Palestinian terror group gloats over Zikim closure
'The Israelis make threats, but after each threat they withdraw and evacuate,' PRC spokesman says after IDF recruits vacated from base near Gaza. Adds: Palestinians' faith and determination will bring more victories
"The evacuation of Zikim serves as further proof that the IDF is going from defeat to defeat," a spokesman for the Popular Resistance Committees (PRC) told Ynet after the military base, a basic training facility located in the vicinity of the Gaza Strip, marked the end of its instructional activities on Wednesday.
"It began with the withdrawal from Lebanon (May 2000), the pullout from Gaza (August 2005), the defeat in the Second Lebanon War (summer 2006) and, of course, the daily beating from the Palestinian resistance," Abu Abir said.
"Zikim won't be the last place from which Israelis will be evacuated."
According to Abir, it is the Palestinians' "faith and determination, which Israel lacks, that will bring more victories and evacuations.
"The Israelis are hesitant, and mostly run away. The rocket that landed on Zikim is only a tool, just like the rockets that were fired at the settlements," he added. "The force behind the rocket is the Palestinian resistance's determination, which has shown that it is not deterred by planes, helicopters, tanks, assassinations or massacres."
Company flags taken down during the ceremony at Zikim
Abir continued to say that "the Israelis make threats, but after each threat they withdraw and evacuate, which only goes to show that they realize any operation in Gaza will have severe consequences. Eventually, the war will take place inside the home they stole from us.
Ynet first reported on the military's intent to remove all new recruits from Zikim in June, when Deputy Chief of Staff Major-General Dan Harel announced a new policy, under which new recruits would be assigned to their designated units immediately after being drafted, and those units would be responsible for their basic training.
The new policy called for one of the IDF's basic training facilities to be closed down, and Zikim was subsequently chosen.
A new division is scheduled to take over the base in June 2009, but the IDF has yet to name it: "Unfortunately, this move is clouded by great uncertainties, due to disagreements within the army about the need to reassign the base and the nature of its reassignment," Zikim commander, Lieutenant-Colonel Dror Ben Hur, wrote in a letter distributed to the officers on the base.
