Most Palestinians groups met in Gaza City Monday night, Nov. 12, to approve a ceasefire after a three-day, 300-rocket assault on Israel. But the Salafists stayed away, instead firing 5 heavy Grad rockets against Netivot, Beersheba and Ofakim and taking delivery of a fresh load of Grads through the Sinai tunnels, assisted by Tehran’s proxy, Jihad Islam. Yet Israel, Egypt and even Hamas continued to delude themselves that a ceasefire can work - although Israel’s top command reckons it will collapse within days.

Israeli warplanes and tanks attacked Hamas and Jihad Islami positions and command posts in the Gaza Strip early Monday, Oct. 8, shortly after Palestinians loosed 55 missiles and mortar shells on the Eshkol district. No casualties caused on the Israeli side, only heavy damage to property. Israel responded forcibly after the two dominant Gazan organizations lined up with al Qaeda affiliates. Both now threaten to broaden their assaults. Jihad says the next blow will come from Lebanon.

For the first time since 2006, the Palestinian Authority’s security services on the West Bank have stopped cooperating with the IDF in operations and intelligence-sharing for countering terrorism.  Arrests and interrogations of suspects, the most effective way to thwart terrorist plots, have been discontinued and replaced with the old “revolving door” tactic practiced by Yasser Arafat. Israel has accordingly upgraded its terror alert, fearing a resurgence of Palestinian terrorism.

Israel Thursday night, March 15, gave Egypt and Hamas two days to halt the five-day missile offensive from Gaza or expect IDF action against the shooters. debkafile reports that the missile operation has been taken over by a small group of Salafi Palestinians linked to al Qaeda. And Hamas leader Mahmoud A-Zahar is currently visiting Tehran and being urged by his Iranian hosts to block a ceasefire so as draw the Israeli military into a messy showdown with the Salafis.

Six mortar rounds exploded on empty ground in the Eshkol farm district abutting on the Gaza Strip shortly before Tuesday March 13 noon, less than 12 hours after Cairo announced a ceasefire. debkafile reports Palestinian organizations, including Hamas, are resolved to keep up a low level of fire on Israeli civilian locations so as to establish their prerogative for shooting at will regardless of any ceasefire deals. Israel is apt to accept this arrangement to avoid a head-on clash.

Top Iranian and Hizballah missile experts posted in Gaza at Hamas and Jihad Islami HQ went to work Sunday, March 11, to puzzle out counter-measures for disarming the Iron Dome. For the Palestinian Jihad’s operation to be counted a success, its mobile multiple Grad launchers must bring devastation and multiple fatalities to an important Israeli town. This goal has eluded the Palestinian extremists after 160 rockets in three days - thanks to the Iron Dome interceptor posted in three key cities.

Israel has passed a stern warning to the Palestinian Jihad Islami shooting missiles from Gaza for the third day to expect punishment on a different scale from the current surgical air strikes if they fire Fajr surface missiles against the Tel Aviv area, debkafile reports. The warning was relayed Sunday, March 11, through Egyptian Intelligence Chief Gen. Murad Muwafi. He and Washington hope to curb the Gaza violence before Jihad is given escalation orders by its masters in Tehran and Damascus.

The 100 missiles fired by the Palestinian Jihad Islami escalated Saturday and included Grad multiple rocket launchers mounted on vehicles and SA-7 anti-air rockets, the Russian version of the American Stinger, smuggled from Libya. Defense minister Ehud Barak warned there was more to come and the threat of a terrorist attack from Sinai was not over. A third Iron Dome anti-missile battery was posted in Ashdod. The police raised the terrorist alert nationwide to one below the highest level.

Palestinian terrorist organizations shot more than 80 Grad and Qassam missiles into a dozen southern Israeli towns and villages, sustaining a non-stop barrage Friday night and Saturday morning (March-9-10) in reprisal for the death of Zuheir al-Qaisi, head of the Popular Resistance Committees in Gaza. At least 8 Israeli civilians were injured by missiles and another 10 Palestinians killed in ongoing Israeli air strikes against missile teams and terrorist targets. Fifteen rockets were intercepted by Iron Dome batteries. Jihad Islami said "The truce is dead."

Monday night, Jan. 2, Al Qaeda claimed to have established its first Jerusalem operational cell calling it the "Sunni Youth Movement Cell in Greater Jerusalem." Bulletin No. 1 with details of the organization and its targets was promised in the next few days. debkafile's counter-terror sources report Israeli security services are taking the development very seriously. They tie it in with Palestinian plans for a West Bank uprising and the jihadist trend spreading through Palestinian centers in Lebanon and the Gaza Strip.

Under cover of its four-day military exercise starting Friday, Nov. 18, Iran is reported exclusively by debkafile to be transferring Palestinian terrorist units into Syria after training them at IRGC Al Qods facilities for cross-border raids into the West Bank and Israel.
Iran and Syria are hitting back for the rebel Free Syrian Army-FSA's armed offensive on military installations and commands centers.  Bashar Assad's cousin Rami Makhlouf warned last May: "Without stability in Syria, there will be no stability in Israel."

Beersheba, Ashkelon, Ashdod and Sderot were again under missile fire from Gaza Monday night, Oct. 31 for the third day - although Israel's Home Front Minister Mattan Vilnai had stated the Jihad Islami offensive was over. Of the 7 missiles, one was intercepted by an Iron Dome battery in Beersheba.  Skeptical of the military assessment, several southern mayors kept schools closed. The continuing barrage and the army's decision to park an Iron Dome in Rehovot proved they were right.
 

Sunday morning, Oct. 30, Jihad Islami denied knowledge of a truce Egypt called for 0600 Sunday morning. By 0700 hours it had launched eleven Grad missiles and two mortar rounds from the Gaza Strip at Ashdod, Gan Yavne, Lahavim, Ashkelon and Shear Hanegev. This was the second day of its massive assault. Saturday, more than 35 missiles, most heavy Grads, battered eight towns, killed an Israel and injured seven. Schools there are closed Sunday amid a high security alert.

Some of the most notorious Palestinian masterminds of multiple Israeli murders are in the first batch of 477 convicted terrorists who head for the Gaza Strip, the West Bank, E. Jerusalem and deportation Tuesday, Oct. 18 as part of the price Israel agreed to pay to rescue Gilead Shalit from Hamas. The huge relief over the deal for his release is mixed with dread. Sixty percent of the hundreds of Palestinian terrorists released in previous prisoner swaps reverted to their old crimes.

Friday, Sept. 23 , the day Mahmoud Abbas applied for UN recognition of a Palestinian state, an Israeli called Asher Palmer, 25, and his one-year old son Jonathan were killed by a novel Palestinian method of murder while driving home on the Hebron road: They waylaid his oncoming car in their own vehicle and hurled a rock the size of a football at his windscreen. The Israeli police then deceived the public by calling the attack a road accident.

The policy of military restraint pursued by Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Ehud Barak was shown in the Tel Aviv attack by a Palestinian terrorist yelling Allah Akhbar Monday, Aug. 29, to have crossed a dangerous red line: Civilians are being left in harm's way to serve diplomatic interests such as not further straining relations with the new rulers in Cairo. An Israeli defense official has admitted that Iran fears American – not Israeli – military strength, thereby confessing to Israel's loss of deterrence. 

Intense diplomatic efforts by Washington Saturday, Aug. 20, have produced a compromise for resolving the Egyptian-Israeli crisis - moments before their 1979 peace accord was overturned. Cairo agreed not to recall the Egyptian ambassador from Israel, whereas the Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak apologized publicly for the deaths of three Egyptian policemen.  debkafile discloses: Israeli also agreed to renegotiate the treaty's Sinai demilitarization clause banning an Egyptian troop presence.

After the Israeli Air Force struck 12 Hamas and other terrorist targets in the Gaza Strip overnight Thursday, Aug. 18, a hail of Palestinian missiles Friday hit the towns of  Ashdod, Beersheba, Ashkelon and the smaller Sdot Negev, Shar Hanegev and Eshkol villages in a continuous blitz. Ten worshippers were injured - two seriously - when one of the six Grads aimed at Ashdod hit a synagogue. Police detonated a second in a controlled explosion.  Eight Israelis were killed, 33 injured in a Palestinian multiple terror attack near Eilat Thursday.

Thursday, August 18, Israel had its first taste of a sophisticated al Qaeda-style coordinated terrorist attack modeled on the atrocities common in Afghanistan and Iraq. Israel's intelligence services, army (IDF) and police were taken by surprise by the scale and slick organization of the multiple assaults staged near Eilat on the highway running south parallel to the Egyptian border by gunmen of the Gaza-based Popular Resistance Committees and Palestinian organizations linked to al Qaeda. Defense Minister Barak: "Gaza is the source of the terror."

Israeli police have arrested Hakim Mazen Niad Awad, 17, and Amjad Mahmoud Fawzi, 18, in the West Bank village of Awarta on suspicion of murdering five members of the Fogel family in neighboring Itamar on March 11. They confessed to their ambition to kill Jews as Palestinian nationalists and die as martyrs. They expressed no remorse. Six more Palestinians arrested as accomplices in the crime.