I wanted to escape to Israel so that I would be imprisoned there," he recounted. "It would have been a relief for me and better than the problems in the Gaza Strip. I thought it would be easy to infiltrate the border, but now my life has become even more miserable."

The second youth, who was identified as 16-year-old Rabi, was more fortunate. After he managed to cross the border into Israel, he was held in detention for three months before being sent back home.

"I'm sad that I'm back in the Gaza Strip," Rabi said. "I went through happy times [in Israeli detention], where I had food, calm and good work, although I did not receive a salary. Those were unforgettable days where I had delicious food that we don't have in the Gaza Strip."

He said that when the interrogator asked him about the reason he wanted to come to Israel, he responded: "The situation in the Gaza Strip is very difficult. My father, who once worked in Israel, told me it was beautiful there."

The last war between Hamas and Israel has resulted in a sharp rise in the number of Palestinians seeking to escape from the Gaza Strip. Last September, scores of Palestinian migrants attempting to flee the Gaza Strip died after their boat capsized in the Mediterranean Sea off the coast of northern Egypt.

But the closure of the Rafah border crossing and strict Egyptian security measures in Sinai, following a spate of terror attacks on Egyptian soldiers, have forced some Palestinians to seek work and a better life in Israel. Thousands of Palestinians remain stranded on both sides of the Rafah border crossing despite repeated appeals to the Egyptian authorities to prevent a humanitarian catastrophe.

An Egyptian military source announced this week that the Egyptian Army has destroyed more than 60 smuggling tunnels along the border with the Gaza Strip since October 28. This move has also aggravated the situation in the Gaza Strip, especially given the fact that the tunnels were also being used to smuggle food and other basic needs, and not only weapons.

Hamas claims that there is no phenomenon of Palestinians fleeing to Israel. A spokesman for the Hamas-controlled Interior Ministry said that security forces in the Gaza Strip were working to prevent Palestinians from crossing into Israel.

But what Hamas is not prepared to admit is that it is responsible for the misery of the Palestinians living under its rule in the Gaza Strip. More than three months after the military confrontation with Israel, Hamas has failed to offer the Palestinians any hope.

"Hamas has destroyed the dreams of young Palestinians," remarked a veteran Palestinian journalist in the Gaza Strip. "Hamas has destroyed the future of young people here."

Not only is Hamas unwilling to accept any kind of responsibility, but it continues to hold everyone else but itself responsible for the tragic situation in the Gaza Strip. Hamas continues to hold Israel, the Palestinian Authority and UNRWA responsible for the grievances of the Palestinians.

Instead of working to improve the living conditions of its people, Hamas is continuing to prepare its next war against Israel. In recent weeks, Hamas increased its rocket and mortar firing tests out to sea, according to an Israeli military source.

The tragic case of the two Palestinian youths who said they prefer Israeli jail to life in the Gaza Strip shows that some Palestinians are no longer willing to tolerate Hamas's deadly adventures and oppression. That is why the coming weeks and months could see a rise in the number of Palestinians knocking on Israel's door and asking to be imprisoned rather than return to the Gaza Strip.

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Related Topics: Israel, Palestinian Authority

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Comment on this item

19 Reader Comments

ScienceABC123 • Feb 20, 2015 at 06:38

Imagines that, the "Palestinians" don't like their own leaders. I wonder if they will do something about that, besides blame Israel.

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Cathrine Brougham • Dec 14, 2014 at 21:56

If only organisations like the UN could see the good that Israel does and respond positively for a change.

Why don't they concentrate on the terrible conditions to many people are in like the people in Gaza, the woman of India, Syrians etc and do something to help them instead of wasting precious resources on degrading Israel. Without these precious people in the land that the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob gave them, the rest of us would be up the proverbial creek without the boat, never mind the paddles!

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Jane

Cathrine Brougham • Dec 23, 2014 at 21:29

Many of us in the U.S. view them as a corrupt eunuch that would love to seize world-wide domination. We'd like to have them kicked out of the U.S. Let them set up headquarters in Europe.

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Russell • Dec 14, 2014 at 03:57

Hamas and the PA are not a government, they are terrorist organisations bent on the destruction of Israel at all costs. They have no interest in improving the lives of innocent members of the Arab community in Gaza or anywhere else. The sooner the world leaders realise this and stop funding them to buy more arms to further their goals, the better. In fact all supporters of terrorism should be sanctioned until they realise that governing and caring for their people is the way not waging war.. War always brings misery.

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Julius O'Malley • Dec 13, 2014 at 19:23

One of Israel's biggest flaws is being too kind to the "Palestinians": it speaks volumes that some Gazans prefer life in an Israeli jail to "freedom" in Hamas-ruled Gaza.

In June 1971, at the closing stages of King Hussein's crackdown on the PLO in Jordan (where it had long formed a state within a state) hundreds of PLO fighters and their families crossed into Israeli-controlled territory to escape the Jordanian army which adhered to a strict take no prisoners form of warfare. The Israelis in a ludicrously magnanimous humanitarian gesture let them in. That is, saved their lives. Why? The most sensible thing to have done would have been to close the border and let the Jordanian Army slaughter them. Not least because those Fatah fighters and families that the Israelis let in then made their way to southern Lebanon to form the kernel (both operationally and demographically) of the PLO's future state within a state in Lebanon. Which was a major factor in the descent of Lebanon into a long and brutal civil war.

Don't bother looking for mention of this episode in the Wiki article on "Black September in Jordan", there's no mention of it as it reflects too well on the humanity of Israel. Rather we find there that the PLO members who somehow survived the Jordanian onslaught somehow safely made their way to Lebanon.

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Dan • Dec 13, 2014 at 15:28

Since the early 1900s the Palestinian Arabs have been betrayed, abused, murdered, looted and relocated by the Arabs from outside of Palestine. Now that Hamas and others are situated in Gaza and Palestine the brutality continues without any concern for the resident Arabs.

The book "Palestine Betrayed" by Efraim Karsh is an eye opening saga of how the Palestinian Arabs were and continue to be abused by other Arabs and Arab states for their own gain.

While antisemitism is certainly part of the history, one wonders how much of the continual violence in Israel/Gaza etc is used to hide the fact of poverty and abuse in the other Arab states and Egypt.

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Daniel Eischens • Dec 12, 2014 at 23:47

Sometimes I wonder if it isn't out of fear that many of the Palestinians even support Hamas at all. There are some that would prefer living in prison in Israel than living under Hamas authority. The kind of threats that these people suffer at the hands of their political/religious authorities is a form of peer bullyism with the fear of getting their heads cut off if they rock the boat. What reason would their G_d want to cut off the heads of other peoples who don't even want anything to do with the Palestinians, or even want to harm them. This is a smaller world than that.

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steven L • Dec 12, 2014 at 22:59

A new generation of young Palestinians should rise and fight the corrupted Hamas and PA.

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Bill Gantt • Dec 12, 2014 at 22:27

When are these people going to stand up and take their country back? They want someone else to take responsibility for them. Well if you do not have the courage and conviction to fight for yourselves don't expect someone else to do it for you.
FREEDOM IS WORTH FIGHTING AND DYING FOR. No one can GIVE anyone freedom. You stand up for true freedom and liberty of everyone; not just people from your family or color or religion but everyone and I will fight with you. Otherwise look at your life and accept it because it is not going to change.

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Artiewhitrefox • Dec 12, 2014 at 13:26

Give those that are fleeing Hamas the comfort of the Israeli prisons. They are better than what Hamas is giving.

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r slomovic • Dec 12, 2014 at 12:48

God gave the people of Gaza a great gift, a piece of land that is magnificent, with a beautiful beach, but they refuse to use that gift for the good of their people. They could have built hotels and a marina and have boats, large and small, come to their shores and make the people prosper. Instead they have voted for a band of murderers to control the population and deprive them of life liberty and gave them only war, death and destruction.

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Shimon • Dec 12, 2014 at 10:30

I wonder were else this interesting article will be published. Again the truth is very local and not widely spread among thinking people. Sad.

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AmericanMom • Dec 12, 2014 at 10:07

If Hamas used the billions of dollars in aid that they are getting from most nations in the world for food, education and infrastructure improvements instead of for war and destruction there would be no desperate youths trying to get into Israeli prisons.

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Gerry Feldman • Dec 12, 2014 at 10:01

Israel should offer exit (one-way ticket) to any Gazans who wish to leave voluntarily. This would significantly lower population in Gaza and severely embarrass Hamas.

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Sharon Bussell • Dec 12, 2014 at 08:56

The Islamist agenda, wherever it manifests, is incapable of positive governance, instead relying on the platform of "resistance" and "purification." The populations of these projects is always the one to suffer most.

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Albert Reingewirtz • Dec 12, 2014 at 07:40

While the youth in Gaza prefers Israeli jail to Gaza because of Hamas, Israeli/ Arab members of the Knesset support Hamas vociferously. Go ahead explain that if you can! Furthermore, explain why such elected Israeli Arabs are still members of the Knesset while supporting Islamic terror openly? One more thing, please explain why some are calling Israel an Apartheid state while it includes 20% Israeli Arabs with full rights to the point that an Israeli Arab judge in the Supreme court of Israel read the verdict against an ex-President of Israel. Abbas on the other hand declared repeatedly that in his future "Palestine" no Jew would be allowed to live, just like in the rest of the Arab world. There is blatant Apartheid in the Arab states and the PA but not in Israel.

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Hanna • Dec 12, 2014 at 07:00

I said this many times before: "when Moslems, in general, and Palestinians, in particular, will FINALLY realize who their REAL FRIENDS are - there will be PEACE. The two young Palestinian boys found it out in an Israeli jail. Now it is high time for the so - called MODERATE MOSLEMS to come out of their hiding places and say ENOUGH IS ENOUGH!

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sylvie • Dec 12, 2014 at 06:57

This is what the world needs to know. The USA has recently passed a resolution against Hamas for using its people as shields during the last Gaza conflict. I think that most people here, in the U.K. don't get this kind of information, so they continue to believe that Israel is the Great Oppressor and the 'Palestinians' the poor victims. Well, the latter is true, but they are victims of their own psychopathic leaders. Whether it is Fatah or Hamas, they all call for the destruction of Israel, and the death of Jews. Their incitement and hatred spreads around the world. People need to see the sort of news that the above article refers to. Then they might learn the truth.

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Lily LINDSAY • Dec 12, 2014 at 06:36

What a terrible country Israel is! So why is it that the Gazans risk their lives to enter Israel?

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