Rev. Jungkeit’s op-ed, “Reject today’s inhumanity, seek connections,” (June 3), completely misapprehends the events on Israel’s border with Gaza. What Rev. Jungkeit fails to understand is that Hamas, which is sworn to Israel’s destruction, positioned its armed fighters behind women and children at the border fence in order to follow that first wave into Israel and follow the instruction in early April from a Hamas leader to “tear out the hearts of the Jews.” That was not mere rhetoric, as those Hamas fighters who were killed or captured were found to be armed. Their objective was to kill Israeli civilians in towns near Gaza. Of the approximately 62 persons killed on May 14, about 52 were acknowledged by Hamas or Islamic Jihad as their members, so the maximum number of non-terrorist fatalities was 10. That is very small when more than 10,000 people were massed on the border and many were firing on Israeli troops, who had no choice but to defend themselves, the border and their civilian populations, although the rules of engagement provided for live fire only as a last resort. 

I will assume that Rev. Jungkeit didn’t know these facts. 

Mark I. Fishman, Esq.

New Haven