Israel Matzav

DEBKAfile confirms: 'Palestinians' fired anti-tank missile at Migdalim

DEBKAfile is now confirming a story that I ran this morning, which says that 'Palestinian' terrorists fired an anti-tank missile into the Jewish town of Migdalim in Samaria near Shchem. This morning I reported that the IDF denied the story, but their denial was not credible.

However, senior officers in Central Command told DEBKAfile’s military sources that the Palestinians, for the first time, fired an antitank missile at an Israeli settlement, adding that it had been smuggled into the West Bank from the Gaza Strip or the Sinai Peninsula.

According to the officers, Hamas has devoted tremendous resources to opening a second front by firing short-range missiles at Israeli targets from the West Bank, and has already succeeded in stockpiling a “not insignificant” number of such missiles. “The first instance of the firing of such a missile took place early Wednesday morning at 4 a.m., and now it will escalate,” one officer said.

Another officer said: “What we said was that we didn’t find the missile fragments in the field. However, just because we didn’t find them doesn’t mean we don’t know what the Palestinians are up to. The missile was definitely fired, and without any doubt this heralds the opening of a new period of warfare in the West Bank and within the Green Line.”

DEBKAfile’s military and intelligence sources report that senior IDF officers are saying that while the political echelon and military brass are still deliberating how to halt or lessen the influx of weapons through Palestinian-made smuggling tunnels along the Philadelphi Corridor and the Egypt-Gaza border, Hamas is concentrating most of its efforts to bringing its assorted weaponry from Gaza to the West Bank. Hamas sees this as a priority, even more than bringing advanced weaponry into Gaza.

Over the past few weeks, the IDF says, Hamas has succeeded in opening another smuggling route from the Sinai Peninsula to the Arava near Eilat. From there the missiles cross the Jordan River into Jordan, then are snuck into the West Bank through the Dead Sea area by Beduin smuggling networks.

Hamas wants to establish in the West Bank and adjoining areas on the other side of the Green Line a zone of live fire similar to what exists along the Gaza Strip security fence....

But the Olmert-Peretz-Livni government will continue to fiddle as Israel burns, because if they admitted this is happening, they would also have to admit that their entire convergence consolidation realignment surrender, expulsion and suicide plan was reckless and dangerous, and that they have no mandate to continue to govern the country based on this dangerous plan, which has been put on hold. The real question is why Avigdor Lieberman has chosen to prop up the government.

As I said this morning,

Despite the IDF denial, I am inclined to believe the report. If you follow the links below, you will see that this is not the first time that the 'Palestinians' have attempted to fire missiles in Samaria, and that the IDF itself said in September that it expects that the 'Palestinians' will carry out rocket strikes on the portions of Israel that are within the green line during 2007. How soon they forget cover up. And to answer your question, no, of course nothing has been done about this.

Unfortunately, it will probably take a direct hit with casualties to get the government to act. Maybe even, God forbid, a lot of casualties.

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 5:43 PM