Two Qassam missiles destroyed in controlled explosion after discovery in Bethlehem region of West Bank pointed at Gilo, S. Jerusalem

Palestinian security officers found the missiles and launchers between the West Bank Al Aida refugee camp and Beit Jala which abuts on the Jerusalem district of Gilo and handed them to the IDF. The 22 mm 1.5 meters-long missiles were marked “Allah is great.” The Palestinian officers said they were not armed and the IDF said they were just pipes that posed no “immediate hazard”. Nonetheless, as the attached picture shows, Israeli forces quickly carried out a controlled explosion of the missiles.
debkafile‘s counter-terror sources report that the discovery of missiles aimed at Jerusalem on Sept. 26, the eve of the Jewish Succoth festival may indicate more weapons readied by Hamas and other radical Palestinian terrorist groups for firing at the Jerusalem and other major Israeli towns.
debkafile‘s military sources regard the presence of Palestinian missiles within firing range of the Israeli capital as attesting to a decision by Hamas’ operations planners to push for a trial of strength with Mahmoud Abbas and his Fatah-ruled Palestinian Authority on the West Bank too, after driving them out of Gaza three months ago.
Indeed, Wednesday morning, Hamas publicly threatened a military coup against Mahmoud Abbas and prime minister Salim Fayyad, both now in New York, to follow up its June putsch in the Gaza Strip. To make good on its threat, Hamas needs to show muscle against Israel on the West Bank too.
The Palestinian Islamists decided to go on the offensive after Palestinian Authority security services managed on Sept. 24 to detain several undercover Hamas activists who were building new Hamas terrorist networks on the West Bank. The Gaza leaders therefore decided that Mahmoud Abbas had crossed a red line in his feud with Hamas and, as debkafile‘s Palestinian sources report, it was time for “a showdown and trial of strength with the decadent remnants of the Oslo Accords.”
The announcement went on to say: “Since the illegitimate Abbas regime is a national catastrophe for the Palestinian people, Hamas is bringing its policy of restraint on the West Bank to an end.
Israeli intelligence sources report that embedded in the Hamas statement is the coded battle cry: “This is Jihad! Victory or a martyrs’ death!”