Jerusalem – Staff Sgt. Sayef Bisan, 21, of the Druze village of Jat in western Galilee, was killed in an exchange of fire with Palestinian terrorists in a Tuesday night IDF operation against terror infrastructure in the southern Gaza Strip.

IDF soldiers from the Golani Brigade’s elite Egoz reconnaissance unit were operating to uncover terror infrastructure near the Kissufim Crossing. The area has seen a large number of shooting incidents recently, including sniper fire directed at agricultural fields in Kibbutz Ein Hashlosha. As the soldiers searched the area, they came under gun and anti-tank missile fire from a well-planned ambush by Palestinian gunmen. One soldier, Staff Sgt. Bisan, was killed, and two others were lightly wounded.

Staff Sgt. Bisan was buried in his home village. He is survived by his parents, Ramzi and Nahil, two brothers and two sisters.

Palestinians From Gaza Murder Israelis Delivering Fuel

Two Israeli men were murdered yesterday afternoon when at least four Palestinian terrorists infiltrated Kibbutz Nahal Oz fuel terminal from Gaza and shot the two Israelis as they were preparing fuel supplies for Gaza. Two of the terrorists were killed by the IDF in the terminal, and the two others retreated to Gaza. The Israel Air Force dispatched aircraft that hit a car carrying at least one of the terrorists. It was unclear how the terrorists infiltrated the terminal, which is separated from the Gaza Strip by a high wall. IDF sources said there were no signs of a tunnel near the site of the attack.

Troops Conduct Exercise; Defense Minister Injured

In the company of his military secretary, Brig. Gen. Eitan Dangot, as well as a number of officers from Home Front Command, Defense Minister Ehud Barak went to observe an exercise in which troops were required to simulate the rescue of people trapped beneath rubble in Nazareth. At a certain stage, Mr. Barak tripped and cut his hand on one of the metal girders that stuck out of the rubble. He continued with the tour despite the scratch. The defense minister’s spokesman had no comment.

Israel’s National Emergency Authority, which is headed by Brig. Gen. Zeev Tzuk-Ram (res.), gave the groups participating in the exercise a surprise scenario to cope with. He announced that the IDF had killed in Lebanon one of the most senior leaders of Hezbollah’s military wing. In the aftermath of that assassination operation, Hezbollah’s military wing fired rockets of every range in its arsenal at Israel. In the most extreme scenario, Hezbollah fired some 100 rockets at Israel, most of which landed in the Tel Aviv area and some reached even as far as Beer Sheva. The exercise was carried out successfully.

People from the Carmiel industrial zone were angry that the area had still not been hooked up to the siren system. On Tuesday, the people who work in the industrial zone did not hear the sirens. Aryeh Richtman, the CEO of Klil, a manufacturer of aluminum window frames and doors based in the Carmiel industrial zone, said on Tuesday: “In the Second Lebanon War, we were in an absurd situation in which the municipality would phone the factory to inform us that there was a siren. As the date of the exercise drew closer, we saw that we had no one to talk to, so we bought sirens on our own.”

The exercise was covered by the Lebanese news network, LBC, which broadcast out of Upper Nazareth. Mayor Menahem Ariav, who was interviewed for the 9 p.m. news in Lebanon and Saudi Arabia, said: “The exercise doesn’t stem from fear but from a desire to be ready and prepared for every scenario.”

Breaking The Boycott: Carter May Meet With Khaled Mashal

Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter plans to meet with the leader of Hamas, Khaled Mashal, who is in Damascus.

Palestinian sources told the daily Al-Hayat that in the past few days talks had been held for setting up a meeting between Hamas Political Bureau Director Mashal and the former president. According to the report, the meeting is supposed to be held April 18 in Damascus. Mr. Carter’s aides will soon arrive in Damascus to prepare the timetable of the meeting and its content and to set an exact date for it.

A senior Hamas source said to the Palestinian newspaper that Mr. Carter would not meet with Mr. Mashal in his capacity as former president but rather as chairman of the Conflict Resolution Program. The senior source emphasized that the meeting shows that Hamas’ existence in the Palestinian arena cannot be ignored.

Hamas is officially defined by the U.S. as a terror organization, and the United States also boycotts Syria due to the backing that Damascus provides to terror organizations.

David Bedein can be reached at Media@actcom.co.il. His Web site is www.IsraelBehindTheNews.com

©The Bulletin 2008

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David Bedein
David Bedein
David Bedein is an MSW community organizer and an investigative journalist.   In 1987, Bedein established the Israel Resource News Agency at Beit Agron to accompany foreign journalists in their coverage of Israel, to balance the media lobbies established by the PLO and their allies.   Mr. Bedein has reported for news outlets such as CNN Radio, Makor Rishon, Philadelphia Inquirer, Los Angeles Times, BBC and The Jerusalem Post, For four years, Mr. Bedein acted as the Middle East correspondent for The Philadelphia Bulletin, writing 1,062 articles until the newspaper ceased operation in 2010. Bedein has covered breaking Middle East negotiations in Oslo, Ottawa, Shepherdstown, The Wye Plantation, Annapolis, Geneva, Nicosia, Washington, D.C., London, Bonn, and Vienna. Bedein has overseen investigative studies of the Palestinian Authority, the Expulsion Process from Gush Katif and Samaria, The Peres Center for Peace, Peace Now, The International Center for Economic Cooperation of Yossi Beilin, the ISM, Adalah, and the New Israel Fund.   Since 2005, Bedein has also served as Director of the Center for Near East Policy Research.   A focus of the center's investigations is The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA). In that context, Bedein authored Roadblock to Peace: How the UN Perpetuates the Arab-Israeli Conflict - UNRWA Policies Reconsidered, which caps Bedein's 28 years of investigations of UNRWA. The Center for Near East Policy Research has been instrumental in reaching elected officials, decision makers and journalists, commissioning studies, reports, news stories and films. In 2009, the center began decided to produce short movies, in addition to monographs, to film every aspect of UNRWA education in a clear and cogent fashion.   The center has so far produced seven short documentary pieces n UNRWA which have received international acclaim and recognition, showing how which UNRWA promotes anti-Semitism and incitement to violence in their education'   In sum, Bedein has pioneered The UNRWA Reform Initiative, a strategy which calls for donor nations to insist on reasonable reforms of UNRWA. Bedein and his team of experts provide timely briefings to members to legislative bodies world wide, bringing the results of his investigations to donor nations, while demanding reforms based on transparency, refugee resettlement and the demand that terrorists be removed from the UNRWA schools and UNRWA payroll.   Bedein's work can be found at: www.IsraelBehindTheNews.com and www.cfnepr.com. A new site,unrwa-monitor.com, will be launched very soon.

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