News Service from House Harris

MID: Israel officer airs regrets at failure to finish Hamas

JERUSALEM, Jan 22 AFP - Israeli army reserve Lieutenant Colonel "Amos" returned home from the Gaza war frustrated for "not finishing the job."

"The operation was not concluded, it could have been much more consistent," he told AFP in a frank interview, asking that his real name not be used because he was not authorised to talk to the media.

"We were very close to the only place that we knew that all the leadership of Hamas was sitting," said Amos, an architect, after the 22-day assault was brought to an end on Sunday with more than 1,300 Palestinans dead.

Amos accused Hamas of hiding behind civilians, saying intelligence reports put the Islamist movement's top brass, including government head Ismail Haniya, "in a very big bunker" underneath Gaza City's Shifa hospital.

"This is what we found there: The rockets were being launched from kindergartens, schools, UN centres.

"For many months, we didn't shoot back because there were civilian places," he said, referring to the almost daily rocket fire on southern Israel from the Gaza Strip that Israel says prompted the war.

Turning to the conflict itself, Amos said "Hamas were running away. They booby-trapped all the houses, all the streets. Wherever we went everything was trapped -- gas bottles, demolition-timers, everything wired. They were only a few streets away."

Amos said troops had encirled Hamas militants and suggested they could have been finished off if the government had resisted foreign pressure.

"Another two or three days, (it would have been) a different story. The suffocation effect would have been much more effective, in terms of showing the Arabs that Hamas is not operating anymore."

Instead, now "they will be rearmed in less than two months. They're already rebuilding the tunnels," through which arms are smuggled from Egypt into Gaza, he said.

"We expected a very severe confrontation, body to body, and we knew that all that they wanted is capture alive soldiers.

"This operation was planned for two years. Everyone knew what was his mission. It was delayed ... because (the government) got the shakes. We did wait for three years. We waited too long."

Amos was recalling the time when rockets hit the border town of Sderot and environs, and Israel limited its response to occasional air raids.

"I was ashamed that instead of letting the army solve the problems there, they (Israelis) had to go into shelters," in Sderot, which has borne the brunt of Hamas rocketing since 2000.

Amos also spoke of the failure to find Israeli soldier Gilad Shilat, captured by Hamas and other Gaza militants in a cross-border raid in 2006, though he said he was not aware of any specific operation to locate him.

"I am ashamed that we didn't get him. But he's not there, I think he is in Iran," which supports Hamas. "In a camel or a truck, through the Sinai and you're in Iran."

"What we have in Gaza is an Iranian wing," Amos charged. "And Iran wants us dead."

The reality of war means collateral damage is unavoidable, Amos admitted.

"It's not an American movie that this guy is coming with the instruments to open all the wires ... you see the house is booby-trapped, you call an airplane or a tank to bomb the house, and another four collapse with them."

Israeli human rights groups have called the numbers of dead children and women "terrifying" -- 437 children under 16, and 110 women, according to Gaza medics.

Amos said troops were told not to bother about casualty tolls.

"In the first day of the operation, officers from Jerusalem told us don't count how many you kill, because they (Hamas) don't care. When I am alone in my bed, I wonder if it is really true. Dead people is not a parameter for them, only if you kill the leaders, maybe."

The ceasefire came too soon, Amos said.

"Maybe there was an ultra pressure from foreigners. We don't have oil. If we were economically independent, the situation will be completely different.

But for Amos it is not over.

"We will strike again, not tomorrow but in a year. It's a shame that Israeli leadership is always ... America."