Israel Matzav

IAF hits Haniyeh's office in Gaza City

The Jerusalem Post is reporting that the Israeli Air Force has hit 'Palestinian Prime Minister' Ismail Haniyeh's Gaza City office. The IDF had no comment on the report.

According to a DEBKAfile report, the Egyptian effort at mediating the hostage crisis in Gaza has broken down, and Abu Mazen is hoping that Israel will do his dirty work and get rid of the Hamas government. Tonight's air raid may be the first step in that direction.

Update 2:18 AM

A couple of key highlights from the DEBKAfile report cited above:

In an interview Friday, June 30, to the Cairo daily al Ahram, Hosni Mubarak boasted he had brokered a deal with Hamas leaders on terms for the Israeli hostage’s release, but accused Israel of rejecting them. This was the reverse of the real situation. Mubarak had no clearance from Hamas before he went public, but Olmert was willing to listen. Egypt’s intelligence chief Omar Suleiman was supposed to travel to Jerusalem Saturday, July 1, to present the deal in detail.

DEBKAfile disclosed those terms that same day:

1. Gilead Shalit will be freed and handed to the IDF.

2. Israel will then pull its troops back from the Gaza Strip.

3. The 87 Hamas leaders Israel detained on the West Bank last Thursday, June 29, will be released.

4. Olmert will give Mubarak his personal guarantee to free groups of Palestinian prisoners at a suitable future opportunity as a gesture of goodwill.

After reading Mubarak’s al Ahram interview, Hamas leaders in Damascus and Gaza blew up. The Damascus-based Hamas leader, Khaled Meshaal, ordered the special emissary he sent to Cairo last week (as reported earlier by DEBKAfile) to notify the Egyptian president that Hamas utterly disowns his proposals for a hostage deal.

The Israeli corporal’s captors, a coalition of three terrorist groups, thereupon posted their new demand for the release of another 1,000 Palestinian prisoners, on top of the 450 demanded earlier. There was no offer to free Gilead Shalit. This reverse thoroughly confused the situation as presented in the media.

...

Our political sources note that Israel’s leaders fell into the disastrous error of putting their trust in the Egyptian ruler instead of entrusting the IDF with a swift, comprehensive offensive to vanquish Hamas. The result of their dilly-dallying is that Israel is being dragged against its will into a far broader and more costly conflict whose outcome is incalculable against an enemy which has used the time gained to prepare for the fray.

Saturday too the Lebanese Hizballah placed its forces on the ready. Hassan Nasrallah, the terrorist group’s leader, explained that when the IDF attacks Hamas in the Gaza Strip, Palestinian organizations in Lebanon will be set loose against Israel’s northern border.

Read the whole thing.

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 2:11 AM