More chest-thumping from the lovers of death. “Gaza perceives victory over weaker Israel,” by Tobias Buck for the Financial Times via Zawya, November 23:
…”People rushed to the shop as soon as it opened,” said Abu Wassim, the owner of Alqadi Famous Sweets in Jabalya. His store sold four times more baklava, knaffeh and other sugary delights than on normal days. “In your country, when you celebrate a victory, you open a bottle of alcohol,” he said. “Here, we go and buy sweets.”
In Gaza, they have been treating the end of the latest bloody clash between Israel and Hamas as a Palestinian victory. Of that they have no doubt.
On Wednesday night, thousands celebrated spontaneously in the streets, minutes after the ceasefire announcement. On Thursday, declared a national holiday by the Gaza authorities, there were victory parades and rallies. On Friday, the midday prayers were dominated by declarations of victory, with some preachers drawing a line between the latest conflict and the Prophet Mohammed’s victory over the infidels….
“We saw the Israelis panicked and bleeding,” said Ahmed Youssef, a senior Hamas official. “We have always been under attack alone. We have always been bleeding alone. But this time the Israelis suffered just as we suffered.”…
Majid Nofal, a butcher in Jabalya, insisted Israel had been exposed over the past 10 days as a “fragile state”. Israel was forced to ask for a ceasefire out of weakness, he said. And because of fears that a ground invasion of Gaza would have resulted in heavy Israeli casualties.
“For sure my picture of Israel has changed,” he said. “We always thought that Israel is fragile. But the resistance of the last few days has made us confident of this fact. Inshallah, Israel will soon disappear.”…
As he shuffled away, a Hamas sheikh began his eulogy of Mohammed Jamal. He praised his martyrdom, saying the dead man and his family would be guaranteed a place in heaven. And the latest clash with Hamas’s enemy had been a great victory, he said, “the first nail in the coffin of Israel”.