News Digest — 9/6/24
Hezbollah’s Weapons Pipeline To Shechem Revealed: A New Front In Iran’s Proxy War
Hezbollah is supplying arms to terror groups in Shechem (Nablus) as the Iran-backed terror group also extends its influence in the Palestinian cities of Jenin and Tulkarem.
After completing the entrenchment in the Jenin and Tulkarem area, Hezbollah is sending arms to Nablus,” various sources told The Press Service of Israel (TPS-IL).
This is how the Iranian method of introducing terrorism into the territories of Judea and Samaria works.
Sources identified Alam Kaabi, a senior figure within the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), as orchestrating the effort to organize and arm the terror cells in Shechem.
Kaabi, a former security prisoner released in the 2011 Gilad Shalit deal, currently divides his time between Lebanon and Syria.
His contact in Hezbollah is reportedly Atallah Daoud, who oversees Hezbollah’s relations with Palestinian terror organizations.
Kaabi is also believed to have ties with Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ), coordinating from Damascus to advance the armament and organization of the terror cells.
After a brief expulsion from the PFLP due to his close ties with Hamas, he returned as a key figure, forming new terror groups made up of individuals affiliated with Hamas, the PFLP, and Fatah’s al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades.
One of these cells was reportedly apprehended shortly before carrying out an attack on an Israeli community.
Palestinian intelligence sources say Kaabi’s ultimate objective is to provoke a large-scale Israeli military response in Shechem, which would destabilize the Palestinian Authority and strengthen Hamas.
Indeed, the PA’s iluence in Shechem is waning with frequent reports of armed groups openly challenging Ramallah’s authority.
In recent days, the PA’s General Intelligence has resorted to sheltering dozens of terrorists overnight to prevent them from being targeted by the Israel Defense Forces.
This marks a shift from the PA’s earlier refusal to protect the gunmen.
The PA has also reportedly supplied some terrorists with M16 rifles as part of a broader attempt to contain the growing unrest in the region.
However, the security apparatus of the PA is weakening, with several police stations left empty and others lacking basic operational resources.
There are growing Palestinian fears that Israel will resort to evacuating refugee camps where Hamas has managed to establish a presence.
Israel launched its biggest counterterrorism operation in months on August 28 with raids focused on the Jenin refugee camp, the Nu al-Shams camp in Tulkarm, the El Fara camp in northwestern Samaria in the Jordan valley, and the nearby village of Tubas.
The raids – dubbed Operation Summer Camp – were prompted by intelligence indicating that terror groups were preparing further attacks on Israel.
Explaining the significance of the raids, Yaron Bouskila, CEO of the Israel Defense and Security Forum, recently told TPS-IL, “Iran is funneling weapons and ammunition through the Jordanian border to Samaria. The whole area is now flooded with weapons, so we are fighting these terror organizations while their supplies remain open.”
On Aug. 21, Israel assassinated Khalil Hussein Khalil Al-Maqdah in Lebanon, who, along with his brother, Mounir, directed terror activity in Judea and Samaria on behalf of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps.
Following the assassination, analyst Beni Sabti told The Press Service Of Israel that Iranian weapons smuggling through Jordan has been going on for years but increased sharply after Oct. 7.
Sabti is a researcher on Iran for the Institute for National Security Studies, which is affiliated with Tel Aviv University.
“It’s reached dangerous levels. The Iranians have hubris. They see October 7 as a victory and they will continue smuggling weapons,” Sabti told TPS-IL.
Since October 7, Israeli security forces have arrested approximately 5,000 wanted Palestinian terror suspects, of whom 2,000 were members of Hamas.
Report: Sinwar Planned To Smuggle Himself And Hostages To Iran
Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar planned to smuggle himself, other Hamas leaders, and the remaining Israeli hostages through the Philadelphi Corridor to Sinai and from there to Iran, the Jewish Chronicle reported on Thursday (5th), citing intelligence officials.
According to the report, the plan was revealed by a captured senior Hamas official during his interrogation by Israeli security forces, as well as by information obtained from documents seized last week, the same day the six bodies of the murdered hostages were retrieved.
The report notes that the Hamas leader understands that the end of his organization is near and his only way out would be to sneak out of the Gaza Strip and flee to Iran. For that reason, according to the report, Hamas is insisting on Israel withdrawing from the corridor which runs along the Egyptian border.
Earlier on Thursday (5th), Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu spoke to Fox News and denied that Israel and the terror organization were close to striking a deal. “That’s inaccurate,” Netanyahu told Fox & Friends. “There’s a story, a narrative out there that there’s a deal out there… that’s just a false narrative.”
The prime minister explained his opposition to relinquishing control over the Philadelphi Corridor: “It prevents Gaza from becoming this Iranian terror enclave again, which can threaten our existence, but it’s also the way to prevent them from smuggling hostages that they keep through the cease-fire into Egypt, into the Sinai, where they could disappear, and then they’ll end up in Iran or Yemen, and then they’re lost forever.”
He added: “So if you want to release the hostages and you want to make sure that Gaza doesn’t pose a threat to Israel again, you’ve got to keep the Philadelphi Corridor …and that’s what we’re really doing right now.”
No Technology Can Substitute For An IDF Presence On The Gaza-Egyptian Border Prof. Hillel Frisch
Advocates of a hostage deal that would require the IDF to withdraw from the Philadelphi Corridor that runs the length of the Gaza-Egyptian border suggest that technological solutions can effectively prevent the border from once again becoming Hamas’ military and economic lifeline.
Static defenses are ineffective against a human adversary that observes, learns, adapts, and innovates. The now-iconic image of a lone tractor dismantling the supposedly impregnable security fence near Kibbutz Be’eri, followed by waves of terrorists, serves as a powerful refutation of the claims made by US officials and former Israeli military leaders that technological solutions alone would suffice.
History provides numerous examples to debunk this claim. During the Arab revolt in the late 1930s, the British erected a security fence along the Lebanese-Mandate border to prevent the smuggling of terrorists and arms. British intelligence soon reported that the fence’s metal rods were being sold in Beirut markets. In 1973, the Bar-Lev Line failed, leading to the deaths of hundreds of Israeli soldiers.
Static defenses equipped with sophisticated sensors and cameras require consistent maintenance. How will the IDF maintain an advanced fence along the Philadelphi Corridor after withdrawing from Gaza? How will the IDF prevent Hamas from shooting and destroying the sensors and cameras above ground? Moreover, how will new smuggling tunnels that run under the fence be detected?
An Israeli withdrawal from the border, and certainly from Gaza as a whole, would constitute a victory for Hamas, electrifying the Arab world, emboldening Iran’s proxies in Lebanon, Iraq, and Yemen, and severely weakening the US-led coalition with Israel and presumed moderate Arab states.
The image of the last Israeli tank crossing the destroyed fence back into Israel would symbolize the first decisive Arab victory in the history of the Arab-Israeli conflict. For all these reasons, there is no substitute for an IDF presence along the Gaza-Egyptian border.
The writer is professor emeritus at Bar-Ilan University and former senior researcher at the Begin-adat (BESA) Center for Strategic Studies. (Jerusalem Institute for Strategy and Security)
Israel Will Have To Radically Rethink The Way It Deals With Terrorism – Liel Leibovitz
Israel these days is waking up to the shattering realization that the rosy tales it told itself for decades were false. That there is no such thing as “the peace process with the Palestinians,” if only because a) the scattered family-based tribes who dot Judea and Samaria do not coalesce over any one coherent national consciousness, and b) even if they did, coexistence with the Jews next door has never been and will never be on the menu. That America won’t always be a perpetually reliable ally. And that the world remains, as it had always been, at best unmoved by our suffering and, at worst, committed to seeing the Jews as pesky outsiders who must be erased.
Oct.7 proved, with haunting clarity, just how much Israelis will now have to rethink. To gain real security, Israel can no longer revert back to its strategy of engaging in limited-scale conflicts with Hamas or Hezbollah every few years only to withdraw, attempt something akin to containment, and face increasingly fortified foes on their terms.
To truly deliver a deadly and effective blow to its enemies, Israel will have not only to target its leaders and their enablers, but also reclaim and keep key territories, including the creation of buffer zones. It will have to dismantle the murderous and corrupt Palestinian Authority, and enforce some solution that gives Palestinians some autonomy in their daily lives but nothing remotely resembling an armed sovereign nation. And it will have to radically rethink the way it deals with terrorism, including eliminating incentives for kidnapping and holding Israeli civilians as bargaining chips.
Oct. 7 reminded Israelis, in the most brutal fashion imaginable, that the quasi-normal life they had imagined was now their forever lot, was an illusion. Now they must fight.
In recent days, a post from an unnamed reservist in Gaza has been going viral in Israel, “The Philadelphi Corridor is more important than hostages,” wrote the reservist. “It’s more important than me and my entire battalion, which has been fighting in Gaza since the beginning of the war.” Approximately every hundred meters, he explained, a tunnel passes through the fence, openings used for smuggling massive amounts of contraband. Therefore, “Leaving the Philadelphi Corridor for one day means a death sentence for thousands more Israelis. … Our blood is no less red than the blood of the hostages, although we are ready to sacrifice our lives for the sake of defeating the enemy.” (Tablet)
European Parliament Moves To Suspend PA Funding Over Anti-Semitic Textbooks
The European Parliament gave preliminary approval on Wednesday (4th) to the freezing of $22 million allocated to the Palestinian Authority (PA) over anti-Semitic textbooks in its educational curriculum.
The move in the parliament’s prestigious Foreign Affairs Committee, which requires two additional parliamentary votes in order to become law, is seen as a bellwether of change in the European Parliament following the summer elections, after years of merely declarative moves on the issue.
“Erasing all anti-Semitic content from education materials is among the first of many steps needed to establish civil society, professional education and proper economic structures in the Palestinian territories,” said Austrian MEP Lukas Mandi, who tabled the amendment, in a statement sent to JNS.
“These steps, accompanied by disarmament and demilitarization of the Palestinian territories, will help to establish structures that will lead to zero tolerance for terrorism and proper conditions for sustaining peace, democracy, rule of law and ultimately a security guarantee for the State of Israel.”
Following the 36-30 parliamentary committee vote, the proposal will now head to the budget committee next month for what is expected to be another close vote, and then, if approved, voted on in the plenary later in October.
“Finally, the European Parliament’s Foreign Affairs Committee has voted by a majority to put money in the reserves to pressure the Palestinian Authority to clean up anti-Semitic schoolbooks,”Dutch MEP Bert-Jan Ruissen told JNS.
“This is a good first step, which failed in the past, and hopefully will be included in the 2025 EU Budget that will be adopted later this autumn.”
Leo Van Doesburg, European director of the Israel Allies Foundation called the committee vote “a commendable first step.”
He added, “Achieving peace is impossible in the presence of radicalization.”
Marcus Sheff, CEO of IMPACT-se, an international research organization that analyzes schoolbooks and curricula for compliance with UNESCO standards, expressed frustration at the EU’s failure to date to deal with the issue.
“Despite years of promises made by the PA to its single biggest funding partner, the European Union, we see that essentially zero changes have been made to the Palestinian textbooks, which are rife with anti-Semitic incitement to violence,” he said.
However, Sheff told JNS that the fact the new parliament’s Foreign Affairs Committee was now throwing its weight behind the issue of Palestinian incitement, after years of reports on the topic, “was an encouraging step” that bodes well for the future.
In sharp contrast to Palestinian textbooks, a study by the organization this spring found that Saudi Arabia has removed practically all anti-Semitism and anti-Israel material from its schoolbooks.
(jns.org)
