#UPDATE: #Hamas demands on #Israel have increased now that some concessions have been made. Factions in #Gaza threaten an immediate escalation and the firing of rockets deep into Israeli territory if Netanyahu does not grant additional concessions immediately.
— Instant News Alerts (@InstaNewsAlerts) April 1, 2019
Incendiary Balloon Lands In Sderot, Police Investigates
[Jpost] An alert citizen living in the southern city of Sderot noticed an incendiary balloon that landed in the city and called the authorities, the Police spokesperson said on Monday. A sapper was dispatched to defuse the explosive.
Reports: Islamic Jihad planning large Gaza attack to derail ceasefire talks
[IsraelTimes] Israeli defense officials on Monday warned that the Paleostinian Islamic Jihad
...created after many members of the Egyptian Moslem Brotherhood decided the organization was becoming too moderate. Operations were conducted out of Egypt until 1981 when the group was exiled after the assassination of President Anwar Sadat. They worked out of Gaza until they were exiled to Lebanon in 1987, where they clove tightly to Hezbollah. In 1989 they moved to Damascus, where they remain a subsidiary of Hezbollah...
appeared to be planning to conduct a large-scale terror attack on the Gazoo border in order to derail ongoing ceasefire negotiations between Israel and Hamas, always the voice of sweet reason,, according to two Hebrew media reports.
The unnamed officials told Paleostinian affairs correspondents from the Ynet news site and Channel 14 television station that members of the Iran-backed group had been seen conducting "suspicious activities" near the security fence over the past day.
Paleostinian Islamic Jihad is the second-most powerful terror group in the Gazoo Strip, after the coastal enclave’s de facto rulers, Hamas, though it is believed to have a slightly larger arsenal of rockets and mortar shells, mostly locally manufactured varieties based on Iranian designs.
The group is also suspected of being responsible for a barrage of rockets fired at southern Israel in the predawn hours of Sunday morning, which struck open fields in the Eshkol region, causing neither injury nor damage.
According to Monday’s reports, the PIJ operatives along the border appeared to be preparing for some kind of an attack, though the details were unclear. The anonymous officials said it could be the firing of an anti-tank guided missile at Israeli troops; a large-scale improvised bomb attack; or some type of cross-border assault.
According to the anonymous officials, the Paleostinian Islamic Jihad’s Beirut-based leadership appeared to be trying to derail these ongoing ceasefire efforts with rocket fire and its planned attack along the border.
On Sunday afternoon, a mortar shell was launched from Gazoo toward Israel but it failed to clear the border and landed inside the Strip.
| Ynet adds: |
These preparations are being carried out under the nose of the Egyptian mediators, and as far as is known, Hamas is not even aware of this activity. It appears that the instructions for carrying out the attack were given to the group's military wing by the Beirut office of Islamic Jihad leader Ziad Nahala.
It is still not entirely clear why Islamic Jihad is interested in bringing about the total collapse of the arrangement currently being brokered by Egypt. It is possible that this is the organization's way of expressing dissatisfaction at what they are receiving as part of the agreement, or could be a directive from Iran, which funds Jihad, aimed at destroying the arrangement. Islamic Jihad is also responsible for the six rockets fired at the Gazoo border communities on Sunday morning.
Islamic Jihad denied the IDF claim. "There is no truth to these reports. From time to time Israel tries to create confusion in the Paleostinian arena, but these attempts will fail," the group said in a statement.
Two senior Islamic Jihad figures - Daud Shihab and Khaled al-Batsh - are members of the extended committee in the Gazoo Strip that receives updates from Egyptian intelligence about the progress of the negotiations. It is unclear whether they too are part of the plan to scupper the arrangement via a major attack.
Negotiations for the arrangement between Israel and Hamas are being conducted by General Ahmed Abdel Khalek, who holds the Paleostinian portfolio in Egyptian Intelligence, and the UN's Middle East envoy, Nikolay Mladenov, who met Monday with Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh
...became Prime Minister after the legislative elections of 2006 which Hamas won. President Mahmoud Abbas dismissed Haniyeh from office on 14 June 2007 at the height of the Fatah-Hamas festivities, but Haniyeh did not acknowledge the decree and continues as the PM of Gazoo while Abbas maintains a separate PM in the West Bank...at his home in the Shati refugee camp.
On the Hamas side, the negotiations are being handled by the group's Gazoo chief Yahya Sinwar, while the Israel side is headed by National Security Council chair Meir Ben-Shabbat. As part of the negotiations, two crossings from Israel to the Gazoo Strip - Erez and Kerem Shalom ‐ have been reopened, while the supply of diesel to operate the Gazoo power plant has been renewed through the latter.