Life Behind the Blockade
Since Israel began its blockade, Gaza has rarely been out of the news. We take a look at life behind the blockade and the headlines and we see a people left suffering and angry.
‘Enough!’ shouts a gas-buyer in the market, ‘We are a people who have had enough!’ The mood in [...]

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In itself, Iran’s recent application for membership of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) is probably little more than diplomatic posturing. But coupled with the end of Lebanon’s political stalemate, Turkey’s mediation between Israel and Syria, and Egypt’s attempts to broker a truce in Gaza, it can be seen as part of a new dynamic that [...]

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Israel braced itself for conflict on two fronts against militants in Gaza and an Iranian government persisting with its nuclear programme.
Ehud Olmert, the prime minister, said the “pendulum is closer” to a large scale military operation in Gaza after another Israeli civilian was killed by a mortar fired from Gaza on Thursday.
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One of Mr Olmert’s [...]

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A leader of the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas) on Wednesday threatened to storm Egyptian border if Israeli blockade on the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip remains in place.
Osama al-Muzini’s threat was made as he warned from “public explosion,” adding that the angry people’s outburst “will go in all directions” and that Rafah border [...]

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DEBKAfile: Our Washington sources report that president George W. Bush is closer than ever before to ordering a limited missile-air bombardment of the IRGC-al Qods Brigade’s installations in Iran. It is planned to target training camps and the munitions factories pumping fighters, missiles and roadside bombs to the Iraqi insurgency, Lebanese Hizballah and Palestinian terrorist [...]

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There are two significant developments going on at the same time concerning Iran. Iran is now in command of missiles stationed in Syria, Lebanon, Gaza and Iran. Next, Iran has achieved a breakthrough in missile design in order to accommodate nuclear warheads.
From the article:
Military experts comment that Tehran’s centralized control of four hostile missile fronts [...]

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For their part, Hezbollah’s leaders remain coy on specifics, but have not disputed the characterization that their capabilities are greater than prewar levels. In mid-2007, Nasrallah said his militia has missiles “able to hit every point in occupied Palestine.” Still, finding independent sources on Hezbollah has proven difficult. Western military assessments tend to agree that [...]

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On Israel’s 60th birthday, the Jewish state may be readying for its biggest fight yet. What that could mean for the next American president.
Arguably, it is at even greater risk now than it was then. Very soon now Israel could be engaged in the biggest battle for existence it has ever faced in its not-so-short-any-longer [...]

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When Israel withdrew all of its soldiers and civilians from Gaza in August 2005, it created a massive strategic void that has been filled by Hamas with extensive support from Iran and Syria. With the June 2007 putsch that expelled Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas’ Fatah organization from Gaza, Hamas became the undisputed ruler there. [...]

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As the world’s leading powers met in Shanghai Wednesday to discuss ways to persuade Iran to abandon its nuclear program, Israel and Iran were exchanging threats of war; Syria was marshalling its army near the Golan Heights; Hamas was attacking Israeli troops along the Gaza Strip; and Hezbollah was muttering about avenging the assassination two [...]

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At least 18 Palestinians, many of them civilians including children, and three Israeli soldiers were reported killed in heavy fighting in Gaza on Wednesday, one of the bloodiest days in weeks.
The Israeli military said it had struck at, and hit, armed militants, and was checking the reports of civilian casualties.
Amid the violence, Israel resumed the [...]

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A leading Israeli think tank released a report last week that revealed that since Israel withdrew from the Gaza Strip in 2005, Hamas has built a heavily-armed and well-trained standing army of at least 20,000 men.
In its report entitled “Hamas’s Military Buildup in the Gaza Strip,” the Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center used intelligence [...]

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Hamas politburo chief Khaled Meshaal voiced this threat Saturday, April 12.
DEBKAfile’s military sources report that the raid by Palestinian gunmen on the Israeli-Gaza fuel terminal - and murder of two of its employees, Oleg Lipson and Lev Cerniak - were meant to set the stage for a mass Hamas assault on the Gaza-Israeli border. Earlier [...]

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The Israeli disengagement from the Gaza Strip in August 2005 created a new situation which accelerated the establishment of an area fully controlled by Hamas. It was quick to use its increased military power to make political capital in internal Palestinian affairs. It won the Palestinian Legislative Council elections in January 2006 and formed the [...]

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An Israeli study says that Hamas, the militant group that now controls Gaza, is engaged in the broadest and most significant military buildup in its history with help from Syria and Iran, restructuring itself more hierarchically and using more and more powerful weapons, especially longer-range rockets against Israel’s southern communities.
The study, by an independent research [...]

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But officials portray Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Defense Minister Ehud Barak as having little interest in a deal with Hamas. They acknowledge that a suspension of attacks by both sides might make the ongoing peace talks easier — and that the outbreak of an all-out conflict would almost certainly kill the Annapolis process. Yet, [...]

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A CHILDREN’S program made by Hamas TV in Gaza shows a puppet stabbing US President George W. Bush to death in revenge for killing his family.
The puppet represents a Palestinian child.
In the episode aired on Sunday, the child-puppet is shown confronting a George Bush puppet and accusing him of killing his father in Iraq, his [...]

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The recent escalation of fighting between Israel and militants in the Gaza Strip must be viewed in a broader context that centers on Iran’s effort to shield its nuclear weapons program from a possible Israeli military strike.
It is often agreed that Tehran would retaliate strongly if its nuclear facilities were attacked. Yet the tacit assumption [...]

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Gaza erupted in celebration last week to the news that a Palestinian had murdered Jewish religious students in Jerusalem. And almost daily terrorists send rockets from Gaza into nearby Israeli cities, hoping to kill civilians and provoke Israeli counterresponses — and perhaps start another Middle East war.
This is not how some imagined Gaza two and [...]

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Israeli military intelligence chief, Maj. Gen. Amos Yadlin told the Cabinet last week that an air force strike killed several Iranian, Lebanese and Syrian instructors sent to improve Hamas’s military and missile capabilities.
The air force strike took place on Feb. 28 in which five people were killed in a truck filled with more than [...]

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DEBKAfile’s military sources disclose that Israel’s security cabinet approved Wednesday, March 5, a series of terrorist targets for early attacks as part of a sustained military offensive against escalated Palestinian attacks from Gaza on Israeli civilians.
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