WarSclerotic

PA fears new Israeli offensive on Gaza, Erekat says.

Palestinian Authority chief negotiator Saeb Erekat on Wednesday expressed concern over Israel’s latest attacks on the Gaza Strip, Israel Radio reported.

Erekat stated that the Palestinian Authority fears Israel will launch a new large scale attack on Gaza, following escalated tensions in the area.

The PA negotiator added that military measures will not solve anything and will only make things worse.

On Tuesday, Israel  pounded Hamas targets throughout the Gaza Strip in the most extensive aerial bombardment since Operation Cast Lead two years ago.

At least three Hamas operatives were killed during the bombing of arms storehouses and smuggling tunnels along the border with Egypt, and in the pummeling of tunnels being dug toward Israel.

The IAF strikes came in response to multiple attacks on southern Israel from Gaza.

A Kassam rocket was fired from the Gaza Strip into the Ashkelon area on Tuesday morning, landing in Kibbutz Zikim. The rocket exploded near a kindergarten, as dozens of parents were dropping off their children at school, injuring a 14-year old girl.

The incident followed a spate of attacks emanating from Gaza in the previous days, encompassing the launch of some three rockets and 18 mortars into the regions of Eshkol and Ashkelon. These attacks included the launch of six mortars on Sunday at IDF forces operating near the Kerem Shalom Crossing.

Deputy Prime Minister Dan Meridor on Wednesday said that Israel cannot accept continued rocket fire from the Gaza Strip and that he hoped another large scale offensive in the territory like Operation Cast Lead wouldn’t be necessary. Meridor’s comments came in an interview with Israel Radio.

Meridor stated that Hamas has not done enough lately to prevent other organizations from firing rockets into residential areas of the Negev.

He added that Israel will continue to respond decisively to rocket fire until the attacks from Gaza stop completely.

On Tuesday, Israeli ambassador to the United Nations Meron Reuben filed a complaint with the Security Council about the rocket and mortar fire from Gaza.

Yaakov Katz contributed to this report

Israel sees new anti-tank missile threat from Gaza | Reuters.

JERUSALEM (Reuters) – Militants in Gaza used an advanced Russian-designed missile against an Israeli tank this month, Israel’s military chief said on Tuesday, underscoring how smuggled weaponry has improved Palestinian combat capabilities.

Lieutenant-General Gabi Ashkenazi’s disclosures about the amour-piercing attack followed an Israeli newspaper report that the army planned to deploy the only tank battalion it has equipped with a new missile shield outside the Gaza Strip.

“On December 6, for the first time, a Kornet missile was fired and hit an IDF (Israel Defense Forces) tank, penetrating its amour,” Ashkenazi told a closed-door parliamentary session, according to an official transcript released to the media.

“Fortunately it did not explode within the tank. It is a heavy missile that is among the most dangerous that we have seen on this front and was not used even during the Lebanon war.”

According to its manufacturer, KBP Instrument Design Bureau of Tula, Russia, the Kornet can puncture 1,200 mm (47-inch)-thick amour at ranges of up to 5.5 km (3.4 miles).

Its laser guidance is backed by thermal sights for easier night use. Its warhead has 10 kg (22 pounds) of high explosive.

There was no Palestinian claim of responsibility for the attack described by Ashkenazi, which a military spokesman said targeted a tank posted on the Gaza border. Israel uses amour to cover foot patrols and incursions into Palestinian territory.

Gaza’s Hamas rulers, who generally hold sway over smaller armed factions there, declined comment on Ashkenazi’s remarks.

But Hamas, which fought a three-week war with Israel in 2008-2009, has made little secret of supplementing its mostly rudimentary arsenal with factory-made weapons bought on the black market and smuggled via tunnels from neighboring Egypt.

Hamas has also modeled itself on Lebanon’s Hezbollah guerrillas, who held off a punishing Israeli offensive in 2006. Iranian-backed Hezbollah destroyed or disabled some three dozen tanks in that war, more than 10 percent of the total deployed.

The experience shook Israel’s confidence in its conventional military clout, and speeded its development of Trophy, a system mounted on tanks that spots and shoots down incoming missiles.

Haaretz daily reported on Monday that Israel would next month begin deploying the 9th armored battalion, the only one whose tanks have been fitted with Trophy, outside Gaza.

An Israeli battalion numbers around 36 tanks, while Trophy costs some $250,000. The relatively slow pace of the system’s implementation reflects budget constraints as Israel prepares for a range of perceived threats from Gaza, Lebanon and Iran.

Asked about the Haaretz report, an Israeli military spokeswoman said only that the army planned to field-test a Trophy-equipped tank on Wednesday, using a disarmed missile.

IAF strikes Hamas ‘terror center’ in Gaza after Qassam attacks – Haaretz Daily Newspaper | Israel News.

Several targets in the southern Gaza Strip hit in response to increasing number of attacks from Gaza on Israeli troops and civilians.

By Haaretz Service

ighter jets launched a strike on Tuesday on what the army called a Hamas center for terrorist activity in the southern Gaza Strip, in response to the militant group’s increased activities against Israeli troops and civilians along the border over the past two weeks.

On Tuesday morning, a Qassam rocket struck the Ashkelon area, exploding in an open field near a kindergarten and lightly wounding a teenage girl in a nearby building.
Some 13 rockets have struck the western Negev over the last two days.

	A Palestinian man checks the damage of an abandoned house that was destroyed during an Israeli air strike overnight in Khan Younis, southern Gaza Strip, Tuesday, Dec. 21, 2010.
	Photo by: AP

The IAF had carried out a series of air strikes in the Gaza Strip overnight in response to the increasing number of attacks emanating from Gaza.

Two militants were wounded in the strikes, which hit a Hamas training camp, smuggling tunnels along Gaza’s border with Egypt, and other unpopulated areas, Hamas officials and witnesses said.

According to the IDF spokesman’s office, over 200 Grad missiles, Qassam rockets and mortar shells have been fired from the Gaza Strip into Israeli territory this year.

DEBKAfile, Political Analysis, Espionage, Terrorism, Security.

DEBKAfile Exclusive Report December 21, 2010, 9:38 AM (GMT+02:00)

Khaled Meshaal keeps Gilead Shalit as personal asset

The escalating Palestinian violence from the Gaza Strip is the direct result of the Damascus-based Khahled Meshaal’s victory in his power struggle with the Gaza wing’s leadership. Today, this hardliner is in complete control of all wings of the fundamentalist Palestinian movement. Dec. 13, He celebrated the 23rd anniversary of Hamas’s foundation by reiterating the Palestinian goal to seize all the land between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea. His signature is clearly marked in escalating missile, mortar and raiding attacks, murderous kidnapping operations inside Israel and the deadlocked negotiations for liberating the Israeli soldier Gilead Shalit in a prisoner swap.
Under his orders, Hamas-Gaza has itself taken over the missile, mortar and raiding attacks on Israel from the fringe groups like Jihad Islami and Al Qaeda-linked cells heretofore. When they land on empty ground it is deliberate; of late Hamas has taken delivery of guidance instruments to improve their precision.  The 10-mortar barrages of Monday, Dec. 20, marked a change in tactics, aiming straight for a military target in the Eshkol district abutting on the Gaza Strip; only by a miracle no one was hurt. Monday night, therefore, the Israeli air force spread out to hit seven sites in the Gaza Strip. Because most were unmanned, only three Hamas operatives were injured, one critically.

Then, early Tuesday, a Qassam missile came dangerously close to a kibbutz nursery school in the Hof Ashkelon area north of Gaza Strip, injuring a small girl and an adult and leaving shock victims.
By then it was obvious that Hamas was gearing up for a showdown. Still, up until Tuesday morning, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Ehud Barak persisted in holding the IDF back. By refraining from exercising its deterrent strength, Israel handed Hamas the initiative over the pace of the confrontation.
Even when the Palestinian terrorists moved into their next arena over the weekend, they were treated with kid gloves.

The two “Arabs” who murdered the American tourist Christine Luken (correcting the misnomer in the first official announcements) and stabbed her companion, Kaye Wilson, Saturday, Dec. 18 near Mata in the Jerusalem hills, were in fact a Hamas kidnap gang. They planned to abduct the two women, smuggle them to the Gaza Strip possibly through the long Sinai border and hold them hostage. When Wilson managed to get away, they decided to murder their captive and escape the scene ahead of pursuit.

Israeli police commanders, after hearing a full, detailed firsthand report on the incident, refused to call it flat out an act of terrorism, although Wilson had a dozen stab wounds and had reached her rescuers with hands bound behind her back. Instead, police officers spoke vaguely about exploring different paths of inquiry and cast implicit aspersions on her testimony.
Getting away with this crime encouraged Hamas to redouble its efforts, possibly with the same kidnap team already operating in the vicinity of Jerusalem and using the same tactics. Monday, Dec. 20, saw not only a 10-mortar barrage from the Gaza Strip, but three Palestinians armed with long knives trying to assault an Israeli soldier at Givat Zeev. They fled when he cocked his sidearm.

The soldier took care not to shoot and injure any of his assailants – and so bring Israeli anti-terrorist authorities a valuable asset for interrogation – because he was afraid of sharing the fate faced by some of his comrades – trial by the military prosecutor and the media for responding with “disproportionate force.”
He knew what he was doing: The police spent more time casting doubt on his account – “it is being checked” – than catching the would-be kidnappers. They remain at large for more murderous abductions of Israelis. Their handlers will have understood that they can safely press ahead with their efforts to snatch Israeli soldiers who are afraid to shoot – especially after Deputy Defense Minister Matan Vilnai told a radio interviewer Tuesday morning that he saw no sign of a Hamas “war of attrition” developing against Israel.

Khaled Meshaal’s takeover of Hamas Gaza gravely prejudices Gilead Shalit’s hopes of deliverance more than four years after he was kidnapped in a cross-border raid outside the Gaza Strip.
Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh and Gaza’s ideologue and virtual foreign minister Mahmoud A-zahar have been elbowed aside by Meshaal’s cronies, interior minister Fathi Hamad and Ezz e-din al-Qassam commander Ahmed al-Jabary. That act abruptly ended the controversy within the Hamas leadership over whether to accept a prisoner swap deal with Israel for Gilead Shalit’s freedom. From the first, Meshaal fought against letting the Israeli soldier go – even for all the 10,000 Palestinians in Israeli jails. For him, Shalit is an irreplaceable asset for enhancing his international prestige by bringing world leaders to his door to plead for the Israeli soldier’s release. By this means, Hamas gains international legitimacy and recognition as a force to be reckoned with in the region rather than a bunch of rabid terrorists.
Hamas’ military commander, Jabari, holds the Israeli soldier locked away from all contact with the outside world in an underground cell as an insurance policy against any Israeli attempts to liquidate him. He has sent backdoor message to Israel that Shalit’s jailors are under orders to respond to his untimely death by killing their Israeli captive.
These brutal facts have clearly not been brought home to Gilead’s desperate parents who have vowed to remain in a tent opposite Prime Minister Netanyahu’s residence and not go home until they can take their son with them. They are protesting what they call the government’s lack of courage and determination to obtain his release, when in fact they are dealing with a government which is in paralyzing denial over the escalating threats posed by Hamas.

PM to US: How will you handle Iran? – Israel News, Ynetnews.

Leaked document reveals that on April 2009, shortly after taking office, Netanyahu met with American lawmakers and asked them at least three times what US planned to do about nuclear threat Ynet reporters

On April 6, 2009, shortly after he was appointed prime minister for the second time, Benjamin Netanyahu held a first official meeting with US representatives. According to a cable published by the WikiLeaks website, the prime minister did not waste any time and kept asking the American lawmakers what Washington was planning to do about the Iranian nuclear issue.

Netanyahu wondered what would happen to the Middle East if the Islamic Republic attained a nuclear weapon. He asked what the United States planned to do if that happened, and how it would act if extremists took over Pakistan, which already had an atom bomb. Congresswoman Jane Harman told the prime minister that the US must give diplomatic efforts a chance, explaining that if the efforts failed, the Americans could at least say that they tried. Republican Senator Jon Kyl said that US President Barack Obama would advance the diplomatic efforts to reach out to Tehran, but said he doubted the move would succeed. Netanyahu said in response that the US must move quickly, and that the diplomatic efforts should be limited in time and have a specific goal. “For example, talking to the Iranians for four to 12 weeks and clarifying that the US goal is to put an end to their nuclear program,” he said. The prime minister leaned forward and repeated his previous question: “What will you do if it doesn’t work?” According to the cable, he repeated the same question at least three times during the conversation. Netanyahu went on to clarify that he had no intention of linking the talks with the Palestinians to the progress on the Iranian issue. He said that the government and 80% of the public believed the Palestinians should rule themselves. The prime minister also warned that if Hamas imposed a conflict, Israel would have to initiate another military operation in Gaza. “Israel doesn’t want to enter Gaza again, but it will do what it takes to defend its citizens,” he said.

‘Abbas must be a leader’

Another leaked cable reveals Netanyahu’s attitude towards the Palestinians half a year later. In a meeting with Senate workers in December 2009, the prime minister’s political advisor Ron Dermer said Netanyahu was “running out of patience” after taking many moves to resume peace talks with the Palestinians, unsuccessfully.

Dermer noted that progress had been made in terms of roadblocks and outposts in the West Bank, mentioned the fact that Netanyahu had adopted the two-state solution in his Bar-Ilan speech in June 2009, had allowed “violent” elements to take part in a Fatah conference in the West Bank and had frozen settlements construction. The advisor claimed that the last decision was a tough one and that 70% of Israelis opposed a building freeze, but the person who wrote the cable said the Americans believed he was exaggerating. Netanyahu’s advisor harshly criticized Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas during the meeting, saying that the Israeli government understood his constraints and was aware of the fact that Arab countries don’t support the peace process, but that at the end of the day Abbas must “be a leader”.

Dermer also mentioned the Goldstone Report, which accused Israel of committing war crimes in the Gaza Strip. He said Netanyahu would find it difficult to consult his cabinet on the peace talks with the Palestinians, “when all the Israeli government got in return for these efforts was a reprimand from the international community (over the Goldstone Report).”

Roi Kais, Aviel Magnezi and Yuval Mann contributed to this report

Qassam strikes near Ashkelon school, lightly wounding Israeli girl – Haaretz Daily Newspaper | Israel News.

Rocket explodes seven meters from a kindergarten; girl treated on the spot by Magen David Adom paramedics then taken to hospital, two other people suffer from shock; two Palestinians wounded in earlier IDF strike on Gaza.

By Yanir Yagna

A Qassam rocket struck the Ashkelon beach early Tuesday, exploding in an open field near a kindergarten and lightly wounded a girl on her way to school.

The girl was treated on the spot by Magen David Adom paramedics and then taken to hospital for further evaluation; two other people were suffering from shock. A number of buildings in the area sustained light damage.

There were about 10 children in the kindergarten when the rocket struck about seven meters away, said a teacher. “I quickly got out of my car, ignoring the siren to help the children. I gathered them together and kept them busy.”

Residents of the area had felt that a strike could be imminent recently, she said. “The doors are always open and the children are not allowed to leave the area,” she said. “We are very strict about that.”

Some 13 rockets have struck the western Negev over the last two days; none of those caused any casualties. The last injuries sustained from an attack in Israel was two weeks ago, when a man was wounded by a mortar shell that struck the Eshkol Regional Council.

The Israel Air Force carried out a series of air strikes in the Gaza Strip overnight Tuesday in response to the rise in attack.

Two militants were wounded in the strikes, which hit a Hamas training camp, smuggling tunnels along Gaza’s border with Egypt, and other unpopulated areas, Hamas officials and witnesses said.

“The Israel Defense Forces will not tolerate any attack on the citizens of the State of Israel or IDF soldiers and will continue to act determinedly and with strength against any force that operates with terror against the State of Israel,” said the IDF in a statement.

The spokesman added that the IDF recognized Hamas as a terrorist organization and held it solely responsible for all activities in the Gaza Strip and infringement of regional calm.

Hamas leaders have tried to curb rocket fire at Israel, but smaller groups continue to carry out such attacks.

On Saturday, an Israeli air strike in Gaza killed five militants from a rocket launching squad.

	Qassam rocket fired by Hamas militants,.
	Photo by: Getty Images

On the brink of war – Israel Opinion, Ynetnews.

Op-ed: Situation in Israel too reminiscent of way it was on brink of Yom Kippur War

Uri Misgav

It happened 37 years, 2 months and 14 days ago. Our credible, high-quality intelligence source, codenamed Babylon, summoned Mossad Chief Zvi Zamir to an urgent meeting in London and delivered the unbelievable warning: A war will break out tomorrow.

The sky fell. The conception collapsed. Egypt and Syria, despite their strategic inferiority, chose to attack Israel in order to secure vital objectives. The mandate given to the official commission of inquiry into the war failure was limited to the military leadership: Looking into the intelligence failure in predicting the joint offensive and analyzing the mistakes in utilizing forces in the first part of the war. Yet the archive documents released by law in the past decade prove that this was small change: The real commission of inquiry, which was never set up, was supposed to look into the scandalous conduct of the government on the diplomatic front. The arrogance, complacency, and short-sightedness did not start in abandoning the Suez Canal outposts, but rather, in ignoring President Sadat’s desperate peace signals and arrogantly disparaging the enemy’s capabilities. Historian Dr. Yigal Kipnis dedicated the past year to researching the subject in preparation for his next book. He is looking through thousands of documents and says the material is hair-raising and that the WikiLeaks cables pale in comparison. As fascinating as it may be, the academic discussion is not the essence here: What is blatantly clear is the analogy to the current situation. The state of affairs in Israel at the end of 2010 is too reminiscent, in too many parameters, of the Israel in the summer of 1973. Israel, which shrugs off the closing window of opportunity vis-à-vis the Palestinians. Israel, which is completely indifferent to the ongoing impasse on the Syrian track despite Bashar Assad’s signals. Israel, which for seven years now has ignored the Arab League’s Saudi peace initiative.

War will be worse this time

Even without Babylon, who fell to his death since then, we must not ignore the following prediction: A war shall break out tomorrow; and if not tomorrow, the next day. Tactically, it will not look like the 1973 war, but it will be stimulated by the same state of affairs: Diplomatic impasse, pushing the Arabs into a corner, a response to domestic pressure (popular unrest, regaining the lost honor,) and the pulling of strings behind the scenes by an interested power (back then it was the Soviet Union, this time it’s Iran.)

The tanks and ground maneuvers will be replaced by ballistic missiles and guerilla operations. It doesn’t really matter, and to a great extent it will prompt worse results, as most of the casualties will be civilians rather than soldiers. Government ministers, led by the Netanyahu– Barak axis, must finally understand that the day after this horrific scenario materializes they won’t be able to evade responsibility. There will also be no need to wait 30 years for the archives to open, as in the current era diplomacy was mostly managed in the open, not secretly.

A complacent and haughty Israel not only refrained from seriously looking into the plethora of diplomatic options at its doorstep, it also failed to initiate its own peace plan. At this time, we may indeed be dazed by our daily troubles and drugged by the reality shows on TV, yet the first missile will wake us up to reality.

7 mortar shells explode in Negev – Israel News, Ynetnews.

No injuries, damage reported as Eshkol Regional Council absorbs fire for second time in two days

Ilana Curiel

Seven mortar shells exploded in the Negev Monday, in the Eshkol Regional Council. No injuries or damage have been reported so far. Recently terror organizations have been increasing fire on Israel from Gaza, with four mortar shells fired on Sunday night exploding south of Ashkelon.

Two of the shells fell in open spaces in Eshkol Regional Council and the other two in open spaces in Hof Ashkelon Regional Council. Overnight Saturday the Air Force bombed a terror cell firing rockets at Israel from central Gaza, and Palestinian sources reported that all five were killed. The gunmen apparently belonged to Islamic Jihad and the Popular Resistance Committees.

MEMRI: Amir Hossein Shirani, Abducted Employee at Secret Iranian Nuclear Plant: The Facility Enriched Uranium in Order to Build a Nuclear Weapon.

WikiLeaks: ‘2010 will be a critical year on Iranian threat’.

Israel predicted that that 2010 would be “a critical year” in terms of the Iranian nuclear threat, according to a diplomatic cable leaked by WikiLeaks on Sunday.

The document, which summarizes a meeting of the 40th joint political-military group from November 11, 2009, cited Israeli concerns that “if the Iranians continue to protect and harden their nuclear sites, it will be more difficult to target and damage them.”

The cable also revealed that Israel had raised concerns about dual citizenship with “respect to access to sensitive technology,” and that the government had “recommended obtaining a waiver similar to the relationship from which Canada or Australia benefit.”

Defense Ministry Dir.-Gen. Pinhas Buchris and Maj.-Gen. (res.) Amos Gilad were both present at the meeting along with a number of other Israeli officials.

US participants acknowledged Israeli concerns, noting that the issue was being worked at the highest levels of the US government to reach consensus on how to proceed.

The same document discusses how Israel raised concern that the Government of Turkey was leaning toward Syria and Iran, and away from Israel.

Israeli participants argued that Turkey has been supportive of Hamas in Gaza while pursuing a more “Islamic” direction with the goal of becoming a regional superpower.

The document revealed that US and Israeli counterparts continued discussion on the creation of four new Qualitative Military Edge (QME) working groups.

Both sides presented their primary points of  contact for the four newly proposed working groups focusing on previous agreements, mitigation measures for the F-15 sale to Saudi Arabia.

Iranian sanctions were also discussed and the cable revealed that the Israeli government officials expressed concern regarding Chinese and Russian cooperation with respect to enhanced Iranian sanctions.

Another released Wikileaks cable from June 2007 revealed Shin Bet (Israeli Security Agency) head Yuval Diskin’s assessments of the current situation in the Gaza Strip and West Bank.

He painted a picture of “a desperate, disorganized, and demoralized Fatah in the Gaza Strip, versus a well-organized and ascendant Hamas.”

Diskin said the situation in the West Bank was “comparatively better,” and said the level of cooperation that the Shin Bet receives from the Palestinian security services operating in the West Bank had improved.

However, he expressed concerns over what he characterized as “a crisis of leadership in Fatah, with PA President Abbas already focusing on his retirement, and his possible successors incapable of leading the Palestinians in both the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.”

“Diskin said that Fatah is on its ‘last legs,’ and that the situation bodes ill for Israel,” the cable read.

In another cable released Monday, it was revealed that during a 2007 June 12 meeting with US Ambassador to Israel Richard H. Jones, then-head of Military Intelligence Maj.-Gen. Amos Yadlin said that Gaza was “number four” on his list of threats, preceded by Iran, Syria, and Hizbullah in that order.

Yadlin said military intelligence had been predicting armed confrontation in Gaza between Hamas and Fatah since Hamas won the January 2006 legislative council elections, the cable revealed.