Jerusalem – An Israeli special forces unit, working in conjunction with the Israeli Paratroopers, operating near the U.N.-run el-Bureij Arab refugee camp in Gaza, blew up a tunnel Tuesday night that Israeli intelligence had determined likely would be used to a kidnap Israelis in the immediate future.

One Israeli soldier was wounded in the course of the operation, and one Hamas member was killed. Three other Hamas members and a female bystander were injured.

This was the most significant Israeli army operation in Gaza since the June truce agreement was declared.

Israeli troops, operating under air cover provided by helicopter gunships
and unmanned aerial vehicles, made an incursion some 250 feet past the border fence into the Gaza Strip in response to the intelligence reports. The troops arrived at the house that hosted the entrance to the tunnel and surrounded it.

Exchanges of fire then ensued, and the Israeli troops came under mortar-shell fire. The Israeli army then blew up the house. Military sources said that the force of the explosion proved that the house had been booby-trapped.


After the Israeli army raid into Gaza, the Israeli Air Force (IAF) attacked a terror cell, firing mortar shells at the Israeli army troops who were operating in Gaza. The air strike took place near the Gaza town of Khan Yunis. An Israeli Army spokesman said that five armed men were killed in the attack. Meanwhile, at 10 p.m. Israeli time, the IAF located and killed a team of five Gazans who were preparing to fire a missile into the Western Negev region of Israel.

A Night In The Shelter

A short time after Israeli troops made their incursion into Gaza, local security coordinators instructed the residents to remain in protected areas should the Palestinians launch Qassam rockets and mortar shells.

The heightened state of alert was maintained throughout the night and, at the time, seemed likely to continue throughout yesterday.

The state of alert in Sderot, Israel went into effect as well. In all, Palestinians fired about 55 missiles from Gaza over the past two days. While there were no injuries reported, the two missiles that landed near a supermarket in Sderot caused panic and havoc for the people lined up at the supermarket who scattered for cover.

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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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