Daily Alert Archives

IDF Prepares for the Day After Withdrawal

Joshua Brilliant (UPI/Middle East Times-Cyprus) - * The sand dunes just north of the Gaza Strip have been leveled and workers are pouring cement and installing poles for a new electronic fence as part of preparations for the day after Israel's August 17 pullback. The barrier around the Gaza Strip will be wholly within Israeli sovereign territory, following the map that Israeli Prime Minister Rabin and Arafat signed more than a decade ago. * A senior military source said the attacks that Palestinian militants might launch ranged from cross-boundary shooting and incursions to kidnappings and attacks on strategic Israeli targets near Gaza. * IDF officers know full well that the dispute with the Palestinians is not over. Militants might be flush with a sense of victory of having "forced" the Israelis out and there is no certainty that hostilities would stop. * At the moment Israel can try and stop militants long before they reach the fence. However, once Israel formally leaves Gaza it cannot order Palestinians to keep away. * Anyone who wanted to penetrate may go right up to the boundary line and would need less time to cross. The new barriers Israel is building are designed, mainly, to delay infiltrators and prevent roadside bombs from hitting patrols. * All this will not stop the rockets and mortar bombs that Palestinians have been sending over the fence. According to the army spokesman. last month the Palestinians fired 166 mortar bombs and 40 Kassam rockets into Israel proper.
2005-08-05 00:00:00
Full Article