Free Republic

According to the IDF the posted pages of the manual focus on urban warfare, and discuss the benefits to Hamas when its own civilians' homes are destroyed. The Tuesday meeting of Palestinian Authority Foreign Minister Riad al-Malki with the International Criminal Court Prosecutor’s Office is likely far less significant than it seems. First, the Palestinians threaten over and over again to file complaints against Israelis in the ICC, but have consistently failed to pull the trigger. Also, though “Palestine” can probably overcome the statehood obstacles that blocked the Palestinians from filing war-crimes complaints against Israelis after Operation Cast Lead (2009),...

The IDF has published excerpts from a captured Hamas combat manual on "Urban Warfare", showing how the Islamist terrorist group exploits civilian casualties - and the knowledge that the IDF will seek to avoid them - to its advantage. The IDF says the manual was captured in Shujaiya suburb of Gaza City, which was the scene of particularly heavy fighting between Israeli forces and Hamas and Islamic Jihad terrorists. Among other things, the manual urges Hamas fighters to exploit the IDF's desire to minimize civilian casualties, noting: "The soldiers and commanders (of the IDF) must limit their use of weapons...

JERUSALEM -- A captured Hamas combat manual belonging to the Al-Qassam Brigades, the terrorist organization's military wing, confirms what Hamas sympathizers and the United Nations have done their best to ignore for weeks: Hamas deliberately uses its civilians as human shields, and knows that Israel will take extreme precautions not to kill those civilians. According to the contents of the manual, posted on the IDF blog, Hamas calls civilians "pockets of resistance" that force Israeli soldiers into several sets of problems: