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World Jewish News
Shin Bet head: Hamas continues to smuggle arms into Gaza
29.03.2009
Hamas continues to smuggle weaponry into the Gaza Strip, Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency) head Yuval Diskin told the cabinet during Sunday's weekly meeting.
Since Operation Cast Lead ended, Diskin said, 22 tons of dynamite were smuggled into Gaza. Forty-five tons of raw material used in producing dynamite, dozens of rockets, hundreds of mortar shells and anti-aircraft shoulder missiles also made their way to the Strip, he said.
Diskin told the cabinet Egypt was making inroads in its effort to curb arms smuggling through the Gaza-Egypt border, but that Hamas still succeeded in bring large quantities of weapons into Gaza.
Terror groups in the Gaza Strip were planning to carry out another kidnapping attempt, Diskin warned.
He added that there has been an increase in the efforts of small splinter groups to carry out attacks inside Israel, sometimes through Sinai or by orchestrating local efforts in the West Bank.
In his weekly outline to the cabinet, the last given to Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's government before Binyamin Netanyahu presents his government on Tuesday, Diskin said that Hamas was afraid of an escalation in violence between the group and Israel, especially after the negotiations to conduct a prisoner exchange and reconciliation talks between Hamas and Fatah both failed to yield results.
Hamas's interest was and remains rebuilding the Gaza Strip and rebuilding their weapons caches, Diskin said. The Islamic group is deliberating whether to renew terrorism in full force or to rally support from the residents of Gaza in hope of influencing the world into action by holding mass protests.
Diskin said Hamas recently organized protests in support of Israeli Arabs and for the Aksa Mosque. He said that the Shin Bet was not expecting unusual occurrences during Land Day, which Israeli Arabs and Palestinians mark on March 30 to commemorate the confiscation of land in the Galilee by the government in the mid 1970s.
Источник: JPost
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