The Red Cross has decided to leave Gaza, as reported in the Times of London:

The Red Cross has shut down its field activities in the Gaza Strip because of growing lawlessness in Palestinian areas in the build-up to Israel’s pullout next week.

The move came after a surge in kidnappings as powerful clans have seized Western hostages to use as bargaining tools in disputes with Mahmoud Abbas’s increasingly weak Palestinian Authority security forces.

The decision was taken after the Red Cross office in Khan Younis was shot at by members of an unknown militant group. Two UN staff were also briefly kidnapped and [released]. It was the fourth western kidnapping of Westerners in three weeks.

Mr Abbas, the Palestinian President, urged his people to maintain law and order, and promised elections in January. But one aid official said that law and order is breaking down after corrupt security chiefs were replaced by “cleaner” but less influential figures.

As Reliapundit says so eloquently,

Need I remind all of you that law enforcement in Gaza is the responsibility of the PNA (and NOT Israel)!? And these Arabs deserve another STATE of their own!? It’d be funny if it wasn’t so stupidly, self-destructively dangerous. All Gaza will become is EVERYTHING that Taliban Afghanistan was, and everything Zarqawi wants to turn Iraq’s al sunnah province into: a depraved domain of jihadoterror

LGF, with tongue embedded firmly in cheek, says, “Let’s Give Them a State.”

I know that Sharon figures that the cost of protecting 9,000 Israelis in Gush Katif is very high, and that it is expedient to bring those settlers back into Israel proper, but I think the unintended consequences of turning over Gaza to the jihadists will prove to be even more costly in the near future.

Previous related posts:
Al Queda Already in Gaza
After Gaza
Undermining U.S. Interests
Disengagement not in US Interest
Eyeless in Gaza
Why The “Roadmap” Will Hit A Dead-End
Arab Terrorist Bombs Israeli Mall
Female Terrorist Targets Israeli Hospital That Helped Her