WarSclerotic

Two hurt in missile strike on bus carrying students near Gaza – Haaretz Daily Newspaper | Israel News.

Two people were wounded Thursday after an anti-tank missile exploded into a bus traveling in one of the communities surrounding the Gaza Strip.

Following the attack, 16 additional mortar shells were fired at Israeli towns in the western Negev, most of them hitting open areas.

	Bus damaged by missile strike from Gaza which wounded two people, April 7, 2011.
	Photo by: Ilan Assayag

Magen David Adom crew who arrived at the scene said that a 16-year-old boy was critically wounded as a result of the attack, and that the bus driver was moderately hurt by shrapnel wounds in his leg.

“The boy was lying on the ground bleeding. The bus driver was conscious and hysterical. The entire bus destroyed – it was a horrifying sight,” said a member of the rescue service.

MDA said that the rescue services resuscitated the boy and later transferred him to the hospital. MDA also said the bus was nearly empty after dropping off school children and was carrying only the driver and the 16-year-old boy at the time of the attack.

Residents of communities near the site of attack were instructed by authorities to stay inside their homes in case the strikes at Israeli towns will continue.

Following the attack, the Israel Defense Forces quickly retaliated and launched both land and air strikes on Hamas targets in the Gaza Strip, the IDF spokesperson said, killing a 50-year-old man and wounding five others.

Defense Minister, Ehud Barak ordered the army to respond quickly and said he held the Hamas militant group, which rules Gaza, responsible for the violence. There was no claim of responsibility for the attack.

The strike came following several weeks of tension and mutual attacks along Israel’s border with the Hamas-ruled Strip, with Israel Defense Forces aircraft striking smuggling tunnels in southern Gaza earlier Thursday.

On Tuesday, IDF tanks fired at and killed an armed Palestinian approaching the Gaza Strip’s border with Israel on Tuesday, as three mortar bombs exploded in Israeli soil.

The incident took place after an IDF force spotted an armed Palestinian near the Erez crossing at the Strip’s north, later directing tank fire to the spot. No injuries were reported from among the soldiers.

On Saturday, IDF planes struck a vehicle travelling at the south of the Gaza Strip, killing three Hamas operatives, one of them a top commander in Hamas’ military wing.

An IDF Spokesperson stated that the three men were members of a terrorist cell that was “planning to kidnap Israelis over the upcoming Jewish holiday of Passover” in Israel and in the Sinai Peninsula, a popular spring tourist destination for Israelis.

The Palestinian Ma’an news agency identified the three as Isma’il Labad and his brother Abdullah from Ash-Shati’ refugee camp in the northern Gaza Strip, and military commander Muhammad Ad-Dayah from the Zaytoun neighborhood of Gaza City.

Ad-Dayah, 33, is considered to be a top Hamas military official. As a child he participated in the first intifada, later serving as the bodyguard of former Hamas chief Abdel Aziz Rantisi. Ad-Dayah also lost one of his eyes during an attempted mortar attack on a nearby settlement.

Hamas vowed vengeance against Israel in a statement Saturday, describing the strike as a crime and “serious escalation” of the recent violence, and vowed that Israel would “bear all the consequences.” The militant group also called on the U.S. to stop the flow of financial aid to Israel.

Prior to the attack, Palestinian militants have fired rocket salvos into Israel, reaching as far as the major southern city Be’er Sheva, and Israel has carried out a series of air strikes.

Teen in critical condition from Gaza anti-tank missile.

An anti-tank missile shot from the Gaza Strip directly hit a school bus outside Kibbutz Sa’ad in the Sha’ar Hanegev Regional Council on Thursday, injuring two people. Defense Minister Ehud Barak ordered the IDF to respond speedily and to attack using all means necessary.

An Israeli attack helicopter machine-gunned a target in Gaza City after the missile attack, for the first time since Operation Cast Lead. A Reuters correspondent said the sound of heavy fire from the helicopter was audible in the center of the city.

IDF forces struck back at various locations throughout the strip. At least three people were killed and at least eight people, including a 4-year-old girl were injured in IDF and IAF strikes, Palestinian medics said.

An IAF F-16 warplane bombed a major Hamas security compound, rocking Gaza City with a big explosion and wounding at least one person there.

In the Negev attack, the 16-year-old was in critical condition after paramedics managed to resuscitate him. He was airlifted to Soroka Medical Center in Beersheba where he was undergoing surgery. Soroka officials said that he was suffering from head injuries.

The bus driver was listed in light condition after being hit in the leg. They were the only people on the bus.

Forty-five rockets and mortar shells on Thursday afternoon were fired into Israel from the Gaza Strip in the span of three hours. Palestinian terror groups claimed that they had fired two longer-range rockets into Israel following the IDF strikes. Shortly after, the IDF’s Iron Dome anti-rocket system was successfully activated for the first time, intercepting a Grad rocket fired towards Ashkelon.

Mortars and Kassam rockets continued to fall in the Eshkol, Sha’ar Hanegev and Hof Ashkelon Regional Councils through Thursday night.

An emergency information line was opened for the Sha’ar Hanegev Regional Council: 08-680-6450

Iron Dome works in combat, intercepts Katyusha rocket.

History was made on Thursday when the Iron Dome counter-rocket defense system intercepted a Grad-model Katyusha rocket fired from the Gaza Strip on Thursday, proving its capabilities for the first time in combat.

IDF sources said that the rocket was detected shortly after it was launched in the direction of Ashkelon, south of which a battery was deployed on Monday. Two Tamir interceptors were fired at the Katyusha and the first intercepted it, a senior Israeli Air Force officer said.

“This is a historic achievement and the first time that a short-range rocket was shot down in this way in the world,” one defense official said.

The first Iron Dome battery was deployed outside of Beersheba in late March after Hamas and Islamic Jihad fired over 100 rockets and mortar shells into Israel in under a week. The IAF said that it planned to keep the Iron Dome in its current positions but would move the batteries to other cities within the range of Palestinian rocket fire over the coming weeks.

Israel plans to increase the number of operational batteries to six in the coming years, with the arrival of $205 million the Obama administration has pledged it will provide Israel to purchase additional rocket defense systems. The Defense Ministry recently completed negotiations with Iron Dome manufacturer Rafael about the upcoming deal.

Sources in the Air Force said that the Iron Dome was still undergoing an operational evaluation but would continue to be activated in the event of continued attacks from the Gaza Strip.

Former defense minister and Labor Party MK Amir Peretz who made the decision to develop the Iron Dome, hailed the success and said that it was the result of “well-trained young soldiers who were prepared for their mission.”

DEBKAfile, Political Analysis, Espionage, Terrorism, Security.

DEBKAfile Exclusive Report April 7, 2011, 10:06 AM (GMT+02:00)

Tadan

Remains of smugglers’ car near Port Sudan

In accusing Israel of killing the two passengers of a Hyundai Sinai near Port Sudan Tuesday, April 5, the Sudanese Foreign Minister Ali Karti alleged a missile was fired from an aerial drone or a vessel on the Red Sea. debkafile‘s exclusive military and intelligence sources reveal that a special operations unit landed by sea and used a surface missile to hit the car and kill two top handlers of the Iranian-Hamas arms smuggling network in Sudan. The assailants waylaid the vehicle as it drove through the Kalaneeb region on the only blacktop road running through the Sudanese desert between Khartoum and Port Sudan.

Our sources further reveal that the passengers killed in the car did not arrive at Port Sudan airport by air, as previously reported, but by road from the northeastern Sudanese town of Atbara, which lies 344 kilometers north of Khartoum at the meeting-point of the Blue and White Niles.

This town of some 120,000 inhabitants is the base of operations of one of the largest and most ruthless arms smuggling network operating out of Sudan.

This network’s long and murky record goes back to the 1980s and 1990s when it served al Qaeda. Its top operatives include members of the Masoud al-Qosi clan, some of whom joined up with Osama bin Laden and quit Sudan with him when he returned to Afghanistan in 1996.

One of Bin Laden’s bodyguards, Ibrahim al Qosi, has spent the last seven years at the detention facility in Guantanamo Bay awaiting trial.
Over the years, Iranian and Hamas agents were given a niche in the expanding Sudanese smuggling ring to oversee the execution of the deals they commissioned for smuggling arms into Gaza. Those agents recently withdrew from direct involvement and deputized network members to handle the route to Gaza.

Its most recent commission was the covert transfer of mustard and nerve gas consignments which Hamas and Hizballah buyers purchased with Iranian funding and direction from Libyan rebels in Benghazi  and which were bound for Lebanon and the Gaza Strip – as debkafile was first to disclose on March 31.

The “merchandise” had reached Sudan from Libya in convoys under special Hizballah and Hamas guard.

On April 6, after the attack on the car, top Sudanese intelligence and military investigators arrived on the scene at around 18:00 hours to try and establish who perpetrated the attack and identify the two dead men. They found the bodies too blackened and burnt to identify and their personal documents mostly destroyed in the flames.

Khartoum then turned to Cairo with an urgent request for counter-terror and missile experts to help in the inquiry. They were also stalled by lack of proper forensic investigation gear.
In their initial examination, the Sudanese investigators believed they found Iranian ID belonging to one of the passengers while the second looked like a Palestinian; one of them had died in the car, the second outside. In the absence of local missing persons, the pair were presumed to be outsiders.

They also deduced that the hit-team was picked up by helicopter straight after the attack and flown to a ship standing by off the Red Sea coast of Sudan. The noise it made gave rise to the theory that car had been struck by an airborne missile.
The method of attack and clean getaway pointed to a sophisticated military organization capable of unconventional operations across great distances spanning thousands of kilometers. It would have required competent military intelligence support in places as far apart as Atbara, Kalaneeb, Port Sudan and the Red Se

What is Sudan hiding about the air strike it blamed on Israel? – Haaretz Daily Newspaper | Israel News.

Tuesday’s attack by fighter jets demolished a car and killed its two passengers, which reportedly included an Islamist responsible for supplying weapons to Hamas.

By Amos Harel and Avi Issacharoff

Sudan accused Israel yesterday of launching a missile strike on its territory on Tuesday – an attack that demolished a car and killed its two passengers. Israel did not comment on the attack or the accusations.

The full extent of the strike and the identity of the victims are not clear yet, but the Al-Arabiya news network reported yesterday that an Islamist responsible for supplying weapons to Hamas was apparently among the two people killed.

	A photo of the attack on Port Sudan on April 5, 2011.
	Photo by: Sudan Tribune

If Israel is responsible for the attack, as foreign media reports suggested yesterday, it would appear to be another step in Israel’s global campaign to stop Iranian arms smuggling into the region.

The Sudanese Media Center, a news agency associated with the African nation’s security services, reported yesterday that at about 9 P.M. local time (10 P.M. Israel time ) missiles struck a vehicle on the main road from Khartoum airport, 14 kilometers from Port Sudan, killing the car’s two occupants.

According to one version, the missiles were fired from unidentified fighter jets that came from the east over the Red Sea. One of the victims was said to be a Sudanese national and the other, according to Al Arabiya, was a person “of Arab nationality responsible for arming Hamas.”

Sudanese Foreign Minister Ali Ahmed Karti said, “This is absolutely an Israeli attack,” adding that Sudan had evidence that Israel had launched the strike.

An eyewitness told Reuters that security people were preventing journalists and other people from entering the site of the explosion. He said he could see a car going up in flames.

The Sudanese Media Center said the state’s aerial defense forces fired at the attacking aircraft, which was described as “foreign,” and drove it out of Sudan’s air space.

A senior Sudanese official said later that eyewitnesses saw the aircraft follow the vehicle and then bomb it. He added that a similar attack had been made in that area before. The official denied reports that these attacks were meant to prevent arms trafficking and called on the international community to investigate who is behind the bombings.

The conduct of the Sudanese authorities and their decision to keep the media away from the attack site may indicate that Khartoum has much to hide in the affair. Perhaps, despite its denials, the Sudanese regime knows about the reported arms smuggling taking place within its borders.

Israeli defense officials have accused Sudan of enabling Iran to smuggle arms through its territory in convoys, via Egypt, to the Gaza Strip.

Sudanese officials describe the attack as being targeted against a specific person. But sending an aerial force to such a remote destination to kill one lone militant appears to be unusual.

Israel has not confirmed or denied foreign media reports saying the Israel Air Force has carried out strikes in Sudan at least twice before, in January and February 2009, shortly after Operation Cast Lead in Gaza ended.

In one incident, a truck convoy leading arms to Gaza was bombed and 119 people were killed. In the other incident, a ship was bombed from the air.

At the time, reports surfaced about Israeli naval commando activity in Sudan’s ports against arms smuggling.

Sudan, whose relations with the West are tense, is interested in downplaying the incident, especially if another arms convoy has been hit.

Israel’s covert war with Iran

For the past three years, Israel and Iran have been conducting a covert war over arms trafficking. Iran sends a huge amount of weapons and materiel to Syria, Hezbollah, Hamas and Islamic Jihad through various routes. Israel has meanwhile acted in various regions to foil the smuggling, according to foreign media reports.

In January 2010, senior Hamas official Mahmoud al-Mabhouh, head of the Islamist organization’s arms trafficking apparatus, was murdered in a Dubai hotel. Dubai police accused the Mossad of the assassination and published photos and passports of the alleged perpetrators, with Dubai claiming were traveling under fake identities.

Over the past two months, reports related to the arms-trafficking war have been on the rise. In February, Palestinian engineer Dirar Abu Sisi disappeared in Ukraine, with his family claiming that Israeli agents had abducted him from a nighttime train. A large part of the Hamas weapons industry relies on the help of Iranian experts. The circumstances under which Abu Sisi was brought to Israel are prohibited from publication under a gag order.

On March 16, Israel’s naval commando intercepted the ship Victoria en route from Turkey to Egypt, where large amounts of weapons were found on board. The IDF believes the weapons, intended for Gaza, had been flown from Iran to Damascus, where they were loaded onto the ship. This appears to be an alternative Iranian route, replacing the old sea route from the Persian Gulf to Egypt and from there to Gaza via Sinai.

Despite the smuggling failures, considerable quantities of Iranian weapons are assumed to have still reached both Hezbollah – the Syrian border with Lebanon is completely open and unsupervised – and Hamas.