Military and Defence Analyst Colonel Simon Diggins has criticised those celebrating Palestine on the streets of London, following terror attacks on Israel conducted by Hamas.
Over the weekend at least 400 strikes took place on Gaza territory, killing at least 1,100 people, with the death toll expected to continue to rise.
Prime Minister of Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu, has spoken of the attacks and vowed to turn Hamas strongholds in Gaza "to rubble".
Speaking to Martin Daubney and Anne Diamond on GB News, Colonel Diggins shared his analysis of the attacks so far, and his thoughts on those celebrating Palestine in the UK.
Colonel Simon Diggins said those celebrating are 'shameful'
GB News
Martin asked: "I guess the first question we have to ask is how did this attack happen in the first place?"
Diggins replied: "I think one of the issues for Israeli's will be to look at their systems. This is very reminiscent to what happened 50 years ago with the Yom Kippur War, where again the assumption was the Israeli's security, their intelligence operators and everything would prevent the kind of surprise attack which actually occurred.
"And so Israeli's were looking very hard at their systems and trying to understand why it was they didn't pick this up.
"Now why we don't know, I mean in terms that the analysis, there's been various indicators, conversations taking place between Iran, Hezbollah, who of course one of their proxy organisations operating from the Lebanon and Hamas itself and there's clearly some exchange of information, ideas and deep technology."
Diggins continued: "So where the combination of all those things that came together for this particular occasion, it happened on the Jewish Shabbat. So it was a holiday and it was also a holy day. So it's probably assumed that the Israeli defences, rather like Yom Kippur, will be slightly down. But there will be very detailed analysis of what it was that they missed which led to this attack."
Martin then asked the Colonel about the emergence of support for Palestine on UK streets, revealing: “There were scenes in parts of London last night of locals celebrating what Hamas had done with Palestinian flags, and Metropolitan Police today issuing a warning that they will clamp down on such activities. How much of an issue do you think this kind of division is on British streets?”
At least 500 Israelis have been killed following Hamas attacks on Israel
Reuters
Colonel Diggins replied: “Well, I'm delighted the Metropolitan Police are taking a hard line with that. I mean, what's happened in Israel and on the Gaza area is actually shameful. I mean, attacking people, taking hostages is just shameful.
“Whatever the political tensions, no-one here is naive about the kind of the issues that divide Israel and Palestine, how complicated they are, how historic they are and how deep rooted some of the challenges are.
"This not the time to be using that to celebrate what basically is a very wicked terrorist attack onto mostly peaceful people.
“And it's shameful, there are people in this country who can be so unaware of what you might call the boundaries of conversation dissent. To use this opportunity to do that, I'm disappointed but delighted that the Metropolitan Police have taken a hard line and I hope they continue that.”