Cease Fire Sincere?
But Shots we still Hear!
No War Predicted This Year
But Security Dangers Raise Fear!
Ceasefire is “said” to be Coming Here
But Iran and Syria “say” No Peace is Near!
March 10, 2008
http://www.tribulationperiod.com/
THE IMMEDIATE SITUATION IN ISRAEL TODAY!
The following excerpts from four articles are followed by two articles from DEBKAfile.
The four excerpts show the mass confusion as to the possibility of a ceasefire between Hamas and Israel. The two articles from DEBKAfile give what is most likely the way it is in Israel at the moment.
Begin Excerpts
Excerpt 1 from Haaretz
Abbas: Israel has agreed to cease-fire with Hamas
By Barak Ravid and Amos Harel, Haaretz Correspondents
Haaretz Service and Agencies
March 10, 2008
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas on Monday told the Arabic-language al Arabiya television network that Israel had in fact agreed to a cease-fire with Hamas, contradicting comments made earlier by Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, who insisted that no cease-fire agreement had been made.
The discussion regarding a possible cease-fire was ignited after Qassam rocket fire from the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip and Israel Defense Forces strikes subsided over the past days.
Excerpt 2 From Associated Press
Israel Reduces Activity in Gaza Strip
By LAURIE COPANS
March 10, 2008
JERUSALEM (AP) — Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has instructed the army to halt air strikes and raids into the Gaza Strip in response to a serious drop in rocket fire from the territory, officials in his office said Monday.
Israeli defense officials and the Hamas rulers of Gaza said there was no formal truce in place. But the officials in Olmert’s office said the prime minister had ordered the army to scale back its operations to allow Egypt to proceed in mediation talks. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity due to the sensitive nature of
the talks.
Excerpt 3 From Jerusalem Post
Olmert denies cease fire talks with Hamas taking place
Herb Keinon, JPost.com Staff and AP, THE JERUSALEM POST
March 10, 2008
There is no agreement on a cease fire with Hamas, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said emphatically on Monday after meeting with visiting Czech Prime Minister Mirek Topolanek.
“There are no negotiations and there’s no agreement” Olmert said, reiterating a sweeping denial made by Defense Minister Ehud Barak earlier in the day. “I said a few days ago that if there are no Kassam or Grad attacks on the citizens of the South, Israel will have no reason to return fire.”
After the press conference, the prime minister told reporters that the IDF was “retaining freedom of action in the South.”
He denied that Egypt was mediating between Israel and Hamas, and said that Cairo had no mandate to speak in Israel’s name with the group.
Begin Excerpt 4 From Jerus alem Post
H
amas denies reaching truce with Israel
Khaled Abu Toameh, THE JERUSALEM POST
March 9, 2008
Hamas denied Sunday that it had reached understandings with Israel over a truce or period of calm, but confirmed that Egypt was playing a role in trying to achieve a cease-fire.
Palestinian Authority officials in Ramallah told The Jerusalem Post that Hamas and Israel had reached “secret understandings” to stop the violence. The officials claimed that the latest agreement was reached under the auspices of the Egyptians and that Hamas had pledged to stop firing rockets at Israel.
Begin Two DEBKAfile Articles
DEBKAfile Article 1
Exclusive: Israel places Lebanese, Syrian, Gaza borders, its cities and highways on high terror alert
March 10, 2008, 11:00 AM (GMT+02:00)
The annual intelligence report submitted to the Israeli government Sunday, March 9, predicted grave dangers to Israeli security in the coming year. However, even in the short term, DEBKAfile’s military and Middle East sources report the Israeli army, police and security forces are on guard for stormy events in the second half of March.
1. To bring reluctant Arab rulers to the Damascus Arab League summit on the 29th, Syria has quietly slipped the word that the contentious Lebanese issue will be left off the agenda. Deliberations would be confined to the Gaza crisis. The Saudis were therefore persuaded to accept the Syrian invitation on March 9 after several refusals.
Israeli intelligence has warned that in the interim Hamas and Jihad Islami would make every effort to ignite the Gaza front in order to unite the Arab rulers behind a dramatic Arab resolution in support of the Palestinian Islamists. This tactic would transfer the Gaza issue’s center of gravity from Cairo, which is brokering a Hamas-Israel ceasefire deal, to radical Damascus.
Egged on by Syria and Iran, Hamas keeps on stalling this track and raising its demands. Amos Gilead, security adviser in Israel’s defense ministry, who traveled to Cairo Sunday to try and break the deadlock, came back empty-handed. He said the coming summit was the key to progress and warned that the current slowdown in Palestinian rocket and missile attacks from Gaza in the last two days was extremely fragile. Hamas was poised to generate a flare-up at any time that it suited the book of Syria and Iran. Nevertheless, Israel has scaled down its anti-rocket operations in the Gaza Strip.
2. Most of all, the coming Arab League summit will for the first time host an Iranian head of state. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad will be seated beside Syrian president Bashar Assad as guest of honor to parade the Tehran-Damascus axis’ pre-em inent role
in Arab Middle East affairs, with Iran setting the pace.
This prospect has raised the military barometer across the region and injected a radical note in “moderate” Arab utterances.
Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak suddenly declared Monday, March 10, that Israel continues to be responsible for the Gaza Strip after its pull-out and its status in both Gaza and the West Bank is that of an occupation force. In an interview, he endorsed the Hamas line which called on Israel to halt military operations not only in Gaza but also on the West Bank.
The Lebanese impasse may have been left off the formal agenda, but it looms large over the Arab world as the key divisive element. Over the weekend, the US navy built up its deployment opposite the Lebanese coast with the USS Ross guided missile destroyer and the USS Philippine Sea cruiser.
Syria responded by placing its air and naval bases, where too Russian warships are docked, on a state of preparedness.
Israel’s new national intelligence report affirms that the United States’ declining role in the region has left a vacuum for radical elements to fill. Its authors, the chiefs of military intelligence, the Mossad, Shin Bet and the foreign ministry’s intelligence unit, warned of the heightened threat from missiles in the arsenals of a future nuclear-armed Iran (within two years) and Syrian. A Hizballah attack and a stronger Hamas were also in prospect.
In the coming two weeks, Syria, Iran, Hizballah and Hamas will be further tightening the military and terrorist loop around Israel – to the north, the south, and among Palestinians and Israeli Arabs, at the expense of Israel’ s deterrent
strength.
According to our military sources, Hizballah is completing its preparations for revenge on Israel, whom it accuses of killing its military commander Imad Mughniyeh last month.
The latest estimate is that the Shiite terrorists will strike on the border and/or inside Israel, rather than hit overseas targets.
Israel’s prime minister Ehud Olmert steadily refuses to look these facts in the face and insists that Israel’s security situation has never been better.
Both he and foreign minister Tzipi Livni are still carefully treading the line drawn by US secretary of state Condoleezza Rice, whose main preoccupation these days is to keep foreign crises at bay for the rest of the Bush presidency.
In Jerusalem last week, Rice confided that to achieve a lull in the cross-border violence in Gaza, even concessions to Hamas were acceptable.
This stance, which Israel accepted, substantially enhanced the Islamists’ bargaining position.
DEBKAfile Article 2
Olmert and Barak deny ceasefire accord with Hamas – as does Hamas
March 10, 2008, 7:46 PM (GMT+02:00)
Creating some confusion, Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas insisted in Amman that a Gaza truce had been finalized.
The first denial came from Israel’s defense minister Ehud Barak Monday, March 10, when he sharply rebuffed reports of a truce deal with Hamas and the scaling back of military operations in the Gaza Strip.
“There is no accord, nor is one close,” he stressed. “We will continue to fight until missile fire and terrorist attacks end and arms smuggling into Gaza is cut down. We are committed to these three goals.”
Until these goals are attained, we will take any military steps we think fit.
But it is no one-off operation. The tough challenges are still to come.”
The minister spoke during a tour of the Technology and Logistics Base at Tel Hashomer outside Tel Aviv.
Referring to the two-day slowdown of missile fire from Gaza, Barak said no one should complain if Sapir College and Ashkelon are free of Grad and Qassam missile fire. “The military will do everything necessary to complete its mission, even if it faces long and tough challenges.” He noted that all sorts of considerations affect military decisions, such as weather conditions and the accessibility of targets.
Asked to respond to the grim intelligence report of threats facing Israel in the year go come, which was submitted to the cabinet Sunday, Barak said: “Israel is still the strongest nation in the region.”
DEBKAfile’s military sources pose a couple of questions raised by the defense minister’s remarks:
1. Are they backed by prime minister Ehud Olmert
? DEBKAfile’s political sources reply in the negative. The prime minister has developed his own two-track strategy: While publicly pledging a series of military knockout blows against Hamas, he is privately engaged in indirect dialogue with Hamas representatives and forcing the IDF to hold its fire. Barak is trying to correct the public’s low opinion of this performance.
2. He correctly stated that a ceasefire deal with Hamas is nowhere near but he did not explain that the delay is not the result of Israel’s tough bargaining position but because Hamas keeps on raising new demands. The latest, endorsed Monday by Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak, was that Israeli forces forego their counter-terror operations not only in Gaza, but on the West Bank too.
3. Israel is commonly accepted as the strongest nation in the region. However, the Olmert government’s military policies constantly transmit weak resolve and hesitancy. This was illustrated by its stop-go handling of the Palestinian missile escalation from Gaza. These tactics are eroding the IDF’s deterrent strength. If Israel concludes a ceasefire accord with Hamas from a position of weakness, the rockets and missiles will soon be flying again.
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