Israel Matzav

Hamas to resume attacks?

With another Kassam rocket falling on the south on Friday morning, and with Hamas insisting that its troops, and not Islamic Jihad's, were responsible for the deaths of two IDF soldiers last Friday, analysts believe that we may soon see a resumption of hostilities by Hamas for the first time since Operation Cast Lead ended in January 2009.

The current situation is complex and shifting. Increased Israeli-Palestinian tensions in the West Bank have produced increased rocket firing from Gaza as Palestinian factions there show support for those in the West Bank. Palestinian political competition both inside and outside Gaza could push Hamas, however reluctantly, to a more adventurous policy regarding attacks on Israel -- if not directly via Hamas strikes, then by giving other organizations a freer hand. Hamas may or may not have already relaxed suppression on such groups due to various pressures. Whatever the case, when rockets are fired into Israel, the IDF often responds by hitting Hamas targets, and when Palestinian operatives approach the border fence, the IDF responds aggressively.

Israel is attempting to reinforce the level of deterrence it established with Cast Lead via airstrikes and warnings, but there is a sense that this is not enough -- that deterrence is eroding under current conditions. Israeli civilians in the south are also increasingly uneasy about the spike in rocket attacks and border incidents, adding to the pressure on the government and military to respond strongly. Senior Israeli officials have mostly been cautious about the situation, although Likud minister Yuval Steinitz stated on March 28 that Israel might have to reoccupy Gaza to destroy the Hamas regime. In addition, some Southern Command officers have taken a tougher public line than IDF chief of staff Gabi Ashkenazi, who has been very cautious.

JPost adds:

Since Operation Cast Lead in the Gaza Strip last winter, Hamas has mostly refrained from attacks. It has altogether stopped its rocket attacks – although other terrorist factions have fired intermittently. It has, however, reserved for itself the right to attack along the Gaza border.

The pressure on Hamas is believed to be coming from three main sources: the Palestinian street, radical Palestinian terrorist groups that are affiliated with al-Qaida and which continue to attack Israel, and finally, mid-level Hamas military commanders who are frustrated with the organization’s decision to hold its fire.

While Hamas has yet to completely resume its attacks, it is continuing to rebuild its military infrastructure in the Gaza Strip and to smuggle in advanced weaponry.

An example was revealed on Thursday when Egyptian security forces announced that they had discovered a massive arms cache in the central Sinai Peninsula that was probably on its way to Hamas in Gaza. The cache, according to Egyptian media reports, included 100 anti-aircraft missiles, likely to be shoulder-launched, as well as 40 rocket-propelled grenades and 40 other explosive devices.

Hamas was believed to already have shoulder-to-air missiles before Cast Lead, but they were not used, leading Israeli intelligence analysts to conclude that while it had obtained the missiles, Hamas did not have a chance to train its fighters to use them before the IDF offensive. The same applied to anti-tank missiles.

Israel now believes that Hamas has trained its men to use the advanced weaponry, mostly by sending them to Iran and Lebanon.

News of the cache discovery comes after Egypt recently began a nationwide crackdown on Hamas’s smuggling industry and expanded its efforts to its southern border with Sudan, where trucks make their way from port cities along Africa’s Red Sea coast to the Philadelphi Corridor between Sinai and Gaza.

One of the main routes used by Iran to smuggle weapons to Hamas in the Strip starts at sea, with ships that dock in ports in Eritrea and Sudan. The cargo is transferred to trucks that travel through the Sudanese desert, up thorough Egypt and the Sinai Peninsula until they unload their cargo along the Philadelphi Corridor, a 14-kilometer strip along the Gaza border which is home to hundreds of smuggling tunnels used by Hamas to bring weaponry and explosives to the Strip.

Here's that Hamas video of the attack on IDF troops last Friday. Let's go to the videotape.



You can watch a longer version of that video here.

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 2:58 PM