In a live interview broadcast on the 7 AM morning news hour program on Israel Radio Reshet Bet today, Yossi Beilin said that it is critical that there be a single armed force of the PA in the Gaza Strip and that the PA must give a deadline for Hamas to end its independent force. Beilin also said that in its upcoming negotiations with Hamas that Israel must insist on trading bodies for bodies and that it would be a terrible mistake for Israel to trade live Palestinian prisoners for the release of the bodies of the two Israeli soldiers now held in the Gaza Strip.

It should be noted that on 1 October, Israel Radio Arab Affair Correspondent Gal Berger reported on the noon news program on Reshet Bet that at a press conference in Ramallah with PA head Mahmoud Abbas and senior Fatah official Jibril Rajoub, Rajoub said that while Hamas will be prohibited from publicly showing weapons in the Gaza Strip that Hamas is not required to hand over their “weapons of resistance”. Instead Hamas is to hide the weapons.

Hamas sent a clear message yesterday during the visit of the PA PM to Gaza by calling on the same day for Gazans to join its armed force, the Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades.

As for Hamas missile activity, since the “quiet for quiet” arrangement was reinstated, according to which Israel does not respond to missile activity as long as nothing is fired into Israel, Hamas has openly engaged in building new missiles and testing them by firing them long distances into the sea. In addition, Hamas has been gathering data on the Iron Dome system by firing a series of missiles at high trajectories in the direction of Israel – trajectories so high that they fall within the Gaza Strip.

Per “quiet for quiet”, Hamas can build literally any missile – even missiles with chemical weapons warheads and guided missiles – confident that Israel will not interfere as long as they are not shot – and reach – Israel.

http://imra.org.il/story.php3?id=65111

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