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Teheran Behind Escalation of Violence from Gaza; Officials Fear Longer Range Rocket Fire

[Jerusalem Post] Yaakov Katz, Khaled Abu Toameh, and Rebecca Anna Stoil - Iran's fingerprints were all over the recent escalation in Gaza and the Palestinian rocket attacks, Deputy Defense Minister Ephraim Sneh said Monday. Teheran ordered the terrorist groups to escalate the conflict in an effort to distract the world's attention from its nuclear program, he said. "Everything is being organized by Iran," Sneh said. "All of the terrorist groups are supported directly by Iran, which pays for all of the military training and the weapons." Government officials expressed concern that Palestinian rockets could reach southern Ashdod and the western reaches of Beersheba. "We are getting ready for the possibly that the range will increase," Sneh said. "They can increase the range and we need to be ready." A Hamas official in the Gaza said on Monday: "We call on our fighters to launch rockets attacks on the settlement of Ashkelon....We will force the settlers to run away from Ashkelon as they have already done in the settlement of Sderot. We will continue to fight until the Jews leave all of Palestine." The IDF Home Front Command began distributing pamphlets to residents of Netivot and other southern towns on Monday, explaining what to do if the rockets come. Sneh said that fear of longer-range rockets was behind the decision to distribute the pamphlets throughout southern Israel.
2007-05-22 01:00:00
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