Israel Security Services Chief: Gaza lull helps Hamas, rocket attcks will resume

Last update - 07:18 24/07/2008    

 

 Shin Bet head Diskin: Gaza lull is lifeline to Hamas  By Amos Harel 

Shin Bet chief Yuval Diskin believes that the cease-fire agreement in the Gaza Strip serve the interests of Hamas, not Israel, and charged that by agreeing to the deal Israel has "offered Hamas a lifeline."

 

Speaking before the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee Tuesday, the security services head argued that Israel's deterrent has "suffered substantially" as a result of events in the past three years - the disengagement from the Gaza strip, the Hamas takeover there and the Second Lebanon War.

 

Diskin said the tahadiyeh - the cease-fire agreement - is stable because all sides have an interest in maintaining it and because Hamas is imposing its will on smaller Palestinian factions in the Strip.

 

"The cease-fire gave Hamas a lifeline. We are not attacking them. We eased the blockade on them at a time when they are not committed to stopping their rearmament," Diskin told the committee.

 

"Hamas presents itself as the victor in this confrontation, as having managed to hold out against the Israeli siege. The lull is being presented as an impressive achievement on its part," Diskin said.

 

In return Israel gains a temporary lull, which Diskin said "is essentially an illusion. In our assessment the rocket attacks will resume at some point in the future."

 

The head of the Shin Bet noted that "Israel's situation is very problematic in its struggle against radical Islam. Palestinian daring against Israel has increased since Hamas took over [in the Strip] while Israel's deterrence has suffered a very substantive blow."

 

Diskin briefed the MKs on the improved rockets produced by the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip. He said that Islamic Jihad has independently produced rockets with a 19-kilometer range and that Shin Bet had intelligence indicating that military-grade rockets, whose range is longer, have been smuggled into the territory. Some of those rockets, Diskin added, can reach Ashdod, 30 kilometers away.

 

Militant groups in the Gaza Strip have also obtained military-grade mortars from Iran, with a range of approximately nine kilometers, Diskin said.

 

He said there has been no drastic change in Egyptian efforts to prevent arms from being smuggled into the strip. Diskin confirmed, however, that there has been some improvement, but argued that "Egypt accepts the fact that there is smuggling from its territory... [which] is part of the Middle Eastern theater of the absurd. We have asked the Egyptians to deal with the families of smugglers operating in Sinai."