Israel Matzav

Hamas attempts to assassinate Israeli minister

The Hamas terror group attempted to assassinate Israel's Internal Security Minister Avi Dichter (pictured, top left) today, as he led a group of Canadian Jewish tourists on a tour of Israeli towns that border the Gaza Strip and have come under rocket, mortar and sniper fire. The sniper missed Dichter but hit Mati Gill, the director of Dichter's office, who was lightly to moderately wounded and taken to Barzilay Hospital.

A Hamas sniper who wounded an aide to Public Security Minister Avi Dichter, Mati Gill, was aiming for the minister and the group he was leading, the organization told a French news agency late Friday afternoon.

Gill was listed in light to moderate condition at Barzilai Hospital in Ashkelon after being shot and wounded by a Palestinian gunman Friday while he and Dichter were touring an observation point overlooking the northern Gaza Strip. Dichter was not hurt.

Dichter and Gill had taken a 15-member delegation of the Board of Governors of the Canada Israel Committee (CIC) to the overlook near Sderot in order to familiarize them with the situation in southern Israeli communities bordering Gaza, which have come under frequent Palestinian rocket fire.

The IDF informed Army Radio that while the lookout point visited by Dichter's group is considered "under threat" and defined as a "target" for Palestinian terror groups in Gaza, visits there are not prohibited.

Earlier, Dichter told Army Radio he didn't believe the shots had been aimed at him, but at the Canadian group.

Moshe Ronen, the president of the CIC, described the unfolding of the incident: "We were told by the shin bet to lie down on the sand; an assistant of Avi Dichter was shot in the leg. As soon as the fire started everybody hit the floor and within approximately a minute the IDF started firing back. Within 20 to 30 minutes IDF troops had evacuated the delegation and the minister from the border area."

This was the second time in recent weeks that a Dichter aide has been hurt in a Palestinian attack. In late February, a Dichter bodyguard was lightly wounded in a rocket attack on southern Israel as he prepared for the minister to visit.

...

Several groups claimed responsibility for the attack, including the military wing of Hamas, a militant offshoot of Fatah, and two little-known radical Islamic groups inspired by al-Qaida, the Army of the Nation and a hitherto unknown group called Defenders of Al-Aksa.

But give them a state reichlet and they'll stop shooting.

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 4:44 PM