Photo courtesy of Yehuda Lahiani, September 26, 2010
Rocket and mortar shell fire into Israeli territory
Rocket Fire 2010, Monthly Distribution
Safa News Agency, September 22, 2010
Mohammed Dababesh welcomed back to the Gaza Strip
Viva Palestina website, September 27, 2010
The Irene (Hamas� Palestine-info website, September 26, 2010).
 The vehicle of an Israeli couple wounded in the shooting attack south of Mt. Hebron on September 26 (Photo courtesy of Yehuda Lahiani, September 26, 2010). |
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Overview
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Important Terrorist Events
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The Gaza Strip
Rocket Fire
This past week one rocket hit was identified in Israeli territory. It fell in an open area in the western Negev. There were no casualties and no damage was done.
Rockets and Mortar Shells Fired into Israeli Territory 1
Rocket Fire 2010, Monthly Distribution *
* Rocket hits identified in Israeli territory. A similar number misfire and customarily land inside the Gaza Strip. **As of September 27, 2010. |
Judea and Samaria
On September 26 there was a shooting attack targeting an Israeli civilian vehicle south of Hebron (near the village of Teneh Omarim). Two Israeli civilians were wounded, one a woman in the ninth month of her pregnancy (IDF Spokesman’s website and Ynet, September 26, 2010). It was the fourth shooting attack targeting Israeli civilians in Judea and Samaria since the beginning of the direct negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians.
On September 22 a Palestinian resident of East Jerusalem was shot and killed by a Jewish security guard in Silwan, a neighborhood in East Jerusalem. Confrontations subsequently developed between local Palestinians and the Israeli security forces. An Israeli was stabbed and seriously wounded.
Masked Palestinian youths throw stones at Israeli security forces during
the confrontations in Silwan (Safa News Agency, September 22, 2010).
This past week IDF forces detained seven wanted Palestinians. Five of them were in possession of a large amount of weapons, some of them from IDF sources, including an M-16 semi-automatic assault rifle.
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The Peace Process
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On September 26 the moratorium on construction in the settlements in Judea and Samaria ended without the Israeli prime minister’s announcing that it would continue:
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Israeli Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu said "I call on [Palestinian Authority] President Abbas to continue the good and sincere talks that we have just started, in order to reach an historic peace agreement between our two peoples." He added, "�let us focus on what is really important. Let us proceed in accelerated, sincere and continuous talks in order to bring about an historic peace framework agreement within one year."2
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Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas said that Israel had to choose "between peace and the settlements" and that if the moratorium on construction in the settlements were not extended the "peace process would be a waste of time" (Wafa News Agency, September 26, 2010). Even before the renewal of construction, Mahmoud Abbas said that if it were renewed, the Palestinian Authority would appeal to the Palestinian institutions [i.e., the Executive Committee of the PLO and Fatah’s Central Committee] and to the Arab monitoring committee (Al-Hayat, September 24, 2010). However, he stressed that the Palestinians would not resort to a "military" intifada because "that path was tried in the past and brought ruin to the Palestinians and others" (Al-Hayat, September 26, 2010).
Mahmoud Abbas meets Palestinians in New York |
The Issue of the Recognition of Israel as a Jewish State
In response to Israel’s demand that the Palestinians recognize Israel as a Jewish state and the national homeland of the Jews, Mahmoud Abbas claimed there was no need. He claimed it was "none of the Palestinians’ business if Israel wants to call itself a Jewish, Arab or imperialistic state." He said that Israel was making its demand "to rid itself of all the Arabs in the country" and that the Palestinians would not agree to that. On another occasion he said that the Palestinians would "recognize the State of Israel but with no mention of nationality or religion" (Ma’an News Agency and Wafa News Agency, September 24, 2010; Agence France-Presse, September 20 2010).
Hamas unequivocally rejected the demand giving their the principle reasons. Ismail Haniya, head of the de facto Hamas administration in the Gaza Strip, denounced the American President Obama’s statement that Israel was the historic homeland of the Jews, and claimed that it was "a historical distortion," because, he said, "historically the land belongs to the Palestinians and Arabs�[and] the Jewish people have no historical presence in the land." He claimed that accepting the Jewishness of the State of Israel meant negating the "right of return" (Hamas� Al-Aqsa TV, September 24, 2010)
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Developments in the Gaza Strip
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Egypt released Mohammed Dababesh, a senior Hamas intelligence operative detained on its soil. According to the Egyptian media, he was involved in smuggling weapons and possibly in launching rockets, by implication from the Sinai Peninsula, into Israel. It was apparently an Egyptian gesture of goodwill toward Hamas to promote the internal Palestinian reconciliation after Khaled Mashaal, head of Hamas political bureau in Damascus, met with Omar Suleiman, head of Egyptian general intelligence at the beginning of September (Al-Quds Al-Arabi, September 21, 2010; Hamas� Palestine-info website, September 25, 2010; Nablus TV, September 17, 2010).
Mohammed Dababesh welcomed back to the Gaza Strip
(Gulf Times, September 25, 2010).
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The Internal Palestinian Arena
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Renewed Contacts for the Internal Palestinian Reconciliation
Azzam al-Ahmed, chairman of the Fatah faction in the Palestinian Legislative Council, headed a Fatah delegation to Damascus to participate in a meeting of the Arab parliament. The delegation met with Khaled Mashaal, head of Hamas’ political bureau. They issued a joint release to the press saying that they had "agreed on the path and steps to take to reach a reconciliation (Hamas� Palestine-info website, September 24, 2010).
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Flotillas and Convoys to the Gaza Strip
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Flotillas and Convoys Update
Viva Palestina convoy: This past week the convoy organized by Viva Palestina and headed by George Galloway continued on its way to the Gaza Strip. It passed through France and Italy and is currently in Greece.
The Viva Palestina aid convoy to the Gaza Strip, headed by George Galloway,
reaches Salonika, Greece (Viva Palestina website, September 27, 2010).
The Jewish flotilla: A ship called the Irene carrying between eight and ten passengers, among them pro-Palestinian Jewish activists from Israel, Britain, Germany and the United States belonging to an organization called "Jews for Justice for the Palestinians," and a crew and correspondents, set sail from Cyprus on September 26 for the Gaza Strip. Richard Cooper, a member of the organization, said that their objective was to make it clear that "not all Jews support the policies of the government of Israel" (Hamas� Palestine-info website, Agence France-Presse and the organization’s website, September 26, 2010).
The Irene (Hamas� Palestine-info website, September 26, 2010).
Freedom Fleet 2: The community of expatriate Palestinians in Italy said in an announcement that they were launching an aid ship to the Gaza Strip called the Stefano Chiarini (named for a pro-Palestinian activist who died in 2007), which would set sail in the middle of November 2010 in the upgraded flotilla currently being organized by the anti-Israeli coalition Freedom Fleet 2. The flotilla is expected to comprise 20 ships; its sailing date has not yet been set (AKI, September 21, 2010).
The Lebanese flotilla: Yasser Qashlaq, head of the Free Palestine Movement, claimed that he sought to send "weapons ships" to "Palestine," just as the United States helps Israel. He called Israel "dangerous garbage" which had to be disposed of "to the countries supporting it," and claimed that the Europeans needed a blow which would rouse them from the "influence of the drug of globalization and peace" (Al-Watan, September 21, 2010).
An Indonesian flotilla: Anis Matta, deputy chairman of the Indonesian parliament, said that preparations were being made for an Indonesian flotilla to the Gaza Strip. It was being organized by various Indonesian organizations and political parties with the support of "the upper political echelons" (Hamas� Palestine-info website, September 22, 2010).
The One-Sided, Biased, Anti-Israeli Report of the UN Human Rights Council
The fact-finding mission sent by the UN to investigate the events aboard the Mavi Marmara issued its report on September 22.
As expected,3 the report was one-sided and biased against Israel and completely adopted the IHH narrative of the events. It determined that Israel had used excessive force, that the weapons in the possession of the passengers aboard the movement were intended for self defense and that IDF soldiers abused detainees after they took control of the ship. The mission reached its conclusions based on statements made by anti-Israel operatives, which are in direct contradiction to Israeli information and evidence.
1 The statistics do not include the mortar shells fired at IDF soldiers patrolling the border fence which fell inside the Gaza Strip.
2 http://www.pmo.gov.il/PMOEng/Communication/Spokesman/2010/09/spokeabbas260910.htm.
3 For further information see the September 2, 2010 bulletin, �The UN Human Rights Council fact-finding mission examining the events of the flotilla has sent teams to Jordan and Turkey. The methodology and terminology of the fact finding mission indicate a high probability of conclusions biased against Israel in the description and significance of the events aboard the Mavi Marmara� at http://www.terrorism-info.org.il/malam_multimedia/English/eng_n/pdf/hamas_e127.pdf.
