Next Hamas War On Israel Could Include Chemical Weapons

Israel announced over the weekend that it is scaling back its ground incursion into the Gaza Strip, as it has achieved its goals of finding and destroying Hamas’ network of terror tunnels.

But some people in Israel feel the Israeli Defense Forces didn’t go far enough in eliminating the ongoing threat from Hamas. Although they fired over 3,000 rockets at Israel in the last four weeks, they still have a stockpile of thousands more.

Tourism Minister Uzi Landau, for one, sharply criticized the government’s decision to pull the army out of Gaza, noting that Hamas is still very much in power there, and worrying that the threat of missiles from Gaza has not been fully removed:

“The tunnels are a secondary objective, the main purpose was to take care of the missile threat,” Landau said to reporters in Israel, adding that, to his mind, Operation Protective Edge was not complete at all: “As of this moment, the goal of the operation […] has not been achieved. The goal should be reformulated to include long-term peace, which will not happen if they hit us soon with rockets again.”

More worrying is the fact that, according to Landau, the next time round, with Hamas still in power in Gaza, the terrorist organization will likely have “heavier missiles and larger ranges [of attack],” and possibly “chemical weapons” – if Israel does not finish the job “properly.”

The prospect of chemical weapons being fired on Israel is worrying, especially considering the Hamas charter which openly calls for the elimination of the state of Israel, as well as the murder of Jews outside of Israel.

So, for his part, Uzi Landau does have a point that Hamas is still in power, and that fact alone serves as an existential threat for the Jewish people in Israel. It is hoped by all on the Israeli side that it “doesn’t come to that.”