The Palestinian terrorist group Hamas is taking advantage of a three-month cease-fire to build more than 1,000 Kassam rockets capable of striking Israel from the Gaza Strip, a senior Israeli Defense Forces officer told reporters yesterday.
Hamas is building up its arsenal during the cessation in hostilities – known as a “hudna” – to change the balance of power if fighting resumes, the officer said, according to the Jerusalem Post.
An IDF brigade commander said his colleagues fear “the opening of the next phase in the conflict will be much more violent.”
Tunnels beneath the border between Egypt and Gaza provide routes to smuggle much of the raw materials for the arms to Gaza City or to Khan Yunis, where Hamas is working on a new version of the Kassam with a range of up to 20 miles, the Post said.
That would put Israeli towns such as Ashkelon and Netivot easily within target range, the paper noted.
The senior officer said the Palestinians are digging tunnels – some more than 250 feet deep – “much faster than our ability to stop it.”
The officer commended Palestinian Authority leadership for reducing the number of attacks, but insisted they have “not gotten to the root of the problem,” the disarmament of Palestinian militants, the Post said.
The PA’s only tactic for preventing attacks is negotiation, he said.
Sometimes “they arrest a militant under the most comfortable conditions possible and release him,” within hours, he said, according to the Jerusalem daily. The longest incarceration is four days.
The officer said, however, the IDF is reassessing its assumption the PA has the necessary tools to disarm and arrest Hamas, Islamic Jihad and Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades terrorists, the Post reported.
He believes those groups now have the upper hand over the Palestinian Authority.
“There have been so many arms smuggled in that we can tell by the sheer number that we capture that there must be much more that we don’t [capture],” he said.
While Israeli security forces publicly say the PA has 20,000 armed security forces in Gaza alone, privately they count about 12,000, which is closer to the figure given by Palestinian security chiefs.
Many of these men are not nearly as motivated as their Hamas, Islamic Jihad, and Al Aqsa counterparts, the Post said.
Those groups could defeat the PA in an all-out battle, said the senior officer.
“The PA is aware of this,” he said, according to the Post, “and so the challenge for the Palestinians is to disarm the militant groups peacefully. The PA believes that it can only solve [the issue of the rejectionist groups] by including Hamas in [a future] government.”
Last week, the IDF submitted a document to U.S. Middle East envoy John Wolfe, contending the temporary cease-fire brokered under the U.S.-backed “Road Map” peace process is endangering Israel.
The Israeli news service Arutz Sheva said the report shows some 25 explosives manufacturing labs are operating in the West Bank and Gaza along with 20 arms-smuggling enterprises helping to circulate about 50,000 illegal weapons.
The report said the hudna’s requirement that Israel not take action against terrorists enables the terrorists to rearm and regroup until they feel it’s time to call off the cease-fire.
The term “hudna,” dates back to Islam’s founding in the 7th century, when Muhammad declared a 10-year hudna with the tribe that controlled Mecca. Later, after rearming, Muhammad attacked the tribe, claiming it had broken the truce. In 1994, Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat invoked Muhammad’s hudna when he justified the launch of the second intifada during the Oslo peace process.
According to the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, Hamas has agreed to 10 cease-fires in the past decade and has returned freshly armed after each one.
“It is important to note,” the institute said, “that all cease-fire offers have been presented at a time when Hamas needed a moment to step back and regroup after an organizationally exhausting confrontation with a more powerful foe (either Israel or the PA).”
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