Jerusalem – Israeli Intelligence Director Yuval Diskin presented information at Sunday’s Israel government cabinet meeting that he described as reliable, showing that terror organizations plan to kidnap Israeli tourists.

The alleged plotters, he said, intend to perpetrate their intentions on the Jewish New Year holiday of Rosh Hashanah or one of the following holidays, or they may try to stage a mass terror attack in the Sinai Peninsula.

Mr. Diskin’s statements follow a series of previous warnings by the Israel Counter-Terrorism Bureau, which has been warning of Islamic terrorist threats in Sinai since the Gaza Strip fell to Hamas.

Israeli intelligence, however, is afraid that its call for caution is becoming routine, and could lead the Israeli on the street to the familiar reaction such as “it will be okay,” and “it’s dangerous everywhere.”

The Israeli intelligence director added that the truce in the south and the cease-fire with Hamas were being upheld, but that “Hamas is taking advantage of the quiet for upgrading its operational capabilities, arms smuggling and building combat support systems, such as an advanced communication system.”

Mr. Diskin told the ministers and added that when weapons are smuggled, the focus is on explosives for rockets, in order to manufacture advanced Qassam rockets. Another smuggling route works to import light arms to the Gaza Strip. “These weapons are intended, to the best of our understanding, to set up armed militias,” clarified Mr. Diskin.

Yesterday morning, The “Voice of Israel” radio newsreel added that “there was a sharp increase in the scale of training of the terrorist organizations in the Gaza Strip during August, and that Hamas, Islamic Jihad and the Popular Resistance Committees each held at least 10 exercises. Among the actions they practiced were abducting soldiers, assaults on IDF fortified positions, firing mortars, rockets and heavy machine guns.

The head of the Islamic Jihad military wing in the Gaza Strip, Mr. Khaled Mansour, took part in one of the exercises held last Saturday, in the ruins of the Neveh Dekalim, the former Israeli city in Katif that was bulldozed by Israel three years ago.

David Bedein can be reached at dbedein@israelbehindthenews.com. 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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