Eilat terror

Terror group fires rockets at Eilat

Sandy Rashty — Thu, 16 Aug 2012 17:41:47 +0100

An Islamic terrorist group has claimed responsibility for firing rockets into Eilat on Wednesday evening.

Police resumed searching for remains of a Grad missile rocket at 6:30am this Thursday morning, after the Salafi Front claimed it had caused the two explosions in the resort.

No injuries or damages were reported after security forces suspected the rockets having been sent from the Sinai Peninsula.

Micky Rosenfeld, spokesman for Israeli police , said that the police emergency number was flooded with residents' calls on Wednesday night.

The Salafi Front has also claimed responsibility for firing more than a dozen attacks on the Egypt-Israel pipeline since February 2011.

Security alerts have been issued in the area and this month Israel issued a travel warning to citizens with regard to the Sinai.

This week Egypt gave Israel military permission to enter Sinai in a bid to tackle terrorism in the region.

Explosions in Eilat

Wed, 15 Aug 2012 21:12:43 +0100

Two explosions were heard in Eilat this evening, local authorities have confirmed.

The IDF are investigating a suspected Grad rocket attack following residents' reports of loud explosions.

One local citizen, who gave her name only as Rotem, said: “We heard two loud explosions. Last time this happened the entire house shook.”

Yoav, also from Eilat, said: “People on the street just froze in their tracks. It was frightening.

“It’s time that sirens were installed in Eilat.”

The scene is currently being searched and under investigation by local authorities.

Israel under fire from Gaza and Sinai

Anshel Pfeffer — Thu, 21 Jun 2012 14:45:27 +0100

The political unrest in Egypt, security chaos in the Sinai peninsular and the spike in terror attacks on Israel’s southern border are all directly connected, say senior security officials.

Israelis are concerned that the apparent victory of the Muslim Brotherhood’s Mohammed Morsi in last weekend’s Egyptian presidential elections will embolden the Palestinian organisations to carry out further attacks.

The most serious attack took place on Monday morning, when a terror team infiltrated across the border in northern Sinai, near the agricultural community of Beer Milka, and opened fire on a group of workers building the new border fence with Egypt. One of the workers, Said Pashapasha, an Arab-Israeli from Haifa, was killed. An IDF unit tracked down the terrorists and killed two of them. A third escaped back to Egypt.

The incursion came in the midst of a new spate of rocket attacks on Israeli targets. On Saturday night, two Grad missiles were launched from Sinai against targets in the central Negev, probably by Islamist radicals working with elements within the Muslim Brotherhood. Meanwhile, this week, Hamas launched dozens of rockets from Gaza. There were no casualties in any of the attacks.

On Sunday and Monday, the IAF retaliated in five attacks in which four Palestinians were killed. The IDF said that the targets were military installations and a rocket-launching team.

This was Hamas’s first missile attack in over a year — most of the recent assaults have come from Islamic Jihad and other smaller organisations.

A senior security official said: “The political and security situation in Egypt indicates that we can expect more attacks like these in the near future”.

Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh welcomed the unofficial results of the Egyptian election. He repeated the claim that Mr Morsi had won and called on him to “hold back Israel’s aggression”.

On visiting the site of the attack on the new border fence on Tuesday, IDF Chief of Staff Lieutenant General Benny Gantz said: “The work is going at a good pace, but there is an operational problem that is connected to the more significant problem within Sinai. The terror bases are being built and attacks are sent from there. We expect the Egyptians to solidify their sovereignty in Sinai.”

Over the past year-and-a-half, Israel has allowed Egypt to send seven additional battalions into Sinai, beyond the level of forces allowed by the Camp David peace accords. These forces, however, have had to move into northern Sinai to fight the al Qaeda-aligned groups operating there. Israeli security officials have complained that little has been done along the southern parts of the border.

Eilat on alert after rocket from Sinai lands overnight

Jennifer Lipman — Thu, 05 Apr 2012 11:06:11 +0100

A rocket has landed in the Israeli holiday resort town of Eilat as tourists descend on it to celebrate Pesach.

No injuries were reported after the shell, fired from the direction of Egypt, exploded in the early hours of Thursday morning. The Grad rocket landed on a building site about 300 metres from a residential building.

"Eilat residents heard three explosions in the night, but for the moment we have only found one rocket," said police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld.

The Red Sea port resort has been put on high alert by police, who are searching the area for further rockets.

Eilat, which is on the Egyptian border, was targeted by militants last summer. Eight Israelis were killed after their vehicles were ambushed by gunmen who had come from the Sinai desert.

A Jordanian and three others were injured in August 2010 when five rockets were sent into Eilat area in the last rocket attack on Eilat.

Eilat: incursions set to continue

Anshel Pfeffer — Thu, 25 Aug 2011 10:45:27 +0100

The escalation in Israel's south ended almost as abruptly as it began, with no clear winners. Israel lost seven civilians and two soldiers in the terror attack on the border near Eilat. In retaliation, it killed 12 members of terrorist groups in Gaza, including those who allegedly planned the attack.

Three Palestinian civilians were also killed. The leadership of the shadowy Popular Resistance Committees (PRC) was wiped out, but the movement succeeded not only in carrying out the daring attack, but in continuing to fire missiles into Israel.

Meanwhile, Hamas seemed to be losing control over the smaller terror groups operating from within the Gaza Strip, but ultimately succeeded in consolidating its hold by enforcing a ceasefire from Sunday night onwards.

The PRC fighters spent a month in Sinai, after leaving Gaza through the tunnel under Rafah. Their weapons were probably picked up in Sinai, which, since the Mubarak regime fell in February, has been awash with weapons, smuggled in through Sudan by Iran, or recently looted from abandoned Libyan army depots.

Last week, the Egyptian army raided a workshop manufacturing explosives in El Arish in northern Sinai. At times over the last few years, the PRC has been a proxy of Hamas, a contractor for carrying out attacks on Israel, and occasionally a challenger to its hegemony in Gaza. This time they chose to take on both Israel and Egypt, confirming the fears of senior officers in the IDF that after Mubarak, Egypt would become a base for attacks against Israel.

For the last 30 years, Israel has regarded its southern frontier as a "border of peace." Last year, prompted by the thousands of African job-seekers walking across, Israel finally decided to build a new border fence, with electronic surveillance. It is due to be completed by the end of 2012, but until then, unless Egypt seriously acts to restore order to Sinai, the incursions are expected to continue.

Israeli baby injured as rocket fire from Gaza continues

Jennifer Lipman — Thu, 25 Aug 2011 10:28:12 +0100

A nine-month-old baby was injured yesterday as the latest round of rocket fire from Gaza caused damage to southern Israel.

Seventeen rockets were fired across the border by terrorist groups on Wednesday night, wrecking property. A rocket aimed directly at the densely populated city of Beersheva was intercepted by the Iron Dome system.

Israel responded by targeting a weapons storage facility in the northern Gaza Strip and a smuggling tunnel and weapons manufacturing site. The IDF confirmed the airstrikes were direct hits, and Gaza officials said four terrorists were killed.

The latest rocket attack came almost a week after a co-ordinated terror attack on three sites in southern Israel, which left eight citizens dead.

An army spokesman said: "The IDF will not tolerate any attempt to harm Israeli civilians and IDF soldiers.

"We will not hesitate to respond with strength and determination to any element that uses terror against the State of Israel and until calm is restored."

Arab League to Abbas: UN bid in September is 'dangerous'

Jennifer Lipman — Tue, 23 Aug 2011 17:00:36 +0100

The general secretary of the Arab League has urged the Palestinian president to reconsider bidding for unilateral statehood at the United Nations next month.

Nabil El Araby made the comment in light of the heightened tension between Israel and Gaza, which was sparked when terrorists struck three separate locations in southern Israel last week, killing eight people.

Mr El Araby said the violence should be taken into account by Mr Abbas, who has vowed to go the UN on a symbolic move for Palestinian statehood in September, despite criticism by the Obama administration.

Mr Abbas has also called for large-scale "Arab Spring" style protests in the West Bank to build up support for the planned bid.

But Mr El Araby said: "The unilateral appeal to the UN Security Council and UN General Assembly could be a very dangerous move for the Palestinians during this period.

"I propose that Abbas reconsider the handling of the matter," he added.

Gaza terrorists fire more rockets into Israel

Jennifer Lipman — Tue, 23 Aug 2011 09:41:39 +0100

Rockets were fired from inside the Gaza Strip into southern Israel last night, despite claims of a ceasefire from Hamas.

Four Qassam rockets landed in Israel on Monday night, with three exploding in the Hof Ashkelon area. One of the rockets sparked a blaze which firemen battled to control before it damaged nearby greenhouses.

It was the third instance of rocket fire since terrorist groups in Gaza said they had agreed to an unofficial truce.

More than 100 rockets have been fired into Israel since the brutal triple terror attack on Thursday, which left eight people dead and 40 people with injuries.

On Monday evening Prime Minsiter Benjamin Netanyahu told a group of US Congressmen, including Jewish majority leader Eric Cantor, that the barrage from Gaza also represented a threat to the US.

He said: "Those who fire missiles at Israel are supported by Iran with weapons, money and training.

"They constitute a forward Iranian post on our borders. Just as Iran threatens us, so too it threatens the US."

The Board of Deputies of British Jews said it was watching "with great sadness and dismay the continued rocket attacks against communities in Southern Israel, including those launched after a supposed cease fire was declared by Hamas".

The Board called on the British Government to support Israel's legitimate right to defend herself from attacks which were "designed to inflict as many civilian casualties as possible".

Eilat terror 'most severe' in area in years

Robyn Rosen — Thu, 18 Aug 2011 16:31:37 +0100

The Israel Defence Force says it has the situation under control after a series of terrorist attacks in southern Israel which have left five people dead.

Lieutenant Colonel Avital Leibovich, an IDF spokeswoman, confirmed there were multiple attacks – two on civilian buses, one on an IDF patrol vehicle and one on a civilian tractor.

During the first attack at midday today local time, shots were fired from the Egyptian side of the border at an Egged civilian bus travelling from Shizafon to Eilat.

A total of 14 people, including tourists and soldiers, were injured.

While the medical teams were evacuating the wounded, additional reports came in of a second incident on the same road.

This attack, on another public bus and two other vehicles, led to several injuries and an Israeli ambulance spokesman confirmed five deaths.

Shortly after, a patrol vehicle of IDF soldiers who were making their way to the scene after being alerted to the attack, were targeted by a road-side bomb.

The fourth attack, with mortar shells, targeted a civilian tractor which was conducting maintenance work on the Israel-Egypt border.

During an exchange of fire between IDF soldiers and the terrorist squad, seven terrorists were killed.

Lt Col Leibovich said: "We have now taken control of the situation. At this stage, I can say that the terrorist squad originated in Gaza, but I don't have further information on whether it was al-Qaeda or another organisation.

"The IDF has been on alert in that area and we have had similar events before but not in this multi-layered manner. We are prepared for terrorists trying to attack civilians. However I think this is the most severe terror incident we have had in this area in the last couple of years.

"The IDF has a distinct goal to protect the civilians of Israel. We will not tolerate such a severe terrorist attack."

She added that some of the roads are still closed and investigations are ongoing.

Meanwhile Israeli Defence Minister, Ehud Barak, has said Palestinian terrorists are behind the attacks. He said: "The event reflects the weakening of the Egyptian hold on Sinai and the expansion of terrorist action in the area.

"The source of the terror acts is Gaza, and we will act against them with full force and determination."

Alistair Burt, the UK Foreign Office Minister for the Middle East, said: "I condemn these appalling and senseless acts of violence.

"As efforts for peace in the region continue, this brutality has no place, nor its perpetrators any excuse. My thoughts and prayers are with those killed and injured and I offer sincere condolences to their families and friends."

Egypt reportedly closed on Thursday the Rafah border crossing, which is the only crossing from the Gaza Strip into the Sinai peninsula, Channel 2 reported.

Hall of Infamy: Jody McIntyre

Thu, 18 Aug 2011 15:22:44 +0100

"I saw Ilan Pappe this week; he predicted that Israel were on brink of launching major war to distract pressure. Could Eilat be the pretext?"