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2 Israel and Hamas in a
dangerous game By Victor Kotsev
TEL
AVIV - A second Gaza war in just over two years
is, strictly speaking, not imminent; at least not
until Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu
returns to the country on Friday, following a trip
to Germany and the Czech Republic. While neither
side seems to want a full-scale collision (or so
they say), violence is steadily rising, and the
time between successive escalations is shrinking.
A public relations campaign
is in full swing, and both sides are positioning
for a vantage point in any blame game that would
undoubtedly accompany a war. Israel's northern
front is tense as well, and as the Jewish state
faces unprecedented challenges following the Arab
revolts practically everywhere around it, its
leaders have to make fateful
choices about the use of force.
On
Thursday, an advanced anti-tank missile fired from
the Gaza Strip destroyed an Israeli school bus,
critically wounding a 16-year old boy and
moderately injuring the driver. A greater tragedy
was avoided only by chance, since the driver had
already dropped off the rest of the passengers and
the driver and boy were the only people left in
the bus. Only a few minutes earlier, one report
has it, a large group of children had disembarked
at a nearby community.
Israel responded with over a
dozen air and artillery strikes in Gaza that
killed at least five people and wounded more than
40. One of the dead was reportedly a civilian in
his fifties, while the other four were Hamas
militants, including a commander. The injured
included an unknown number of civilians. At the
same time, militants in the Strip fired around 45
mortars and short-range missiles into Israel, one
of which reportedly struck a house; no casualties
were reported. In a twist, another missile was
intercepted before it could hit the Israeli city
of Ashkelon by the domestically-developed Iron
Dome short-range missile defense system. This
marked the first battle test of the new system, as
well as, according to analysts, the first
interception of a short-range rocket in "world
history."
At 11 pm local time on
Thursday, Hamas, whose armed wing claimed
responsibility for the school bus attack, declared
a unilateral ceasefire, but the Israeli air force
continued to bomb smuggling tunnels and other
targets throughout the night. Israeli experts
estimated that the missile was fired from a
distance of four to five kilometers, and that the
militants who launched it aimed at a school bus
with the full intention to commit a massacre and
provoke the Jewish State. A senior defense
official, quoted by the Israeli daily Ha'aretz,
claimed that Hamas aimed to establish a "balance
of terror".
Israeli Defense Minister Ehud
Barak said in a statement that Israeli responses
would continue "in order to make clear that things
like this cannot continue". Netanyahu also vowed
to take "all necessary action" as soon as he
returns on Friday.
The violence comes in the
wake of numerous other escalations in recent days
and weeks. I outlined some of what now serves as
context to the current round in two articles
titled Jerusalem bomb seeds
gathering conflict (Asia Times Online, March
24, 2011) and Fighting drowns out
talking (Asia Times Online, March 23, 2011).
It is a convoluted tale of several major terror
attacks, including one in Jerusalem that broke a
period of several years of relative calm; the
interception of a ship carrying Iranian weapons,
most likely for Gaza; rocket and mortar attacks
from the Strip; Israeli retaliatory and
pre-emptive strikes that killed dozens, including
civilians; the abduction of a Gaza engineer in
Ukraine; reconciliation talks between rival
Palestinian factions, Fatah and Hamas; and
increasing international pressure on Israel
related to the Palestinian bid to achieve
statehood some time this year.
The
more recent developments are hardly any less
diverse or difficult to interpret. On Tuesday, the
Sudanese authorities accused Israel of conducting
a mysterious air strike on a car in Sudan killed
two people. According to most versions that have
emerged so far, the dead were important arms
smugglers, but there are conflicting reports of
their identity and nationality. Some sources have
it that both were Sudanese, perhaps working for
Hamas, others claim that one was an "Arab
national"; there is even speculation that one was
Iranian.
According to a report in the
Palestinian news agency Ma'an, "Palestinian
security officials said that the target
[Abdul-Latif Ashkar] in what has been alleged to
be an Israeli strike on Sudan was the successor to
assassinated Hamas official Mahmoud Mabhouh."
Mabhouh was killed in Dubai last year in
mysterious circumstances, and the Israeli Mossad
is widely believed to be behind his assassination.
He was allegedly a key figure in the Hamas arms
smuggling network.
The Israeli intelligence
analysis website Debka File, known for
occasionally spreading wild rumors as well as
legitimate intelligence leaks, speculates that the
strike was a response to a plot to ship thousands
of artillery shells containing mustard and nerve
gas, obtained from the Libyan rebels, to Hamas and
Hezbollah.
In the absence of similar
reports, this information must be taken with a
grain of salt, but it is indeed possible that the
Libyan conflict is somehow related to this
development. High-ranking American officials have
also mentioned the presence of Hezbollah and other
Islamic militants among the Libyan rebels. Many
weapons from Libyan stockpiles are unaccounted
for, and diverse groups including elements of
al-Qaeda are vying to get hold of them.
Meanwhile, on Monday Israel
indicted a Gaza engineer, Dirar Abu-Sisi, whom it
reportedly abducted in Ukraine in February,
accusing him of being a key figure in Hamas’s
home-grown missile industry (“the father of
missiles”). The indictment, much of which is
classified, mentions that Abu-Sisi received his
PhD from a Ukrainian military academy, and was
mentored there by one of the leading experts on
Soviet Scud missiles, from whom he “acquired
extensive knowledge in missile development,
control systems, propulsion and stabilization".
Abu-Sisi allegedly played a
crucial role in improving the range and accuracy
of Palestinian Qassam rockets, from six kilometers
in 2002 to 22 kilometers in 2007. He also
augmented the penetration capabilities of
Palestinian anti-tank missiles, and planned
further innovations such as a boost in the range
of the Qassams and new mortars that could
penetrate armor. After Operation Cast Lead in
2008-2009, he helped establish a Hamas "military
academy".
Abu-Sisi and his family have
insisted that he is innocent, that he was abducted
in relation to the captive Israeli soldier, Gilad
Shalit, and that he was "framed" after the
Israelis discovered he had nothing to do with that
affair. Since much information on the case remains
classified, and some analysts have speculated that
the extraordinarily detailed indictment indicates
that Israeli officials were nervous to justify the
clandestine operation, it is hard to discard this
argument completely. However, circumstantial
evidence points against it; Israel is known to
plan meticulously international operations that
could hurt its ties to other countries, to
cross-check all information carefully and to act
only in cases where it perceives grave urgency.
In a separate development,
the internal Israeli security agency, Shin Bet,
announced that it had recently broken up several
Hamas terror cells in Jerusalem and the West Bank.
One of these was allegedly responsible for a
mysterious pipe bomb hidden in a garbage bag that
tore off the hand of a municipal worker earlier
this year. According to the indictment, a member
of the cell discarded the pipe bomb in the garbage
after another member was arrested.
Other cells allegedly plotted
to kidnap and murder Israeli soldiers. According
to Ha'aretz:
Palestinian and
Israeli security sources told Ha'aretz last
month that Hamas militants in the West Bank have
resumed their efforts to kill Israeli soldiers
or civilians and abduct their bodies.
The sources said Hamas
activists believe they cannot keep Israeli
hostages out of the Shin Bet and Palestinian
Authority's reach for long. So they plan to kill
them, abduct and bury the bodies, then negotiate
for returning them to Israel.
The Palestinian Authority
and Israel have recently captured in the
Ramallah region alone about five cells planning
to kill Israelis and abduct their
bodies.
Last Saturday, Israel
conducted an air strike in Gaza that shattered a
few days of calm. It killed Mohammed al-Dayah, a
senior Hamas military commander, along with two
other operatives, whom an Israeli spokesperson
accused of "planning to kidnap Israelis over the
upcoming Jewish holiday of Passover." Another
militant was gravely wounded.
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