Israel on Alert for Nakba Day Turmoil
Israeli security authorities are steeled for the disturbances orchestrated for Tuesday, Palestinian Catastrophe Day, to begin Monday night. Preparedness has been declared on three fronts:
The Palestinians: They are known to be preparing major terrorist strikes, shooting attacks and raids on isolated Israeli locations, as well as mortar salvoes against Israeli communities on the West Bank, Gaza Striip and inside Israel itself, including parts of Jerusalem. The suburb of Gilo had a foretaste today. debkafile‘s military experts will not be surprised if the Palestinians throw into the fray a surprise weapon, such as Katyusha rockets or anti-tank missiles.
Palestinian and Israeli Arabs have been called to stage large rallies on both sides of the Green Line. The A Ram checkpoint just north of Jerusalem has been designated for a joint protest with Palestinian demonstrators, as have other checkpoints around the capital. Yasser Arafat, before flying out of the country, ordered Tanzim gangs to provoke Israeli gunfire on crowds by opening fire from inside the demonstrations. He is aiming at mass bloodshed. Israeli security chiefs are worried by Arafat’s departure for Egypt or some other destination on the eve of Nakba Day, because his absences routinely augur particularly bloody events or a calamitous downturn. He has promised a war speech during the day, but it could be canned or broadcast from the outside.
Israeli Arabs: They are planning mass rallies at the main junctions of the Triangle, Wadi Ara, Galilee and Arab urban centers, as well as Tel Aviv, Jaffa, Haifa, Lod, Ramle and Beersheba, with firebombs and possibly sidearms.
Hizballah: Intelligence reports reaching Israel disclose that Syrian President Bashar Assad, before embarking on a foreign tour of the Gulf Emirates, the Middle East and West Europe, lifted the veto he imposed on the Lebanese Shiite guerrilla group’s cross-border strikes against Israel after lat month’s Israeli reprisal raid against a Syrian radar station in Lebanon. The Hizballah lost no time and fired an anti-tank missile against an Israeli Shaaba Farms outpost Monday, not waiting for the Day of Nakba to begin. There were no casualties, but the guerrillas had clearly taken advantage of the lull to precisely adjust the sights of their weapons to targets inside Israeli outposts along the Lebanese frontier. A general Hizballah offensive along its length is therefore on the cards for Tuesday.
Israel’s northern command has been alerted to possible strikes by the radical PFLP-GC (Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine – General Command), under the leadership of Ahmed Jibril’s son and successor, Fares Jibril. This group has glider and commando boats capabilities.
Israel has learned from its intelligence sources that Jibril senior, when he visited Tehran a fortnight ago, received large sums of cash from the terrorist and intelligence advisers of Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, for staging a spectacular strike in Israel, or against a Jewish target in the Middle East or Europe to coincide with Nakba day.
Israel will tailor its response to the intelligence reports coming in during the coming hours. The situation is as inflammable as it has ever been and may call for pre-emptive military action during the night to curtail the scale of Tuesday’s violence. In that case, Israeli troops will attack terrorist bases in Palestinian-ruled A Areas on the West Bank and Gaza Strip and also place known Israeli Arab troublemakers in preventive detention