Blast at Hamas Rally Said to Kill 4


Smoke rises after an explosion during a demonstration by the Palestinian militant group Hamas in the Jebaliya refugee camp, northern Gaza Strip, Friday, Sept. 23, 2005. A pickup truck carrying masked militants blew up at a Hamas rally on Friday, killing at least seven Palestinians and wounding 45, Hamas activists said. Witnesses said the truck carried homemade weapons, and Palestinian security officials said the blast apparently was caused by the mishandling of weapons. Hamas blamed Israel, saying Israeli aircraft flew overhead during the rally. Israel denied it was involved. (AP Photo/Emilio Morenatti)

21,000 immigrated into Israel in 2004

48% of the immigrants were from the former Soviet Union.

Zeev Klein 29 Sep 05 14:24

21,000 new immigrants arrived in Israel in 2004, 105 fewer than in 2003, according to the 2004 Statistical Abstract of Israel published by the Central Bureau of Statistics.
10,100 immigrants, 48% of the total, were from the former Soviet Union. 3,700 were from Ethiopia, 21% more than in 2003. The number of immigrants from France rose 12% to 2,000.

1,890 new immigrants came from the US, 12% more than in 2003. Immigration accounted for less than 9% of the increase in Israel’s population in 2004, compared with 80% of population growth in 1990 and 1991.

The Statistical Abstract indicates that 27,300 Israelis who went overseas during the year covered by the Abstract remained there more than a year without returning. 8,400 Israeli emigrants returned to Israel in 2004. The rate of emigration in 2004 totaled 4.2 per 1,000 residents. The rate of emigration among men was 8.4 per 1,000 residents, double the general rate.

Published by Globes [online] - www.globes.co.il - on September 29, 2005

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Iran, Hizballah and Palestinians Gang up for a Second Front against Israel

DEBKAfile Special Report

December 28, 2005, 9:05 AM (GMT+02:00)





On Dec. 17, DEBKAfile reported exclusively:

A special Iranian plane flew Palestinian Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal to Revolutionary Guards HQ at Bandar Abbas Monday, Dec. 12, after he spent 10 days in Tehran as favored guest of Iran’s clerical rulers. There, he conferred with RG commanders on operational collaboration between the two Palestinian groups, Hamas and Jihad Islami in Gaza and the West Bank, and their hook-up with Iranian networks and Hizballah in Lebanon. Their shared goal: the opening of a second rocket and shelling front against northern Israel to complement the Gaza front in the south.

This decision was implemented ten days later, Tuesday night Dec, 27, with a bombardment from southern Lebanon of Israel’s western Galilee and the northern towns of Kiryat Shemona and Shlomi. It was only be sheer good fortune that no one was hurt by the double salvo of 105mm rockets. Two homes were badly damaged in Kiryat Shemona.

The Sharon government an his security advisers have no intention of admitting that Meshaal’s Hamas, assisted by Hizballah missile experts present in Gaza, are the hands behind the Qassam offensive against southern Israel, even though the crews are put up by a coalition of the Jihad Islami, the Fatah-al Aqsa Brigades and the Popular Resistance Committees. Tehran and the Damascus-based Meshaal keep this coalition well supplied with the projectiles, are working on improving their precision and selecting the targets.

But instead of hitting home, Israel’s armed forces are told to strike empty spaces in the Gaza Strip. While the Hamas leader plots the next attacks, Israeli officers are sent to address public symposia to explain that a Hamas victory in the January 25 Palestinian general election might not be a total security disaster, because going into politics and government may well temper its violent bent and mute its aspirations to destroy Israel.

Exactly the same sort of talk with accompanied the 1993 Oslo process reference to Yasser Arafat.

The Sharon government has two compelling reasons for burying its head in the sand:

1. Its unquestioning adherence to the policy line laid down Washington, which is that any delay in the Palestinian poll will finish Mahoud Abbas for good. The vote must therefore take place in the slim hope that Abbas and the jailed Marwan Barghouti will be able to bring Fatah level with the Hamas. That would be the lesser of two evils, in the American view.

DEBKAfile’s Palestinian sources note that Barghouti, through his spokesman Kadoura Fares, have managed to sell this reassuring line to secretary of state Condoleezza Rice. Washington has thus been sucked into the accepting a strong Hamas showing in the polls and a share in Palestinian government. Ariel Sharon has fallen in behind Washington and therefore finds himself seriously enfeebled on the security front.

2. Sharon cannot afford to directly tackle Hamas in Gaza because this would be an admission of the radical group’s expanding strength and the failure of his disengagement policy to beget the promised improved security.

DEBKAfile’s security experts liken the Israeli air force raids of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine group’s bases south of Beirut following the Katyusha raid to the bombardment of empty ground in the northern Gaza Strip as a means of halting the Qassam attacks. It was no more than a sop to still angry complaints of the people living within range of the Lebanese border, who were looking forward to a quiet Hanukah holiday with a healthy influx of trippers. Hizballah and Palestinian leaders in Lebanon went through the motions of repudiating the Katyusha attacks on northern Israel. But it is no secret that no one moves anywhere in southern Lebanon, including the Lebanese army, without the Hizballah’s sayso. By holding back from striking at Hizballah bases, Sharon conferred on the Hizballah the same of immunity he extends to Meshaal’s Hamas in Gaza.

Nonetheless, the very real decline in Israel’s security situation and deterrent force is becoming harder to deny as time goes by. Israel gained no strategic advantages from its unilateral withdrawal from the Gaza Strip. If anyone has gained it is the newly emerging terror axis drawn between Tehran, Beirut, Gaza and Ramallah. They drove this point home Tuesday night. That Palestine projectiles flew across two fronts in a single night was no coincidence.



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Headlines

From 6 p.m. local time, Wednesday, Dec. 28, any person entering the buffer zone of northern Gaza will be a target. Israeli’s armed forces has formally conveyed this notice to the Palestinian Authority

Israeli air force bombs Palestinian Popular Front base south of Beirut early Wednesday after Katyusha rockets hit Israeli towns of Kiryat Shemona and Shelomi.

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The Katyusha attacks on N. Israel from Lebanon and the Qassam missile bombardment from Gaza are part of a single game-plan charted by Tehran, Hamas and the Hizballah

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Rival Palestinian Fatah agree on a unified list of candidates for the January election in an effort to heal the disastrous split in the ruling party’s ranks

At least 15 Iraqis killed in a shootout at a Baghdad military base when a prisoner grabbed a guard’s gun and shot him and five others dead

Full-scale terrorist attacks against Israel will resume Jan. 1 unless Abbas surrenders to terms laid down by Jihad Islami, the Popular Resistance Committees and Fatah-al Aqsa Brigades

Wanted al Qaeda terrorist Muhammad Suwailmi died in custody after killing five Saudi policemen in a gunfight near Buraida, capital of the northern Saudi Qassam province

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Thirty-one bodies found in a mass grave in Karbala near the Imam Hussein shrine are believed victims of the 1991 Shiite uprising against Saddam.

DEBKAfile’s military sources report that carving out a buffer zone in N. Gaza will be a tall order at this late date in view of the Palestinian round-the-clock mortar-RPG firewall

Thousands marched in W. Baghdad Tuesday in yet another protest against alleged voter fraud in Iraq’s general election. They demand a revote and call for a national unity government

Lebanon has detained a Syrian suspect in the Dec. 12 assassination of anti-Syrian lawmaker and publisher Gebran Tueni

DEBKAfile obtained a smuggled photo from Ashkelon prison which symbolically spans three-and a-half decades
Copyright 2000-2005 DEBKAfile. All Rights Reserved.

Israeli Air Strikes Target Palestinian Militants' Base in Lebanon
By Jim Teeple
Jerusalem
28 December 2005

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Israeli warplanes have struck a Palestinian militant base in southern Lebanon. Two Palestinian were reportedly injured in the raid. The air strike followed a rocket attack against two Israeli towns near the Lebanese border.


Lebanese man removes shattered glass from broken window at his house after Israeli jets blasted Palestinian militant group's base, in Naameh
Israeli aircraft struck a base belonging to the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine General Command, a small pro-Syrian Palestinian militant group based in Naameh, about eight kilometers south of Beirut.

The strike followed a series of rocket attacks Tuesday night against the Israeli town of Kiryat Shmona and the nearby village of Shlomi. The area is a frequent target of rocket attacks from Lebanese territory.

A spokesman for the Palestinian group targeted in Wednesday's strike denied his group's involvement in the rocket attacks. Most attacks against northern Israel are carried out by the Islamic militant group Hezbollah, but a Hezbollah spokesman also denied involvement in the latest rocket attacks.

Israeli Army spokeswoman Avital Lebovich says the air strike is a message to Lebanese authorities.

"We aim to send a message to the Lebanese government saying that any type of terror activity occurring from its soil should be taken as the Lebanese statehood responsibility," she explained. "Lebanon today has unfortunately become a hub for terrorist organizations. This is a situation we cannot live with."

The Israeli air strike was the deepest in Lebanon since 2004. Major Lebovich says Israeli defense officials are continuing to monitor the situation.

Wednesday's strike followed Israeli air and missile attacks against Palestinian militant targets in the northern Gaza Strip on Tuesday. Since Israel's withdrawal from Gaza in October, Palestinian militants have repeatedly launched rocket attacks against targets in southern Israel. Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas has appealed to militant groups to stop the attacks.

Israeli authorities say they will soon enforce a buffer zone in the northern Gaza Strip in a move to stop the attacks.