Hamas forming armies to confront Israel*

Jewish state admits Palestinians exploited cease-fire to prepare for war

Posted: March 8, 2007
News from Israel

JERUSALEM – Hamas and other Palestinian terrorist groups aided by Iran
have been using a four-month-old cease-fire to smuggle weapons into the
Gaza Strip and build Hezbollah-like guerrilla armies to confront the
Jewish state, the Israel Defense Forces announced yesterday.

In December, three weeks after the Nov. 23 truce was forged, quoting top
Gazan terror leaders explaining they would use the cease-fire to smuggle
in weapons, fortify military positions and build guerrilla armies.

Yoav Galant, chief of the IDF's Gaza-area division, told reporters Iran
has been training Palestinian terrorists the past few months in military
tactics, enabling Hamas to grow from a ragtag terror group into a
well-organized militia resembling an army – complete with battalions,
companies, platoons, special forces for surveillance, snipers and
explosive experts.

Galant compared Hamas to the Iranian-backed Hezbollah militia which last
summer engaged in 33-days of confrontations with the IDF, bombarding
northern Israeli population centers with thousands of rockets.

The Israeli chief said Hamas terror leaders have been traveling to Iran,
Syria and Lebanon for instruction by Iranian experts and asserted some
Iranian agents were operating in the Gaza Strip. He said Hamas could
soon be ready to confront Israel militarily.

In November, Israel agreed to a truce with Gaza militants in which the
Jewish state vowed to suspend anti-terror operations in the Gaza Strip
in exchange for quiet. Since then, more than 160 rockets have been fired
from Gaza, but the Israel Defense Forces has been restrained from
operating in the territory.

Terror leaders admit copying Hezbollah

Three weeks after the November truce was forged, Palestinian terror
leaders, including militants from Palestinian Authority President
Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah organization, explained that they would use the
cease-fire to create Hezbollah-like armies in the Gaza Strip.

"We are turning Gaza into south Lebanon," Abu Ahmed, northern Gaza
leader for the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades terror group said that referring
to the area in Lebanon in which Hezbollah built military bases and a
large rocket infrastructure.

"We learned from Hezbollah's victory that Israel can be defeated if we
know how to hit them and if we are well prepared," Abu Ahmed said. "We
are importing rockets and the knowledge to launch them, and we are also
making many plans for battle."

The Brigades, the declared military wing of Abbas' Fatah party, took
responsibility along with the Islamic Jihad terror group, for every
suicide bombing in Israel the past two years.

Abu Abdullah, a leader of Hamas' so-called military wing, said that in
December his group is preparing for war against Israel.

"In the last 15 months, even though the fighters of Hamas kept the
cease-fire, we did not stop making important advancements and
professional training on the military level. In the future, after Hamas
is obliged to stop the cease-fire, the world shall see our new military
capabilities," said Abu Abdullah, considered one of the most important
operational members of Hamas' Izzedine al-Qassam Martyrs Brigades,
Hamas' declared "resistance" department.

Al Aqsa's Abu Ahmed said his group is receiving help from Hezbollah to
import long-range rockets and train in guerrilla warfare tactics.

"We have warm relations with Hezbollah, which helps with some of the
training programs," Abu Ahmed said. "We don't have anything to be
ashamed of – that we are dealing with Hezbollah and that we are
receiving training and information from them."

He said Hezbollah maintains cells in the Sinai.

"The Sinai is an excellent ground for training, the exchange of
information and weapons and for meetings on how to turn every piece of
land into usable territory for a confrontation with Israel," Abu Ahmed said.

Palestinians establishing Gaza war bunkers

Abu Ahmed said Palestinian groups are developing war bunkers inside Gaza
similar to the underground Hezbollah lairs Israel found during the war
in Lebanon.

"Our preparations include the building of special bunkers. Of course, we
are taking into consideration that Gaza is not the same topography as
Lebanon," Abu Ahmed said in December.

During its confrontation with Hezbollah, Israel destroyed scores of
complex bunkers that snaked along the Lebanese side of the
Israel-Lebanon border. Military officials said they were surprised by
the scale of the Hezbollah bunkers, in which Israeli troops reportedly
found war rooms stocked with advanced eavesdropping and surveillance
equipment they noted were made by Iran.

Abu Ahmed said the most important "tool" in the Palestinian resistance
arsenal was rockets. He said his group learned from Hezbollah that
Israel can be defeated with missiles.

"We saw that with the capacity to bombard the Israeli population with
hundreds of rockets every day we can change the strategic balance with
Israel," he said.

Palestinian terror groups in Gaza claim they manufactured improved
rockets that can travel deeper into the Jewish state, placing hundreds
of thousands more Israelis within firing range of the Gaza Strip.