NEWS EXCERPTS SHOW REASONS FOR HAMAS TO DESIRE A TRUCE IN GAZA!
December 30, 2007
http://www.tribulationperiod.com/
There have been a lot of pros and cons regarding whether or not some form of truce will be reached with Hamas because of the situation which has come to exist in the Gaza Strip since Israel pulled out. The excerpts which follow were extracted from a variety of Middle East sources, and support the idea that some sort of truce will eventually be made between Hamas and Israel.
The increase in pressure by the IDF and IAF surface and air attacks has created the need for a truce on the part of Hamas, and the desire of the PM Olmert to secure some sort of peace by 2009, has created the need for a brief lull in fighting on both sides.
Begin Middle East On Line Excerpt
Israel assassinates eight Palestinians
Two Israeli settlers killed in Hebron after Israeli raids kill, wound Palestinians in Gaza, West Bank.
December 28, 2005
GAZA CITY – Seven Palestinian fighters, one of them a senior commander, were killed and 16 other people wounded in the Gaza Strip on Thursday in four Israeli raids on the Hamas-run territory, medics and witnesses said.
In the first Gaza raid three men — two of them from the Islamic Jihad group and a third from the armed wing of Hamas — were killed around the southern town of Khan Yunis. Six people were also wounded.
The Israeli army said that infantry units backed by air power carried out a “routine operation” targeting gunmen who were firing rockets and mortars into Israel.
“Units that entered several kilometres (miles) into the Gaza Strip were fired at by an anti-tank shell. They responded and hit three armed men,” said a spokesman.
Shortly afterwards, two Islamic Jihad fighters were killed and two wounded in an air raid in the central Gaza Strip, medics said.
“The military carried out an air raid in the central Gaza Strip against a vehicle loaded with weapons,” an Israeli spokesman said.
“The vehicle was hit.”
A third Israeli raid, which witnesses said was carried out by either helicopters or drones, killed an Islamic Jihad fighter and wounded two more south of Gaza City, medical sources said.
Islamic Jihad named the dead man as Mohammed Abdullah, 40, a senior commander of its Al-Quds Brigades military wing who operated under the nom de guerre of Abu Morshild.
An Israeli army spokesman confirmed an air raid had been carried out.
Last week, the Israeli military killed Islamic Jihad’s Gaza commander Majed al-Harazin and 12 other militants in a series of raids.
In the fourth Gaza raid a Hamas member was killed near Khan Yunis. Five other people were wounded by air to surface missiles, medics said.
In a raid in the West Bank, Israeli soldiers killed a member of the security force of former Palestinian prime minister Ahmed Qorei, currently the senior Palestinian peace negotiator with Israel, witnesses said.
Motassem Ash-Sharif, 22, was killed while trying to flee Israeli soldiers who had arrived at his house, the witnesses said.
An Israeli military spokesman said he was killed “during an exchange of fire after he shot at soldiers who had come to arrest him,” and that he was suspected of supplying weapons to armed Palestinian groups.
In the northern part of the Israeli-occupied West Bank, the army announced it had arrested Mohammed Abdel Rahman, a wanted member of Islamic Jihad.
The deaths brought to 6,009 the number of people killed since
the start of the second Palestinian uprising in September 2000, the vast majority of them Palestinians.
Begin Jerusalem Post Excerpt
Internal Power Struggle Shakes Hamas
Khaled Abu Toameh
(Jerusalem Post)
December 28, 2007
On Wednesday, Hazem Muhammad Khalil, a senior member of Izzadin Kassam, Hamas’ armed wing, was gunned down by another top member of the group, Ra’fat Salman, in the context of a power struggle inside Hamas.
Earlier this week, Hamas arrested two suspected “collaborators” with Israel, brothers Ahmed and Yakoub Nassar, who were senior members of Izzadin Kassam. Yakoub served as an aide and bodyguard to Yusef Zahar, head of Hamas’ Executive Force.
Sources close to Hamas said a number of top Hamas officials were questioned by the movement’s security forces including Sami Abu Zuhri, a prominent spokesman for Hamas, as well as Muhammad Abdel Al, a senior commander of the Popular Resistance Committees.
Begin Haaretz Excerpt
IDF Kills Islamic Jihad Rocket Head
Yuval Azoulay and Amos Harel
December 28, 2007
The Israel Defense Forces and the Shin Bet security service killed eight Hamas and Islamic Jihad gunmen in three separate incidents in Gaza Thursday. Mohammed Abdallah Abu Murshad, head of rocket and explosive manufacturing for Islamic Jihad in Gaza, was killed together with two other operatives when he was struck by Israel Air Force missiles in central Gaza.
In another incident, an Israel air force aircraft fired at a car containing a large quantity of munitions in Al-Bureij, killing two Islamic Jihad operatives who were on their way to a terror attack.
Also Thursday, three Hamas men were killed near Khan Yunis by fire from an IDF helicopter and a unit on the ground after the militants fired an antitank missile at an IDF bulldozer. (Ha’aretz)
Begin IMEMC-PA Excerpt
Islamic Jihad Leader in Nablus Arrested by Undercover Israeli Unit
December 28, 2007
On Thursday an undercover unit of Israeli forces arrested Samer al-Sa’di, 23, from Jenin, a leader of the al Quds brigade, the armed wing of Islamic Jihad.
(IMEMC-PA)
Begin Haaretz Excerpt
Cautious Optimism
Amos Harel
December 28, 2007
Hamas’ political wing is sho
wing interest in a ce
ase-fire.
If Hamas can get the splinter groups to agree, it will find in Israel a silent partner. Until this question is resolved, the IDF will continue doing more of the same: raids up to three kilometers inside the fence that surrounds Gaza; targeted interceptions, mainly of senior Islamic Jihad figures; and a continuation of the economic pressure. Soon the money collected at the meeting of donor countries in Paris by Salam Fayyad, the prime minister in Ramallah, will start pouring into Gaza. If Fayyad manages to ensure that the money reaches only Fatah supporters, Hamas’ distress will increase. (Ha’aretz)
Begin Jerusalem Post Excerpt
Shades of Terror
Khaled Abu Toameh
The latest truce initiative launched by some Hamas representatives is seen as a direct result of the economic sanctions on Gaza and Israeli threats to target leaders of the Islamist movement in response to rocket attacks on Israel. Hamas leaders are beginning to feel the heat, and that’s why some of them are now openly talking about the need to do something “for the sake of the higher national interests of the Palestinian people.”
Hamas’ leaders are said to have been in a panic following the recent killings of top Islamic Jihad operatives by
the IDF. “Most of the Hamas leaders are afraid for their lives and don’t want to join [slain Hamas leaders] Ahmed Yassin and Abdel Aziz Rantisi,” a former Hamas sympathizer said this week. Yet others in Hamas, led by Mahmoud Zahar and Said Siam, remain as defiant as ever and want to continue the fight against Israel regardless of the price.
There is no doubt that at the end of the day most Hamas representatives would welcome a lull in the fighting.
Hamas needs some breathing space to consolidate its grip on Gaza and prevent a total collapse of civil and security institutions there. But the crucial question that needs to be addressed is whether Hamas would be able to enforce a truce with Israel, given the fact that Islamic Jihad and other armed groups [in addition to Syria and Iran] are completely opposed to the idea. When Abbas once tried to stop the rockets, he was condemned as a traitor working for Israel and the CIA. (Jerusalem Post)
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