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| Israel-Palestine-Jordan |
| As Israeli forces go on high alert after Faqha killing, Hamas may be looking to avoid a war |
| 2017-03-27 |
| [IsraelTimes] The liquidation of a key planner of West Bank terror attacks was meant to send a signal; now the ball is in Hamas's court. Israeli forces near the Gazoo Strip have been placed on high alert, fearing retaliation from the Hamas, always the voice of sweet reason, terror group over the liquidation of one of its top military leaders in Gazoo on Friday night. The alert was ordered Saturday by the IDF’s Southern Command. Israel has not grabbed credit for the killing of Mazen Faqha, a former prisoner in Israel who oversaw Hamas’s efforts to instigate terror attacks in the West Bank, but Hamas leaders have lined up to blame Israel for the killing throughout Saturday. Faqha, 38, was killed in an apparently professional hit job when he was shot near his home in the Tel Hawa neighborhood of Gazoo City with a handgun equipped with a silencer. His father, who lives in the West Bank, told a Hamas TV station that Israeli intelligence officers had warned the family three times that his son’s terrorist activity was going to get him killed. "They said Mazen was carrying out attacks against Israel, and that Israel’s arm is long," he said. Khalil al-Haya, a deputy to Yahya Sinwar, the new leader of Hamas in the Gazoo Strip, promised retaliation. Yet, for all its rhetoric, Hamas has yet to show any firm evidence of Israeli involvement, a fact that may give the organization the political maneuvering room to avoid a dramatic response that could lead to a full-fledged confrontation. Faqha is from the northern West Bank town of Tubas, where he was jugged Keep yer hands where we can see 'em, if yez please! in 2002 for helping to plan suicide kabooms during the Second Intifada. He was released in October 2011 during the Shalit deal, after which he was expelled to Gazoo, where he and fellow West Banker Abd el-Rahman Ghanimat founded the "West Bank section" within the Gazoo-based group. The section was composed of military wing members formerly from the West Bank who were expelled to Gazoo. Their task was to bolster Hamas infrastructures in the West Bank, including by means of terror attacks against Israelis. This included sending both funds and instructions to Hamas cells in Hebron, Tulkarem, Qalqilya and elsewhere in a bid to escalate violence and force new rounds of confrontation between Israel and the Paleostinians in the West Bank. Each area in the West Bank was served by a "regional commander" within the section who sat in Gazoo but was originally from the area in question. According to Israeli intelligence, Faqha and Ghanimat’s "fingerprints" were on many attempted and successful terror attacks emanating from Hamas cells in the West Bank in recent years, a fact that suggests Israel had a clear interest in his removal. The message: Nobody is safe Faqha lived and traveled in Gazoo without bodyguards or other protection, and was assassinated near his beach-side home. If Israel did indeed carry out the liquidation, it may have intended to send a message that Hamas leaders’ apparent belief that they are safe during periods of quiet is incorrect. It is likely that the entire leadership of the organization is now changing its daily routines, on the assumption that if Faqha could be killed, they are all potential targets. They will have to live surrounded by security, and occasionally changing homes and hideouts ‐ a return to the life that many Hamas leaders from the West Bank were forced to live a decade ago. This was clearly the message of the killing: that everyone is a potential target. But that’s doesn’t mean Israel’s alleged responsibility for the killing is obvious or indisputable. The assassins were highly professional, leaving no shred of evidence as to their identities. Indeed, this professionalism ‐ the silencer and the clean disappearance ‐ is the only real evidence pointing to Israeli intelligence agencies. Nothing more. That lack of clarity means Hamas may decide it can be satisfied in the short term with the sort of threatening declamations issued by the group on Saturday, such as: "No more restraint" or "We won’t permit liquidations to go without a response." Hamas’s decision on Saturday not to start shelling Israel in response, shows the group likely does not actually want a war with Israel at this time. None of this is to suggest the group will refrain from responding to the liquidation in due time. Its new Gazoo chief, Yahya Sinwar, is known as a dangerous, unpredictable and uninhibited commander. He may prefer to wait for a moment when Israel will be caught by surprise, and to launch the sorts of operations seen in the past, such as kidnappings or, in a throwback to the previous decade, suicide kabooms. If Hamas launches such attacks, it will likely also attempt to do so without leaving evidence of its involvement, in order to give Israeli leaders the political space to avoid all-out war while still signaling that continued liquidations will be met with painful retaliation. As one Hamas official said Saturday, Israel was "trying to force a new model of a clandestine war on Hamas, as it has failed in the open war model." He said Hamas would know how to respond to such tactics. |
| Posted by:trailing wife |
| #4 Much easier to chuck rocks from a crowd than dig graves. |
| Posted by: Skidmark 2017-03-27 10:43 |
| #3 It's a pity WWI era mines have gone out of fashion. I wouldn't mind seeing the ground in Gaza randomly explode. Simply blame it on Hamas storing munitions underground. |
| Posted by: phil_b 2017-03-27 05:20 |
| #2 Yahya Sinwar, is known as a dangerous, unpredictable and uninhibited commander. Maybe Sinwar was the guy to gave the order to kill Faqha. |
| Posted by: lord garth 2017-03-27 04:03 |
| #1 Know how to respond? Repent. |
| Posted by: newc 2017-03-27 01:24 |