A Palestinian boy looks up from the entrance of a smuggling tunnel on the Palestinian side of the border between the southern Gaza Strip and Egypt and Rafah in the south of Gaza Strip yesterday. During its offensive in the Gaza Strip, Israel said it destroyed most of the hundreds of tunnels in repeated bombing runs by Israeli jets. (Eyad Baba/Associated Press)

Although Israel’s self-imposed cease-fire entered its third day yesterday, exchanges of fire continued on the ground.

Hamas fired eight mortar shells at the border crossings along the Gaza Strip-Kerem Shalom, Karni and Kissufim yesterday morning. Shortly afterward, two Israel Defense Forces’ (IDF) patrols along the fence came under fire from militants, on both south and north ends of the Gaza Strip. IDF combatants returned fire, and the Israeli Air Force (IAF) destroyed the mortar.


“They ran away from combat with us during the operation, and now they are trying to flex their muscles,” explained an officer in the Gaza Division. “The border crossings were not closed following the mortar shell fire, but this is not the reality that we want to live with.”


Lt. Col. Amir, commander of the 75th Armored Battalion, said yesterday “the battalion’s combatants were the first to go into Gaza.

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A high level of vigilance remains on the ground, because you never know when you will be surprised. After we exposed a tunnel that was ready for a terror attack and a kidnapping in the style of the Gilad Shalit [kidnapping], we don’t have to explain too much to the
combatants,” Lt. Col. Amir said.


A senior security source said Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak personally gave authorization to attack and destroy the mortar that fired the eight shells due to the cease-fire.

“These are the first days of the cease-fire, and therefore we are not hurrying to draw conclusions,” the source said. “We will not permit by any means a game of ping pong along the Gaza Strip. As for pulling out the troops, we will only be guided by operational considerations.”


Meanwhile, sources close to director of the political security staff in the Israeli Defense Ministry expressed satisfaction with the progress forming an Egyptian mechanism for combating smuggling on Philadelphi Road.


Meanwhile, the western Negev is trying to return to normal. Eshkol Regional Council Chairman Haim Yellin said yesterday:

“On one hand, it’s good to get back to routine, but on the other hand, we have a lot of fears, because no agreement has been signed with the Palestinians. We have quiet due to the deterrence of the operation, but we are waiting for the next rocket. The question is how long this quiet will last.”


The education system in the south has returned to full activity, and sources in Beersheba reported 90-percent attendance of pupils on the first day of the return to school.

Amira Haim, director of the Education Ministry’s southern district, toured some of the schools and kindergartens and ensured that the teachers and pupils would receive reinforcements.

David Bedein can be reached at dbedein@israelbehindthenews.com

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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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