Hamas mounts a new suicide terror offensive against Israeli cities from the West Bank. The first attack was planned for the Seder Feast in Tel Aviv

In a combined operation, the Shin Bet and IDF rounded up in the West Bank town of Qalqilya 12 members of a Hamas network which managed to send a truck loaded with 100 kilos of explosives into Greater Tel Aviv on Passover Eve.
For some unknown reason, the truck, which was to have kicked off the resumed Hamas suicide offensive, turned back and was accidentally detonated in the West Bank.
Security sources report that the lethal freight came from a mountain of explosive materials which Hamas has been smuggling for months into the West Bank from the Gaza Strip for their new suicide offensive against Israeli cities – together with an unknown quantity of Qassam missiles. That Hamas has moved on from its build-up phase to active suicide error was disclosed by the 19 detainees in interrogation.
The suicide bomber, a Palestinian granted Israeli citizenship under Israel’s family reunification scheme, was killed when his truck which carried Israeli number plates exploded.
debkafile‘s military sources report that members of the Qalqilya Hamas network are still at large and that not all its stock of explosives has been run down. Hamas is also suspected of running similar networks in other West bank towns, such as Tulkarm and Nablus. The Islamist group is targeting Palestinians granted Israeli citizenship who may use Israeli license plates on their vehicles, and Israeli Arab collaborators to defy Israeli security watches on the crossings from the West Bank into Israeli towns. In this case, the truck crossed into Israel despite the closure imposed on the West Bank for the Feast of Passover.
Two weeks ago, chief of staff Lt. Gen. Gaby Ashkenazi stated that one of the Israel military’s most urgent tasks now is to block the transfer of weapons and war materiel from the Gaza Strip to the West Bank, bringing Israel’s heartland cities into close range. debkafile reported at the time that he is too late. The lethal stocks are already in place.
Israel is now paying for unilaterally handing over the southern Gaza Strip border and territory to Palestinian and Egyptian control two years ago. This blunder was compounded by the Sharon and Olmert governments’ self-imposed military restraint from the 2005 withdrawal from Gaza up to the present. Only Sderot and its neighbors within missile range of Gaza have taken the punishment of Qassam rockets on their homes and schools. But this is about to change.
Just as no action was taken to stem the flow of weapons from Egyptian Sinai to the Gaza Strip, nothing has been done to sever the smuggling routes from Gaza to the West Bank. Under cover of a phony truce, not only weapons, explosives, but also terrorist experts are arriving unhindered from Iran, Syria and Lebanon, while hundreds of Hamas and Jihad Islami terrorists are traveling freely to Iran and Lebanon for specialist training and returning home, without Israel raising a finger to stop them.
The 2007 terrorists are more sophisticated, better trained, more skilled and more powerfully armed than their predecessors of the years 2002 to 2004, when Israel was subjected to a sustained campaign of large-scale suicide terror. The truck which came dangerously close to bombing Tel Aviv was a last warning.