WarSclerotic

Israel Claims Hamas Has Test Fired Rocket That Could Hit Tel Aviv From Gaza, Hamas Is Denying Claims | World News | Sky News.

10:22am UK, Wednesday November 04, 2009

Dominic Waghorn, Middle East correspondent

Hamas has test-fired a new rocket capable of hitting Israel’s capital Tel Aviv from the Gaza Strip, according to Israeli military intelligence.

The circle shows the 60 kilometres Israel claims Hamas can fire a new missile

It said the militant Islamist organisation launched the missile 37 miles (60km) into the sea off Gaza last week.

The development increases the likelihood of renewed conflict between Hamas and Israel according to analysts, though Hamas is denying the claims.

Tel Aviv’s apparent new vulnerability has considerable psychological significance for Israelis and the government has said it is deeply concerned.

“This is something of grave consequences and major dangerous implications,” deputy foreign minister Danny Ayalon told Sky News.

“Hamas has rearmed itself to the teeth, and with upgraded missiles and weapons and of course with a 60 kilometre range I would say that most of our population centres are within range including the outskirts of Tel Aviv.”

If the claims are true, Hamas has extended its range by a crucial 12 miles.

“Grave consequences” – Israeli Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon

Yaakov Katz, defence analyst with the Jerusalem Post, told Sky News the new missile would be a game-changer if it were fired at Tel Aviv.

“A rocket landing in Tel Aviv, having been fired from Gaza, that is something penetrating deep into Israel’s heart and that would change the Israeli public opinion about what needs to be done.”

Hamas denied Israel’s claims, calling them an attempt to “justify the crimes it committed in Gaza”.

But Israeli officials insist Hamas has smuggled in and adapted a five-metre long Iranian artillery rocket that can carry a warhead weighing 45kg.

Israel claims Hamas has amassed a stockpile of dozens of the missiles.

The innovation would give Hamas more options following Operation Cast Lead, the Israeli offensive in January that killed hundreds of its fighters as well as hundreds of Palestinian civilians.

Mr Katz said it made a second round of fighting more likely.

“I think Israel and Hamas are definitely on a collision track particularly with this new development.

“Israel will not be able to sit by as these rockets land in Israeli cities and I think Hamas will eventually want to make use of them,” he said.

AFP: Israel intercepts ship carrying weapons: military.

By Jean-Luc Renaudie (AFP) – 2 hours ago

JERUSALEM — The Israeli navy intercepted a ship carrying weapons 100 nautical miles (185 kilometres) off its coastline overnight, a military spokeswoman said on Wednesday.

“During the night a special marine force intercepted a ship that was supposed to be carrying cargo around 100 (nautical) miles from our shore,” the spokeswoman said, adding that the vessel was sailing under an Antigua flag.

“We suspected it was carrying weapons and when we inspected it that turned out to be true,” she said, adding that the ship has been taken to port for further investigation.

The military declined to say what kind of weapons were on board or where the ship was heading.

Israel’s Defence Minister Ehud Barak hailed the operation, calling it a “new success in our struggle against weapons smuggling aimed at reinforcing terrorist organisations that are threatening the security of Israel.”

His remarks were carried in a defence ministry statement that said the ship was captured “near Cyprus” but did not provide further details.

Israel’s military radio meanwhile reported that the shipment was from Iran, bound for the Lebanese Hezbollah militia, and included anti-aircraft and anti-tank rockets. The military itself declined to comment on the report.

Israel has long accused arch-foes Syria and Iran of supplying weapons to Hezbollah and to Palestinian militants in the Gaza Strip, which has been ruled by the Islamist Hamas movement since June 2007.

On Tuesday a senior Israeli general warned that Hamas had successfully test-fired a rocket out to sea capable of reaching Tel Aviv from Gaza.

The rocket, believed to be Iranian-made, has a range of about 60 kilometres (37 miles), putting Israel’s major population centres in range, said Major General Amos Yadlin, head of military intelligence.

Hamas called the claim a “fabrication” designed to mobilise world opinion against the Islamist group before the UN General Assembly which was on Wednesday to discuss a controversial report on the Gaza war.

“This is a pre-emptive step by the Zionist enemy to influence international opinion,” Hamas spokesman Fawzi Barhum said, adding that the report had put Israel in a state of “crisis.”

The UN report by respected South African jurist and former international war crimes prosecutor Richard Goldstone accused both Israel and Palestinian militants of committing war crimes during the December-January Gaza war.

Some 1,400 Palestinians and 13 Israelis were killed in the three-week war launched by Israel on December 27 and aimed at halting rocket attacks, which have been mostly confined to communities a few kilometres from the Gaza border.

Israel has in the past seized shipments of weapons allegedly bound for Gaza, including in May 2003, when it intercepted a ship off its northern coast loaded with bomb-making material it said was from Hezbollah.

On January 3, 2002, Israel intercepted a 50-tonne shipment of weapons destined for the Palestinians aboard the Karine A in the Red Sea.

The late Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat admitted responsibility for the smuggling attempt, and the affair seriously eroded his standing with Washington.

In May 2001, the navy intercepted the Santorini, which was packed with 40 tonnes of anti-aircraft missiles, Katyusha rockets, anti-tank grenades, mortar shells and automatic weapons, and was bound for Gaza.

Israel said the shipment was sent by Ahmad Jibril’s Damascus-based PLO offshoot, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine General Command.

Lord Weidenfeld of Chelsea: Gaza, Iranian Rockets and J Street.

Lord Weidenfeld of Chelsea

Founder and chairman of Weidenfeld & Nicolson

Posted: November 3, 2009 01:05 PM

Read more at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/lord-weidenfeld-of-chelsea/gaza-iranian-rockets-and_b_343896.html

Even the most apolitical tourist in Israel cannot escape noticing the contrast between an openly displayed show of opulence in a world economic crisis — overcrowded hotels, a healthy currency, expanding exports thanks to the inventiveness of the pioneers of the new technologies — and an inner bitterness and doubt about the possibility of peace.

A hostile media campaign against Israel in Europe, a wavering of friends and neutrals in the battle against terror and a Palestinian neighbor, though split, politically united in refusal to start serious peace talks — all this clouds the atmosphere and faith in a peaceful solution.

The Goldstone report on Gaza is almost uniformly condemned. The very fact that European voices failed to make it clear that Hamas is condemned as well as Israel, embitters Israelis. The fact that a country loudest in its condemnations is Saudi Arabia where only recently a female journalist was sentenced to sixty lashes and her male guest in a talk show to five years in prison and a thousand lashes.

A statement by Colonel Kemp, senior British officer and commander in various scenes of fighting in the Middle East, that he thought the moral and ethical behavior of the Israeli fighting forces were the best in the world, was only sparingly reported.

There is a suspicion in Israel that President Obama’s foreign policy, far from reassuring the Muslim world, is regarded by most regimes in the area as a smokescreen hiding a policy of withdrawal from the region. Hence it is felt that this is the moment for more and more concessions to be wrung from the United States without the need to reciprocate. That is why more of the players in the region look for cover elsewhere; thus Turkey is in the process of changing its pro-Western policy — more drastically than is generally assumed.

An Israeli Cabinet minister told me that Iran’s rockets can now reach as far as Vienna and in a year’s time would be able to reach Great Britain. The Iranian war machine works on all cylinders to be able to reach the Atlantic coast and New York within three years. Simultaneously Iran’s vassal, Hezbollah, prepares to use its arsenal of 33,000 rockets to open a second front on Israel.

Finally, a development which at first sight seems fairly harmless depresses politically astute Israelis: the establishment of a second group of American Jews claiming to further U.S./Israel relations and the cause of peace. Its aim is to rival AIPAC, the well-known American Israeli Public Affairs Committee. This new group, known as J Street, contains many names who have for a long time been extremely critical of the Jewish State and in some cases even queried its very legitimacy. They have, however, quite a few eloquent and well-known supporters in American Jewry who accuse AIPAC of pursuing an aggressive pro-Israel policy and act as a potent pressure group in Washington. The Israeli government refused to send its ambassador in Washington to the founding conference of J Street, whereas the leader of the Opposition, Tzipi Livni, decided to send two leading members of her party to find out if J Street could be tamed.

One of the main money sources of J Street is held to be the financial mogul George Soros, who has never made a secret of his criticism of Israeli policy. Such a ‘counter lobby’ would very probably be used by anti-Israel elements in Congress, the State Department, even the White House, to neutralize the influence of AIPAC. Such a serious schism in its own camp must be considered as yet another front in Israel’s existential battle for survival.

AFP: Netanyahu hails anti-missile exercise with US.

By Jean-Luc Renaudie (AFP) – 10 hours ago

JERUSALEM — Israel’s prime minister on Tuesday hailed a joint anti-missile exercise with US forces, amid continuing high tensions with Iran, amid claims that Hamas now has rockets capable of hitting Tel Aviv.

Benjamin Netanyahu, speaking at an air force base in central Israel, said the two countries are “creating a new path, and the goal is to defend Israel,” a statement from the country’s military said.

“Overall, the goal is to ensure peace in the region, and maybe even farther from this region. This cooperation has great potential and is very impressive.”

The Juniper Cobra 10 exercises, the fifth in a series of joint air defence drills between the allies, began on October 22 and are due to end on Thursday.

Defence Minister Ehud Barak said the exercise “follows a long period of preparation by the (Israeli military) and the Americans.

“We are watching an exercise of unprecedented scale that deals with real challenges that we will have to face in the future and we had better be ready.”

And Israeli chief of staff General Gabi Ashkenazi said: “This is a very important exercise dealing with the growing threat to the citizens of the State of Israel from the development of missiles in our region.”

Israel considers Iran to be its arch-enemy after repeated statements by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad that the Holocaust was a “myth” and that the Jewish state is doomed to be “wiped off the map.”

Iran has an arsenal of missiles it claims can reach Israel.

Israeli and US commanders refused to describe the scenarios simulated in the exercise, but said they would practise merging different anti-missile systems that defend simultaneously against long-, medium- and short-range missiles.

Israeli media reported that the exercise would probably include the scenario of a combined attack from Iran together with shorter range barrages from Syria and the Lebanese Shiite militant group Hezbollah.

The United States sent batteries of Patriot missiles to Israel during the first Gulf War in 1991, when Saddam Hussein fired dozens of Scud missiles at Israel.

The country’s air defences were further tested in 2006, when Hezbollah fired hundreds of rockets at the country from neighbouring Lebanon. And Palestinian militants have also lobbed thousands of improvised rockets from the Gaza Strip.

On Tuesday, military intelligence chief Major General Amos Yadlin said Hamas, which rules Gaza, now has a rocket believed to be Iranian-made that has a range of about 60 kilometres (37 miles).

That would put Israel’s major population centres in potential danger.