Defense minister Ehud Barak and Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Benny Gantz decided Wednesday, Oct. 24, to shift to the Gaza sector most of the personnel and anti-missile batteries taking part in the joint Israeli-US war game and home front exercise. This came after Palestinians in Gaza hammered Israeli civilian locations with 60 rockets in just a few hours. debkafile: IDF chiefs suspect the Hamas assault is the opening shot of a major offensive which Hizballah may be preparing to join. The US troop increment's fate is yet to be determined.

Hassan Nasrallah’s threat Thursday night of more UAV’s over Israel aroused concern in the Israeli high command that Iranian drones had been smuggled into the hands of the Palestinian Hamas extremists ruling the Gaza Strip. The Hizballah leader implied that Tehran or Hizballah might ask Hamas to release drones over Israel, possibly in coordination with UAV intrusions from Lebanon. All three would celebrate a drone double shot as a major feat against the Zionist enemy – especially after the successful Iranian UAV incursion last Saturday.

Hamas leaders Mahmoud A-Zahar and Deputy commander of its military arm Marwan Issa spent the second week of September in Beirut and Tehran finalizing and signing protocols covering a detailed and binding commitment by the radical Hamas rulers of the Gaza Strip to join Iran, Syria and Hizballah in a war on Israel, debkafile’s exclusive sources disclose. Israelis now ask what guarantees Cairo offers to offset the threat of an Iranian-orchestrated Hamas war operation against Israel from the Gaza Strip or Sinai.

Israel's targeted killing Thursday Dec. 8 of Ismail Batash, commander of the "Army of Believers" (a Hamas terrorist front group), may have done more harm than good. Aside from triggering a hail of Palestinian missiles against Israel, debkafile's sources report it strengthened the Hamas-Salafist Bedouin pact in northern Sinai and is speeding up the transfer there of Hamas' terrorist infrastructure from Gaza – out of Israel's reach. The terrorist peril to southern Israel, including Eilat, has mounted, while the IDF's hands are tied.

Tuesday night, Oct. 18, the State Department spokesman Mark Toner disclosed that the United States had voiced concerns to Israel over some of the 477 Palestinians freed as part of a deal for his release. "We have looked at some of these individuals and we've communicated our position... to the Israeli government."
An opinion poll the day before Gilad Shalit's release Tuesday showed 88 percent support for the prisoner swap, while 82 percent feared it would encourage more kidnappings.

The pipeline carrying Egyptian natural gas to Israel and Jordan via Sinai was blown up early Monday, July 4, for the third time in six months. All three attacks were carried out according to debkafile's military sources, by a special Hamas pipeline sabotage unit working with al Qaeda-allied Bedouin smugglers.This time, the Hamas retaliated for the stoppage of the international flotilla before it could set out to break the Israeli naval blockade on the Gaza Strip.

After weeks of rising tension, Israel and Hamas have taken a step towards a full-blown military confrontation: Saturday, April 2, an Israeli air strike killed three senior Hamas Izz al-Din Qassam Brigades gunmen in the Gaza Strip. The Israeli army spokesman said the operation pre-empted a major Palestinian terror-cum-kidnap campaign scheduled for Passover. Hamas warned Israel its "dangerous escalation" would have "consequences." debkafile's sources: The coming conflict will be influenced by the changing forces rising from current Arab unrest.

Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas received a stern ticking-off when he called Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu Saturday, March 12, to condemn the savage murder Friday night by Palestinian terrorists of the parents and three small children of an Israeli family while they slept at their home at Itamar on the West Bank.  The Prime Minister, knowing Abbas had quietly tipped Fatah heads to endorse the perpetrators, accused him of hypocrisy. Does Abbas want to stir up another Palestinian uprising?

 

The murder of a mother, father and three of their children, aged, 11, three and a baby of a month, whose throats were slashed in their sleep at Itamar south of Nablus Friday night, March 11 was the first operation of a master plan drawn up at a secret radical Muslim Brotherhood summit in Khartoum last week attended by the Palestinian Hamas. Dismantled West Bank checkpoints and a low level of IDF vigilance made it easy for the perpetrators to commit their atrocity and escape.

Israel's pursuit of the Hamas terrorists behind the latest string of West Bank attacks ended Friday, Oct. 8 in a gun battle in Hebron and the deaths of Hamas' West Bank commander Nashat Al-Karmi and his lieutenant Mamoun Al-Natshe, thereby snapping Hamas' militant backbone in the territory. debkafile reports that the Hamas cell leader from Syria who led the attack which killed four Israelis and injured two others is still on the run.

US and Israel skirted around admitting that direct Israel-Palestinian dialogue had foundered after 26 days Sunday, Sept. 26, as Israel's settlement construction freeze expired. American spokesmen commented that with the resumption of building, a one-year clock was ticking for a peace accord. The talks have resulted for now in Hamas preparing to go to the next, expanded phase of its terror campaign, Egypt and Syria patching up their quarrel and the two terrorist organizations, Hamas and Hizballah, crowing.

After murdering four Israelis outside Hebron on Aug. 30, the Hamas gunmen planned to bury their bodies and use them as live hostages to extort the release of fellow-terrorists from Israeli jails. This was divulged by the Egyptian semi-official Al Ahram Monday, Sept. 20. Taken aback by Israel's failure to fight the new wave of Hamas terror, Cairo leaked this information, gained from grilling Hamas General Security chief Muhamad Hamis Dababash, to the Egyptian newspaper.