Hamas

Hamas, fatah flirt with unity deal

Thu, 23 May 2013 20:00:43 +0100

Fatah and Hamas agreed to form a unity government within three months at talks in Cairo last week.

Similar agreements have been reached on several occasions over the past few years, but none have been implemented.

A Fatah official said both sides had agreed on a timetable that begins with creating laws to govern elections.

Hamas not sourcing missiles

Anshel Pfeffer — Fri, 10 May 2013 09:00:43 +0100

Israeli intelligence has found no evidence that Hamas is rebuilding the missile-firing capabilities damaged during Operation Pillar of Defence five months ago.

Hamas is instead focusing on its attempts to solidify political control of the Gaza Strip and the Palestinian movement.

Four years ago, after Israel destroyed much of Hamas’s missile capability in Operation Cast Lead, the terrorist movement acted swiftly to re-equip itself with thousands of missiles, backed by Iran and Syria.

This time round, Hamas is intensifying its ties with Muslim Brotherhood-dominated Egypt, and with Turkey and Qatar.

Hamas’s new allies are willing to supply it with economic assistance and diplomatic support but not, so far, with arms.

Indeed Egypt, mainly for internal political and economic reasons, has begun an unprecedented operation to destroy hundreds of smuggling tunnels beneath the border with Gaza.

The shift in strategy has not yet changed Hamas’ rhetoric, which still calls for the “armed struggle”. But it has led the terrorist group to focus instead on cracking down on political dissent in Gaza.

This has taken two forms. A Hamas force has been hunting down Salafist groups that have been defying its rule and trying to break the ceasefire by launching rockets.

At the same time, it has stepped up the enforcement of hardline religious policies by shaving the heads of long-haired youths and cancelling events that mix men and women — as it did with the Gaza Marathon.

Hamas programme trains children to shoot and blow up Israelis

Nathan Jeffay — Thu, 02 May 2013 14:15:44 +0100

Hamas is running a military training programme for teenagers as young as 15, it emerged this week.

Some 5,000 boys are getting familiar with Kalashnikov rifles and other weapons during weekly school lessons, and many of them attend camps where they learn to handle guns and explosives. They are aged 15 to 17.

Palestinian human rights activists have expressed concern. Al Mezan, a Gaza-based group, has condemned the programme. Bassem Eid, founder and director of the East Jerusalem-based Palestinian Human Rights Monitoring Group, said: “Palestinian society should be very concerned and very worried by this.”

He said that, by propagating a culture of violence, Hamas harms Palestinian prospects. “In the future, such camps will harass the Palestinian interest, which is to find peace,” he predicted.

Mr Eid added that there were widespread hopes among Palestinians when Hamas won elections in 2006 that the terror group would become less military and come to represent civilian interests. Instead, it has worked “to militarise the Gaza Strip”.

Paul Hirschson, spokesman for Israel’s Foreign Ministry, alleged that Hamas’s programme constitutes “child abuse”. He commented: “They should be put in jail for abusing their own children.”

Mr Hirschson said: “It’s actually sad that anybody would be investing effort in education of this nature instead of teaching science, mathematics and English… They are breeding terrorists who are going to kill me and my children unless we protect ourselves.” News of the programme was met with fury in the Knesset. “It is because of incidents like these that true peace with the Palestinians will take many years to achieve,” said Deputy Defence Minister and Likud MK Danny Danon.

“As long as their schoolchildren are taught to maim and kill instead of read and write then we will have no choice but to do all that is necessary to defend ourselves.”

Among organisations that monitor Palestinian “incitement,” there was little surprise. “Once you’ve convinced the children that killing is justified, training them is just the logical next step,” said Itamar Marcus, founder and director of Palestinian Media Watch, a non-profit organisation that monitors the Palestinian media and educational system.

Mr Marcus’s archive includes clips from Hamas-run children’s television, which encourage and idealise violence against Jews and Westerners. One item shows a baby-faced puppet stabbing a puppet of George W Bush to death.

Discussing incitement, he said: “Even if just a small percentage of children who see it act on it, the message they receive could result in the killing of hundreds or thousands of Israelis.”

Hamas’s ‘moderate’ face in council elections

Anshel Pfeffer — Thu, 04 Apr 2013 19:00:30 +0100

The Hamas Shura council re-elected Khaled Mashaal in Cairo on Monday for a fourth term as head of the Islamic movement’s political bureau.

Mashaal, regarded as the leader of the more moderate wing in Hamas, was previously planning to retire. His surprising re-election is seen as an attempt to improve Hamas’s relations with Egypt. This follows the recent flooding and destruction by the Egyptians of tunnels on the Gazan border through which Hamas has brought in military supplies over recent years.

Hamas has been accused by the Egyptian media of involvement in an attack on a border crossing last year in which 16 Egyptian soldiers were killed. The movement is also being challenged at home in Gaza, where smaller, radical Palestinian organisations have broken the ceasefire with Israel, launching mortar shells and missiles.
The first attack came two weeks ago during President Obama’s visit, when four missiles were fired at Sderot.

Then on Tuesday two rockets were fired at Sderot plus mortar rounds.

No one was injured but the Israeli Air Force attacked two targets in Gaza on Tuesday night in retaliation. The IDF Spokesman said that, while Israel does not believe Hamas is interested in escalation, it holds the movement responsible for all attacks launched from Gaza.

Israel hit by second round of Gaza rockets

Anna Sheinman — Wed, 03 Apr 2013 11:00:06 +0100

More rockets were fired from Gaza into southern Israel this morning after Israel launched an air strike on Gaza on Tuesday in response to a Hamas mortar attack.

Sirens sounded in Sderot at 7.33am this morning and two rockets exploded. They hit open ground and no one was hurt, Ynet reported.

The attack followed the first Israeli air strike on Gaza since the ceasefire in November. An Israeli military statement said their planes targeted "two extensive terror sites" and had "accurate hits". Palestinian officials said nobody was hurt.

The air raids were in response to rocket fire from Gaza on Tuesday. Israeli defence minister Moshe Yaalon said in a statement: "We will not in any way allow a routine of rocket fire steadily dripping on our civilians and soldiers.”

This marks the worst outbreak of hostilities since the November ceasefire and the first exchange of fire since President Barack Obama’s visit two weeks ago.

Responsibility for the original rockets was claimed by al-Qaeda linked group Magles Shoura al-Mujahadeen, Reuters reported. The group claimed they were responding to the death that day of a Palestinian prisoner in an Israeli jail who, it was claimed, had not received sufficient medical treatment for cancer. Israeli officials denied the allegation.

Palestinian rocket may have killed family of BBC journalist, says UN report

Sandy Rashty — Tue, 12 Mar 2013 09:50:34 +0000

A United Nations report yesterday announced that a misfired Palestinian rocket may have killed family members of a BBC journalist during the Israel-Gaza conflict last November.

The Associated Press photograph of BBC video editor Jehad Mashhrawi holding the dead body of his son Omar was internationally circulated and used by activists to attack the Israeli army for conducting air strikes during the Pillar of Defence operation.

Family of the child and his aunt and uncle who were also killed in the Gaza City raid, blamed Israel for the deaths.

However, the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) said the house could have been hit by a Palestinian rocket. They also said the damage was inconsistent with an Israeli air strike. The conclusions came after the OHCHR group visited the home in Gaza City four weeks after the incident.

According to a report on the BBC, Mr Mashhrawi has dismissed the conclusions as “rubbish”. He reportedly added that Palestinian militant groups tend to apologise to the family if they are responsible for deaths.

Nearly 170 Palestinians and six Israelis were killed during the November conflict last year.

Israel accused of sabotaging Hamas-Fatah reconciliation

Sandy Rashty — Mon, 04 Feb 2013 17:49:28 +0000

Israeli authorities have been accused of sabotaging rumoured Hamas-Fatah reconciliation attempts, after 20 members of Hamas were arrested in a West Bank raid earlier today.

The raid, which occurred early this morning, including the arrest of three Palestinian parliamentarians.

According to a report in the Jerusalem Post, Hamas spokesperson Fawzi Barhoum said the move "would not obstruct Hamas’s role in defending Palestinians and their lands and holy sites.”

Israeli leaders have not yet disclosed details of the arrest.

Women spread swine flu, Hamas columnist claims

Sandy Rashty — Mon, 04 Feb 2013 16:30:00 +0000

A Hamas columnist has attributed the outbreak of swine flu to the freedom of women.

In a piece transcribed by Middle East Media Research Institute (Memri) on Friday, Issam Shawer, who writes for Felesteen, claimed that the outbreak of swine flu in the West Bank and Gaza was caused by “women [who] emerge from every corner… and then congregate in one place.

“Women are the most numerous and fastest transmitters of viral diseases and epidemics such as swine flu. They spread news and rumours, but also viruses that waft through the stuffy air.

"Then they disperse, and many go on to perform some other duty at some other home or function hall. This is why I think women are the fastest transmitters of epidemics.”

Mr Shawer's piece, published on December 24, offers a solution. As well as wearing a niqab, “[men] can also take a greater part in fighting disease by imposing stricter constraints on the movement and gatherings of the womenfolk – at least in the next three months.”

UN Palestine expert Falk: Hamas like French resistance

Jennifer Lipman — Mon, 28 Jan 2013 09:48:27 +0000

The United Nation's Palestine expert has compared Hamas terrorists to fighters with the French resistance during the Holocaust.

Richard Falk, UN special rapporteur on human rights in the Palestinian territories, made the comments in a piece posted on the Liberal Democrat Friends of Palestine website.

In an article that included repeated condemnations of Israel, Mr Falk asked his audience to "imagine the situation being reversed as it was during the Nazi occupation of France or the Netherlands during World War two".

"Resistance fighters were uniformly perceived in the liberal West as unconditional heroes, and no critical attention was given as to whether the tactics used unduly imperiled innocent civilian lives," he said.

"Those who lost their lives in such a resistance were honoured as martyrs. "[Khaled] Meshaal and other Hamas leaders have made similar arguments on several occasions, in effect asking what are Palestinians supposed to do in the exercise of resistance given their circumstances, which have persisted for so long, given the failures of traditional diplomacy and the UN to secure their rights under international law."

Mr Falk, who is an outspoken critic of Israel despite his UN role, also described the Western media as "stunningly oblivious to these complications of perception, almost never disclosing Israeli provocations in reporting on the timelines of the violence of the parties". He said it "fails to acknowledge that it has been the Israelis, not the Palestinians, that have been most often responsible for ending periods of prolonged truce".

In 2011 Mr Falk was roundly criticised for posting on his personal blog a cartoon depicting a dog wearing a kippah and an American flag, urinating on a statue of Blind Justice and eating human bones and blood.

Hamas in ascendant as Malaysian PM visits Gaza

Anshel Pfeffer — Thu, 24 Jan 2013 20:00:00 +0000

Two months after the end of Operation Pillar of Defence, Hamas is gradually breaking the diplomatic isolation of the Gaza Strip.

On Tuesday, while most of the attention in the region was focused on Israel’s elections, Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak crossed the border from Egypt for a short visit with Hamas leaders in Gaza.

The visit was probably an attempt by Mr Razak to appeal to voters ahead of the Malaysian elections later this year. His office described the trip as “humanitarian” and he toured a school funded by the Malaysian government.

But Mr Razak’s visit is just one in a series of recent and planned visits by Muslim leaders, beginning with the Emir of Qatar in October and due to see the Tunisian President Moncef Marzouki arrive in early February. They demonstrate that Hamas is gaining international acceptance as legitimate representatives of the Palestinian people, at the expense of the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank.

Meanwhile, talks between Hamas and the Fatah-dominated Palestinian Authority on implementing reconciliation agreements are continuing in Cairo. Despite some progress, which has been reflected in Hamas allowing Fatah rallies to take place in Gaza and vice versa, the talks have yet to result in an agreed mechanism for Palestinian National Council elections.

Despite the fact that Hamas activists are becoming more involved in violent demonstrations in the West Bank, Palestinian security forces aligned with Fatah are still preventing Hamas from re-establishing its terror infrastructure there.

Israeli security sources have said in recent days that despite the heightened levels of violence in the West Bank, talk of “Third Intifada” are very premature. They pointed out that the PA is still in control and there is little enthusiasm among the local population for a return to the violent days of the intifada.