Israeli Army Changes Proof Of Gaza Failure: Hamas

Palestinian resistance faction Hamas said Monday that a recent move by the Israeli military to replace the chief of its Gaza Division had confirmed Israel's "failure" in its recently-ended war on the Gaza Strip.



"This failure has been accompanied by a number of disciplinary measures being taken against Israeli army generals who came up short when confronting the Palestinian resistance in Gaza," Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri told Anadolu Agency.



According to Hamas, Hebrew-language newspapers on Monday reported an Israeli army decision to replace Gaza Division Commander Mickey Edelstein.



Even with this, an Israeli military source said Edelstein was supposed to leave his post before the Gaza operation but he just waited because of the operation.



"His new post is the commander of the forces in Sinai border and commander of the training ground forces there," the source told AA. "It was just a regular change, nothing more," the source added.  



Some Israeli military sources said Sunday that the army planned to investigate two incidents that occurred during Israeli onslaughts on the city of Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip.



The sources told Israeli Radio that the investigation would examine, among other things, the capture of an Israeli soldier during the attacks.



Israel's just-ended 51-day offensive against the Gaza Strip left some 2,147 Gazans dead and 11,000 injured – the vast majority of them civilians – while partially or completely destroying thousands of buildings across the coastal enclave.



The offensive, initially launched with the stated aim of ending rocket fire from Gaza, finally ended with the announcement of an indefinite cease-fire that came into effect last week.



According to Israeli figures, 67 Israeli soldiers and five civilians were killed over the course of the operation – the highest military death toll suffered by the self-proclaimed Jewish state since it lost 119 troops in its 2006 war on Lebanon.



Additional reporting by Turgut Alp Boyraz



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