Today's Situation

LEAVING SDEROT; ENTERING GAZA?, May 17, 2007

As Israel prepared for the partial evacuation of the Qassam-blighted town of Sderot and another Palestinian ceasefire seemed in danger of collapse, more of the primitive homemade rockets rained down on the western Negev on Thursday.

Army Radio reports a total of 10 Qassams fired from Gaza by 11 A.M., one of which hit a high school in the Sha’ar HaNegev Regional Council. Two students were lightly injured and one classroom sustained heavy damage. Earlier, a woman and her 9-year-old daughter suffered shock in a Kassam attack that scored a direct hit on a building in Sderot.

All three of the Hebrew-language dailies lead on the planned evacuation of Sderot residents, which the government insists on calling 'a break' from the rocket attacks. According to Haaretz, Defense Minister Amir Peretz, himself a Sderot resident, called at a security consultation for the authorities to start planning the evacuation of the town's population. According to the report, the Prime Minister Ehud Olmert objected to the proposal, claiming it would boost Hamas. Peretz then appeared to back down, agreeing with the prime minister that what was needed was to allow anyone who so desired to leave the town for few days. Israel Radio reported Thursday that the Defense Ministry had begun evacuating a number of Sderot residents to a Association for Soldiers' Welfare hostel in the northern town of Givat Olga.

The Sderot municipality, which, in conjunction with the Ministry of Defense, opened a hotline for Sderot residents on Wednesday, said Thursday that hundreds of residents have registered, and that there are plans to evacuated them to hostels throughout the country. In a private initiative, Israeli-Russian businessman and political hopeful, Arcadi Gaydamak, has offered to place 600 Sderot residents in the Golden Tulip hotel in Be’er Sheva. On Wednesday, Gaydamak sent eight buses after local residents appealed to him for assistance.

The security consultation called by the prime minister ended with Israel threatening severe steps if the Qassams did not stop. The prime minister gave the IDF the green light to renew its policy of targeted assassination against leaders of Hamas' armed wing and to go after the cells launching Qassam rockets.

In a statement, the government announced: "It was decided to authorize the IDF and the defense establishment to carry out a series of actions in order to target those launching Qassam rockets and their leadership, to disrupt their ability to launch rockets and to strike the terrorist infrastructure.'

According to Ynet, Olmert and Peretz also instructed the defense establishment and the civil authorities to prepare for the possibility of long-range rockets attacks, with defense officials warning that Ashkelon could be the next target of Palestinian rocket attacks

Opposition leader and former PM Benjamin Netanyahu, meanwhile, told a meeting of his Likud party on Thursday that the government did not understand that 'its first priority must be to prevent Israelis' homes being bombed from Gaza. The government could place Gaza under siege, deny them certain good and services, such as food and electricity, or even decide to launch a limited incursion into Gaza – say four or five kilometers. This governmental incapacity to act must end,' he added.

Meanwhile, the chairman of the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, Tzachi Hanegbi, told Israel Radio that the time has not yet come for a massive military offensive in the Gaza Strip. Hanegbi added, however, that eventually there would be no choice but for Israel to carry out a large-scale operation in the Gaza Strip, because Hamas' growing strength poses a threat to the entire south of the country.

Most Israeli commentators see the renewed Qassam attacks on Sderot as Hamas' attempt to divert attention away from the internal violence that continues to claims lives in the Gaza Strip. At least 22 Palestinians were killed Wednesday – all but five of them in internecine clashes. The others were killed in an Israeli air strike on a Hamas position in southern Gaza.

According to Israel Radio, Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas is expected to arrive in the Gaza Strip Thursday in order to oversee the implementation of a ceasefire agreement between Fateh and Hamas, which went into effect last night.

Even after the cease-fire, however, shooting incidents did not entirely abated, and three additional people have been killed.

In Washington, meanwhile, a State Department spokesman said Wednesday that the escalation in Gaza may cause the United States to reconsider its $55 million aid program for the PA and the elite Presidential Guard of Abu Mazin.

Another victim of the upsurge in violence is the planned biweekly meeting between Abbas and Olmert, who were due to resume the face-to-face conferences this week. They announced earlier in the week they would meet in Jericho, but events in Gaza have apparently sidetracked the issue. Previously, the crisis in the Olmert government following the Winograd Committee report kept the prime minister too busy to meet with Abbas. The two leaders have not met since April 15.

In other news, the Shin Beta announced Thursday that it arrested a would-be assassin who planned to murder the prime minister and others under the guise of working for a humanitarian organization. Matzab Bashir, of Dir el-Balah in Gaza, a humanitarian worker for Doctors Without Borders, admitted to gathering intelligence information for a planned assassination attempt against Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, and other high profile Israeli officials. According to Arutz 7, the Shin Bet arrested Bashir in Jerusalem in mid April, having used his status as a humanitarian worker to enter the country.  

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