Israeli Star Gate - "A team" Episode Really Happened (it seems)

Chalk one up for the home team. Gotta tell it like it happens, but sometimes it is pretty confusing. First we reported here about an Israeli commando operation that could be turned into a TV script - IDF soldiers  dressed up as Hamas Oozlebarts kidnapped a big Hamas honcho from under the noses of the Hamas and brought him back to Israel. Here's how it looked from the Palestinian side:

"A special Zionist force wearing Executive Force uniform entered George street in eastern Rafah in a civilian Subaru car and then headed towards the Sufa crossing" with Israel, Hamas's armed wing, the Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades, said in a statement.

 

A different report stated:

 

According to another report quoted by Israel Radio, the car travelled to Dahaniyeh airport in Gaza and an IAF chopper took the man from there.

 

But then Israeli sources denied the story. Too bad, we thought.

 

But now, we have confirmation that the caper, or one more or less like it, really took place:

 

Dichter calls captured Hamas chief bargaining chip for Shalit

Public Security Minister Avi Dichter, partially lifting an official veil of secrecy over the Friday night kidnapping of senior Hamas commander Mahawesh al-Qadi, said Monday that the Hamas Executive Force officer is a bargaining chip in the effort to free captive IDF Corporal Gilad Shalit.

 

The IDF and Israeli officials have refused to comment on Palestinian accounts of the kidnapping, in which undercover Israeli soldiers, dressed in the uniform used by the Executive Force, reportedly lured Qadi out of his car by having one of their members pose as an old man needing help at the side of a rural road. The soldiers, waiting in a Subaru in a grove on the outskirts of Rafah, then allegedly bundled him into the car and drove to the nearby Dahaniya airfield from which witnesses said he was flown by IAF helicopter to an unknown destination.

 

Qadi is also a senior operative in Hamas' military wing. He is believed to have been closely involved in the June, 2006 kidnapping of Shalit during a Hamas-led attack on an IDF post within Israel and adjacent to the Gaza Strip.

 

Message for Americans and others: "Asymmetric" warfare doesn't have to be so asymmetric. There is no reason to throw up our hands and decide that terrorists are "invincible." Local knowledge, training, planning and ingenuity can work for the good guys too.

 

Message for the Hamas and Hezbollah - Not every encounter with the IDF will be like the Lebanon war of 2006.

 

I love it when a good plan comes together. Don't you?

 

Ami Isseroff