Gaza – Hamas arrested members of a global jihadi organization in the Gaza Strip for firing a rocket at southern Israel on Friday, Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon said in Beersheba on Sunday.
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“It turns out that it’s one of the global jihad organizations,” Ya’alon, referring to Friday’s rocket attack on Eshkol, said.
He spoke at an event held on behalf of the Magshimim program, aimed at allowing youths in peripheral areas to receive specialized tools to make them proficient in the cyber world.
“It’s totally clear that Hamas is responsible for fire from the Gaza Strip, and that’s why we took the trouble to pass on messages, through Egypt, to Hamas in the Gaza Strip, and to respond through a strike on a cement factory that we learned creates material for use in tunnels,” Ya’alon said referring to the IAF strike over the weekend.
The defense minister said he did not know if the cement at the factory went to “defense or offensive tunnels, and it does not interest us. It’s clear that we don’t insert reconstruction material into the Strip so they can take cement to the tunnels.”
Defensive tunnels enable Hamas members to move within the Gaza Strip underground, transfer weapons, and coordinate hit and run attacks on IDF units during clashes. Offensive tunnels are cross-border structures designed to allow Hamas to insert murder squads into southern Israel to carry out terrorist atrocities, and attacks on IDF positions.
“We are not sure whether it was our cement that was there, or cement left over from the Qataris [who donated funds for Gazan reconstruction projects in 2012]. It doesn’t matter at all,” Ya’alon said. “Hamas is responsible, and we demand that it ensures that not even a single rocket is fired from the Gaza Strip. If a rocket is fired, we will respond accordingly… I hope that Hamas is interested in quiet and not escalation.”
Unlike periods that followed past clashes with Hamas, this time around, Hamas is “unable to replenish its stockpile of [industrial] weapons, not from Iran or Libya. Part of this is due to our actions… and part of this is due to the more determined actions of the Egyptian security forces in Sinai,” Ya’alon added.
He said that lone rocket attacks occurred after operations Cast Lead [in 2009] and Pillar of Defense [2012], arguing that “the fact is that Hamas is deterred. This comes up clearly, since this time too Hamas arrested those who fired the rocket… the question is how long will this last, and I hope for as long a period as possible.”
The Israel Air Force struck a Hamas terrorism base in the southern Gaza Strip overnight between Friday and Saturday in response to a Palestinian rocket attack over the weekend. There were no injuries in the air strike.
On Friday, a Gazan rocket triggered warning sirens in the Eshkol regional council, before exploding in an agricultural field. It failed to cause injuries, but damaged the field, before being collected by an Israel Police bomb squad.
It was the third time Palestinians had fired a rocket into Israel since the truce between Israel and Hamas went into effect on August 26, ending a 50-day conflict.
Hamas described Israel’s retaliatory air strike as a “dangerous escalation,” adding that “Israel is playing with the calm obtained after the summer fighting. Hamas is examining its response to the aggression.”
Content is provided courtesy of the Jerusalem Post
once it was bubbies who told bubba miisim, not Hamas is trying to fool us with their bubba miisim BS.
They must have fixed the revovling door.