25-Aug-14: In Gaza, the idea of Israelis tending to sick and injured Gazans makes them crazy

Erez during a previous Hamas assault in 2007

First, the good news.

The Erez Crossing, a passenger and cargo terminal built by the government of Israel to serve the needs of the hapless Palestinian subjects of the dark Hamas regime, is still functioning. People, including those seriously injured or ill and in desperate need of the medical and other care that Israel's modern facilities can provide, are able to pass through it and get to where they want to be in Israel, even in these very difficult days of war.

The less-good news is that Erez came under rocket barrage yesterday (Sunday). Despite this, the cross-over remained open for emergency medical cases thanks to the dedication of the Israelis who operate it.

Some 50 people were scheduled to use the Erez crossing Sunday, but Kamil Abu Rokan, the Director of the Crossings Point Authority of the Defense Ministry, and General Yoav Mordehai, the Coordinator of the Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT), closed the crossing to all traffic except for life-saving cases after the barrage... Two Gaza females were evacuated “20 minutes ago” (Sunday) via the crossing for life-saving surgery in Israel... Other taxi-drivers were on hand, “as always,” to transport emergency patients. [Times of Israel]

Barrage?

Four Israelis were injured Sunday, two of them seriously, when a large rocket and mortar barrage hit the Erez crossing between Israel and the Gaza Strip... “The [drivers] sat in a shed and waited for the passengers and their relatives who were leaving Gaza for Israeli hospitals Ichilov and Tel Hashomer. Then seven shells fell — just one after the other. We didn’t have time to flee; it was a matter of a second...” The victims were Israeli-Arab taxi drivers, who were at the crossing to pick up wounded Gazans and bring them into Israel for medical treatment. The wounded were evacuated to Ashkelon’s Barzilai hospital. An outraged Israeli-Arab Erez crossing official, who spoke to Army Radio from a secured area at the crossing during a subsequent rocket attack, lambasted Hamas for not caring about the well-being of the Palestinians in Gaza. “This is an organization that cares about the [Palestinian] people? They’re shooting at the Palestinian terminal...” [Times of Israel]

The IDF says "some eleven mortar and rocket rounds landed near the crossing" and several people - there are conflicting media reports as to whether three or five - are injured.

Just one more small, under-reported and soon-to-be-forgotten story from the war waged by the Islamist terrorists against their own.