Ayman Taha, a member of Hamas’ political wing who represents the organization in the Cairo talks, told the al-Arabiya channel yesterday that his organization has agreed to a year and a half tahdia (temporary truce where low-level fighting continues), only if all commercial crossing points into Gaza would be opened.

The London-based newspaper Asharq al-Awsat quoted Mr. Taha yesterday, as proposing that West Bank-based Palestinian Authority (PA) officials take control of the Rafah crossing into Egypt. According to Mr. Taha, Hamas and the other Palestinian organizations would agree to stop firing rockets at Israel if the Israeli-controlled crossing points around the border of the Gaza Strip are reopened.

While most people in Israel think that a tahdia is a truce or cease-fire, a temporary halt in a conflict, it isn’t necessarily so. Islamic law allows Muslims to continue their attacks during a tahdia. Prior tahdias occurred from Nov. 2006-May 2007 when Hamas facilitated more than 300 attacks, and June 2008-Dec. 2008 when Hamas facilitated more than 400 attacks.

Meanwhile, a high-ranking Israeli security official told the Israeli media yesterday that the plan to prevent arms smuggling was not completed.

“Quite a few details remain to be closed between Israel and Egypt,” the official said. “Despite the motivation of the Egyptian security agencies, the process will be tested by its results, and the road is long.”

The security official added that the Israeli intelligence community will cooperate with Egyptian intelligence leaders in order to advance developments on the ground.

David Bedein can be reached at dbedein@israelbehindthenews.com

A report issued by the Jerusalem Institute for Public Affairs indicates Iranian influence in the Gaza Strip likely will increase in the wake of the recent Hamas-Israeli conflict.

The report, released by the agency directed by Dr. Dore Gold, Israel’s former ambassador to the United Nations, claims Iran plans to expand its stake in Gaza through international reconstruction programs.

Israeli intelligence analyst Shimon Shapira, who authored the report, wrote Tehran could repeat its 2006 success. At that time, Iranian agents directed massive rehabilitation projects in Lebanon following Hezbollah’s war with Israel.

“Iran is already positioning itself for influence in post-war Gaza,” the report, titled “Averting Iranian Influence in Post-War Gaza: The Rehabilitation Issue,” said.

Iranian experts helped Hamas in Grad rocket fire during the 22-day war with Israel. The sources said several agents of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps were killed in Israeli air strikes.

On Jan. 14, Iranian deputy parliamentary speaker Ali Akbar Mohtashami, heading a 40-member delegation, arrived in Lebanon to direct Iranian support for Hamas.

“Based on the major lessons from the Second Lebanon War, it would be prudent to anticipate that Iran will seek to provide immediate assistance in order to rehabilitate Hamas in Gaza,” the report said. “Just as in Lebanon, Iran will strive to channel the rehabilitation funds for Gaza to its Sunni protégé, Hamas, in order to preserve Hamas’ ability to reassert its rule over Gaza. Sealing the Philadelphi Route (the Egypt-Gaza border) effectively will not only block the supply of Iranian rockets, but also the flow of Iranian cash into Gaza.”

In 2006, the report said, Iranian agents arrived in Lebanon and began distributing up to $12,000 to each Shiite family whose home was destroyed in the war with Israel.

Within several months, Iran, ignoring the pro-U.S. government in Beirut, paved hundreds of miles of roads and rehabilitated houses and public institutions damaged during the fighting.

Waad Co., operated by Hezbollah, directed the Iranian effort in Lebanon. The United States determined that Waad rebuilt Lebanese homes as well as the Hezbollah command and control center in Beirut.

The report urged the Israeli government to insist that the Palestinian Authority (PA), based in the West Bank, remain the sole arbiter of reconstruction projects in the Gaza Strip. Mr. Shapira said PA personnel must be stationed in the Gaza Strip to prevent Iran infiltration.

“It is of prime importance to identify who will provide the assistance funds for Gaza rehabilitation, and who on the ground will implement the wide-ranging renewal projects,” the report said. “A reliable international mechanism is urgently needed to prevent Iran from acquiring influence in post-war Gaza through any assistance programs. This is the only way to guarantee the return of the Palestinian Authority to Gaza and convert Hamas’ severe military debacle into political currency in Gaza.”

David Bedein can be reached at dbedein@israelbehindthenews.com

Assaf Shariv, the Israeli Consul in New York, told The Bulletin Thursday the Israeli government is “extremely concerned” that Palestinian terror groups have started rebuilding the arms tunnels in Rafah. The tunnels, located along the Egyptian/Gaza border, are used to for smuggling purposes, and many of them were demolished by the Israeli Air Force (IAF) during the recent Israeli offensive.

A high-ranking security source told the Israeli Ha’aretz newspaper Hamas has started to rebuild the smuggling system along Philadelphi Road.

“These are the greatest experts in the Middle East at digging tunnels, and they aren’t going to wait a single moment. They’re now busy with propaganda trying to show the Palestinian street that they defeated the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), along with rebuilding the military and governmental system,” the source said. “To that end they’re going to need the tunnels to smuggle various types of equipment, and not only of a military nature.”

Meanwhile, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert announced he had spoken with President Barack Obama about the renewed smuggling. Mr. Olmert told the Israeli media that he congratulated the president for his inauguration and had “apprised the president of the situation in Gaza and said that he hoped the efforts of Israel, Egypt, the U.S. and the European countries to prevent arms smuggling into Gaza would succeed.”

David Bedein can be reached at dbedein@israelbehindthenews.com

Following President Obama’s appointment of former U.S. Sen. George Mitchell of Maine as his Middle East envoy, it may be instructive to remember the tendentiousness of George Mitchell’s 2001 report titled “The Mitchell Report on the al-Aqsa Intifadah” (www.mideastweb.org/mitchell_report.htm ).

This genesis of this report stemmed from President Bill Clinton’s Oct. 2000 appointment of an international investigation commission to determine the causes of the Palestinian insurrection, which was deemed the Second Intifada – the Arabic term for “shaking off” – in this instance, shaking off Israel. To this commission, President Clinton named Sen. Mitchell, who is of Arab descent through his mother, as its chairman, along with a Jewish-American, former U.S. Sen. Warren Rudman, to the panel, in addition to three prominent European diplomats.

The initial Israeli response to the publication of the Mitchell Commission report in May 2001 was a sigh of relief when the Mitchell Commission did not blame Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon for instigating the riots in Sept. 2000 when he visited the Temple Mount in Jerusalem, which some said had sparked the Arab rioting.

However, even with the Sharon Temple Mount accusation out of the way, the Mitchell Commission report accepted every Palestinian premise for the violence at the time.

The Mitchell Commission accepted as a given that the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO)-led riots were based on a movement for “independence and genuine self-determination,” without giving any credence to the PLO goal, stated in all PLO publications, maps and media outlets, even during the current Oslo process, which consistently and clearly states that “liberation” of Palestine, all of Palestine – in stages – remained the goal.

For some reason, the Mitchell Commission characterized the rioters armed with Molotov cocktails as “unarmed Palestinian demonstrators,” a term that they apparently borrowed from PLO information reports that were published at the time.

The Mitchell Commission took the position that Israel’s security forces did not face a clear and present danger when faced with a mob trying to kill them with rocks and firebombs.

It made no mention that the Palestinian Authority (PA) has amassed 50,000 more weapons than they were supposed to have, in clear violation of the written Oslo accords.

The Mitchell Commission surprisingly accepted the notion that the PA security officials are simply “not in control” of their own tightly controlled security services.

The Mitchell Commission would not consider reliable intelligence reports that documented the PA had planned the uprising. It also failed to relate documentation showing the PA had spent past seven years preparing its media, school system and security services for a violent confrontation with Israel.

Indeed, in late May 2000, a senior official of Israeli intelligence conducted a press briefing where he revealed intelligence information that the PLO was planning riots for late Sept. 2000.

It said the notion the PA leadership had failed to prevent terrorist attacks against Israel as only an Israeli “view,” ignoring consistent incitement that Arafat had conveyed to his own media for the previous seven years.

The Mitchell Commission also rejected Israel’s characterization of the conflict, as “armed conflict short of war”; (How else would you describe an army that fires mortar rounds into Israeli cities?)

The Mitchell Commission also condemned the Israel Defense Force’s killing of PLO combat officers during a time of war, without giving an alternative.

Instead of issuing a clear call to the PLO to stop sniper attacks on Israel’s roads and highways, the Mitchell Commission simply “condemned the positioning of gunmen within or near civilian dwellings,” leaving the observer to assume that PLO attacks from empty embankments would be acceptable.

The Mitchell Commission suggested that “the IDF should consider withdrawing to positions held before Sept. 28, 2000,… to reduce the number of friction points,” ignoring the fact that this would leave entry points to many Israeli cities without appropriate protection during a time of war.

The Mitchell Commission also demanded that Israel should transfer to the PA all tax revenues owed, and permit Palestinians who had been employed in Israel to return to their jobs, strangely recommending that Israel once again pay salaries of armed PLO personnel who were at war with Israel.

Meanwhile, the Mitchell Commission took a page out of Arab propaganda when it called on Israeli “security forces and settlers to refrain from the destruction of homes and roads, as well as trees and other agricultural property in Palestinian areas,” and would not relate to the possibility that some of the trees and agricultural land had been razed may have been provided cover to PA security forces during combat.

The Mitchell Commission also accepted the notion that “settlers and settlements in their midst” remains a cause of the Palestinian uprising, because these Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria violate “the spirit of the Oslo process,” even though not one word appears in the actual Oslo accords would require the dismemberment of a single Israeli settlement.

In conclusion, the Mitchell Commission drew a strange comparison between “settlement activities” and the Palestinian inability to resume negotiations, so long as “settlement activities” continue, providing an excuse for the PLO to continue its armed conflict.

In short, the Mitchell Commission Report drove a nail into the coffin of any credibility that George Mitchell could ever have to serve as a potential Middle East envoy.

David Bedein can be reached at dbedein@israelbehindthenews.com

Documentation obtained from the Middle East Newsline reveals a direct connection between Iran and the Islamic militants Israel fought during its recent Gaza offensive.

It reveals that Iranian military advisers from Iran’s elite Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) were killed during the 22-day war with Hamas, which ended with a self-imposed Israeli cease-fire on Sunday.

IRGC officers helped the Hamas regime and Islamic Jihad fire BM-21 Grad rockets from urban areas.


“We believe there were dozens of IRGC personnel in Gaza during the war,” an Israeli source said. “Some were killed; others went into hiding; and others escaped.”


Israeli intelligence sources IRGC sent officers to the Gaza Strip to help Hamas
improve the range and accuracy of its rockets.

IRGC was also authorized to help establish facilities to produce the Grad and other extended-range Katyusha-class rockets in the Gaza Strip.

Israel expects Iran to expand the IRGC presence in the Gaza Strip amid the cease-fire. Iran is expected to build a Hamas arsenal of rockets with ranges of up to 50 miles, which would include the Fajr-3 and Fajr-4 rockets.

The IRGC presence was arranged in 2008 by the late Hamas Interior Minister Said Siyam, the sources said. Siyam was killed in an Israeli air strike on Gaza City on Saturday, hours before the unilateral cease-fire began.

“Siyam’s death removes Hamas’ key liasion with Iran,” an Israeli source said. “But there are others who could fill his shoes.”

David Bedein can be reached at dbedein@israelbehindthenews.com

Social workers from humanitarian organizations that have been working in Gaza over the past few says report Hamas armed men have returned to the streets, this time in uniform.

According to the reports, they are trying reassert their authority over the residents of Gaza anew. During the recent fighting, Hamas militants disguised themselves as regular civilians during fights with the Israel Defense Forces (IDF).

According to local residents, the Hamas security forces have also turned their guns on people associated with Fatah, the rival Palestinian faction.

“They attack Fatah people from time to time, shoot them in the legs because of all sorts of situations. We don’t know exactly what their reasons are. We saw a few masked men grab somebody, take him aside and exchange a few words with him. Then they shot him in the legs, just because he’s a Fatah supporter or because he said something bad about Hamas,” according to one social work source, who explained that, “They’re trying to impose a reign of terror. They’re trying to tell everyone: we’re here and we’re in control and nobody better try to undermine our control over the Gaza Strip. Mainly, you see them in large numbers in the streets in order to say to people, ‘we’re here and there’s security and everything.’ They were hurt, but not enough for them to lose control.”

Another social worker said life was slowly returning to normal.

“One third of the stores and bakeries are open, since most of the bakeries operate on cooking gas, and there’s a shortage of cooking gas in Gaza. The water infrastructure was severely damaged and teams in Gaza are working day and night to try to repair the damage,” the source said. “In the northern parts, where electricity is supplied by Israel, the situation is reasonable, as it is in the south, where Egypt is responsible for the supply. In central Gaza, the problem is worse. The Gaza Electric Corporation is having a hard time repairing the extensive damage that was caused.”

Reports have reached Ramallah on the West Bank about humanitarian aid shipments that have been hijacked, attacks that were carried out on United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) officials as they were distributing food and medicine. Hamas has reportedly has sold the stolen goods to residents.

A high-ranking Palestinian Authority (PA) minister told the Voice of Israel Radio that Hamas has resumed committing the crimes that it used to commit before the warfare in Gaza.

“They seized control of a number of UNRWA trucks with aid that had arrived from Jordan. They dealt violently with the UNRWA officials and, in general, try to hijack all the aid that makes its way to the Gaza Strip,” the PA minister said. “That’s why they tried to reach an arrangement with UNRWA in which all of the aid for the residents would go to UNRWA, since it has the most extensive infrastructure and the largest warehouses, so that it would provide for the needs of all the residents and not only the refugees who are in centralized locations, but everywhere in the Gaza Strip.”

The Palestinian minister also addressed the incidents of Hamas shooting people associated with Fatah, and said the statements made by the leaders thus far notwithstanding, reconciliation between the Palestinian factions was not near at hand.

“Because of those incidents we don’t know and aren’t sure whether they’re inclined to a unity of that kind or not,” the minister said.

IDF Forbids Publishing Battalion Commanders’ Names

In a precedent-setting step, the IDF decided to forbid publicizing the names of the battalion commanders who fought in the Gaza Strip and who were interviewed yesterday by the media. The reason for this decision is the fear that they might be prosecuted for war crimes that they allegedly committed in the course of the operation in Gaza.

The IDF Spokesperson’s Office allowed all the media outlets to interview battalion commanders from the various brigades that fought in the three weeks of the incursion into Gaza.

Taking an unusual decision, just a few minutes before airtime on TV and before the reports were filed for the newspapers, new instructions were handed down instructing the media to blur the faces and to remove all reference to the names of the various battalion commanders who were interviewed.

The Israel Military Censor’s Office further instructed the media not to provide any additional information about the battalion commanders that might help identify them.

The decision was made following consultations with the IDF Judge Advocate General, due to a general concern that anything the battalion commanders might say could be used against them if and when suits are filed against them to the International Court of Justice.

One military official said yesterday that the publication of their identities could also place the officers’ lives at risk. On Monday, IDF officers were given a travel advisory of sorts prior to any trip overseas, lest they be arrested for alleged war crimes.

David Bedein can be reached at dbedein@israelbehindthenews.com

An Israeli civilian sustained serious injuries on Monday night in a shooting attack near the community of Kochav Hashahar, to the east of Ramallah. His wife, who was with him in the car, was unhurt.

An initial inquiry found that the shots were fired from a passing car at the car in which the couple, from the settlement of Shvut Rachel, were driving.

They were driving on the Alon road from the direction of Shilo, when the shots were fired at them. As a result, Moshe Avitan, 33, sustained serious injuries.

“He was hit by a bullet in his left cheek at a relatively high point,” said the MDA paramedic Tzuriel Hezi, “This is a serious head injury.”

The wife testified that after the driver was hit in the head she realized that it was serious, she replaced him in the driver’s seat and they drove to the entrance of Kochav Hashahar, where the husband was given initial medical treatment in an ambulance and then taken by helicopter to Hadassah Hospital Ein Kerem in Jerusalem.

Israel Defense Forces (IDF) troops arrived in the area and began searching for the suspicious car. 


“While the war was under way in the south, there was a rise in the number of incidents of stone throwing and firebombs,” said Avi Roeh, chairman of the Binyamin Regional Council. “We hope that the war in the south isn’t moving north. We remember the crazy days of shooting on the roads. Now one man has been seriously injured and we all hope that he recovers. I am sure the IDF will do what it knows and has to do.”

David Bedein can be reached at dbedein@israelbehindthenews.com