Hamas seeks 'large-scale' attack in Israel: official
Pastor Dale Morgan
Hamas seeks 'large-scale' attack in Israel: official*
AFP - Monday, August 27
JERUSALEM (AFP) - - Hamas is seeking to launch a "large-scale" suicide
attack inside Israel to torpedo chances of a peace deal with moderate
Palestinians, a senior security official warned on Sunday.
The second in command of Israel's Shin Beth internal security services
was quoted by a senior government official as telling ministers during
the weekly cabinet meeting that the Islamist group's exiled leadership
in Damascus is calling for such an attack.
"There is a clear directive from Hamas abroad to Hamas terrorists in the
West Bank to carry out a deadly large-scale attack in Israel," the
source quoted the security official as saying.
Hamas is seeking to torpedo any chance of a deal between Israel and the
Palestinian Authority, led by president Mahmud Abbas, whose moderate
Fatah movement was ousted from the Gaza Strip by Hamas in June, he said.
Hamas supremo Khaled Meshaal warned in an interview with AFP last week
that despite renewed peace efforts between Israel and the Palestinians,
resistance remained the only option for his movement, whose charter
calls for the destruction of the Jewish state.
"As long as Israel does not put an end to its occupation and its
settlements and as long as it does not recognise Palestinian rights, our
policy of resistance will be the only option," Meshaal said.
The Shin Beth commander, whose identity remains secret, also expressed
concern at the surge in arms trafficking on Gaza's border with Egypt
since Hamas came to power, according to the source.
Shin Beth has obtained information that 40 tonnes of weapons and
explosives have been smuggled from Egypt into the Gaza Strip in the last
two months, mainly through tunnels, the source added.
In August alone, some 13 tonnes of explosives and 150 anti-tank rocket
launchers were smuggled into the Gaza Strip, the source said.
Shin Beth estimated that 33 tonnes of explosives were brought in 2006,
compared to six tonnes in 2005, in addition to 14,000 assault rifles,
150 rocket-propelled grenade launchers and 20 missiles, the source said.
The tunnels, dug in the last six months on both sides of the border with
Rafah and surrounding areas, are several hundred metres long and six to
15 metres (19.6 feet to 49 feet) wide, experts say.
The Israeli army had great trouble finding them when it occupied the
border of the Gaza Strip with Egypt before its withdrawal from the
territory in September 2005.