According to Reuters, on Wednesday UNRWA summoned Matthias Schmale, the director of UNRWA in the Gaza Strip, for consultation with his bosses in Jerusalem, because he angered Gaza Arabs with comments that “favored Israel” in last month’s fighting.
On May 25, Schmale apologized for telling Israel’s Channel 12 that, with only a few exceptions, the targets attacked by Israel were not civilian. Before his apology was published, Hamas and Palestinian human rights organizations condemned the director’s remarks.
Schmale also expressed unexpected gratitude, telling Channel 12 that “during the 11 days of fighting, we did not run out of food, water, and supplies, which would have happened if the border crossings had not been opened.”
Yes, it turns out that the Zionist war criminals, despite being shelled by Hamas and Islamic Jihad rockets and mortars, continued to show compassion for the civilian population in Gaza and allowed all that good stuff to keep flowing into Gaza – except when those shipments were attacked by Hamas and Jihad rocket barrages. Those same barrages also took down Gaza’s power lines, which Israeli technicians risked their lives to repair.
The Channel 12 interviewer, Arad Nir, asked: “Officials in Israel claim that the bombings carried out by the IDF were very accurate. What impression did you get from those attacks?”
“Although I am not an expert on military matters, I do not deny it,” Schmale answered, “I, too, was under the impression that the attacks by the Israeli army were carried out with great sophistication.”
For his show of insolence, telling the truth and all that, Hamas attacked Schmale, calling him “a spokesman for the Israeli military.”
Fearing for his life, Schmale quickly apologized for his remarks, and said that although “precision was there,” Gazans’ experienced “unacceptable and unbearable loss of life on the civilian side.”
He didn’t get into the well-established fact that Hamas and the Jihad use civilians as human shields to protect their rocket launchers – a war crime on a par with Nazi atrocities.
According to Reuters, Sami Mshasha, UNRWA’s spokesman in Jerusalem, announced on Wednesday that Schmale and his deputy had been “called in for consultation and discussion at the Jerusalem headquarters over the latest developments in Gaza.”
This may have to do with the fact that when asked by Nir, “How do the Hamas authorities share the burden of rehabilitation and reconstruction?” the UNRWA director in Gaza responded: “It is impossible to work in a place like the Gaza Strip without cooperating with the authorities, this is true of any similar autocratic government.”
He should probably stay in Jerusalem. There are places, like the Gaza Strip, where Truth will not set you free. It’s more likely to get you killed.