Hamas: We'll keep smuggling weapons

What's the big deal? Your nation have no weapons?

According to a Hamas spokesperson and the IDF, both sides admit that the governmental wing of Hamas has been damaged, but the military wing is still in tact. The Hamas military and political leaders are in hiding under hospitals and schools for now.

No link. I heard this on a radio interview of a reporter that is in touch with both sides in this conflict.

nice try at painting HAMAS as the bad guy again

did you think readers wouldnt read all the way
to the BOTTOM of the article where it says:



The announcement was made by Hamas officials in Syria.
Later, Hamas representatives in the Gaza Strip issued a statement in which they said they would honor the cease-fire.

trying too hard to defend your brethren makes you
careless of what you post, you trip over what you overlook!

Ahmadinejad congratulates Mashaal on 'victory'


Iranian president telephones Hamas politburo chief, stresses Palestinian organization must exert pressure for full Israeli withdrawal from Gaza, prosecution of 'Zionist criminals'

AFP and Hanan Greenberg Published: 01.19.09, 09:41 / Israel News




Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has telephoned Hamas politburo chief Khaled Mashaal and congratulated him on his "victory" in the battles against Israeli soldiers in the Gaza Strip, the Iranian Students News Agency (ISNA) reported Monday.



Hamas has set a one-week ultimatum to the Israel Defense Forces to pull out from Gaza. According to the report, Ahmadinejad telephoned Mashaal and told him, "This is only the beginning of victory." He added that "pressure must be exerted for a complete withdrawal" of the IDF soldiers from the Strip and for the opening of the Gaza crossings.



The Iranian president went on to say that "the Zionist criminals must be prosecuted".



Some 200 trucks carrying humanitarian aid were allowed into Gaza on Monday. Some 130 of entered the Strip through the Kerem Shalom crossing and 60 through the Karni crossing. About 400,000 liters of diesel oil were sent into Gaza through the Nahal Oz terminal.



In total, some 40,000 tons of humanitarian equipment have been sent into Gaza since the start of the military operation.




Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh said on Sunday that Israel's three-week offensive in Gaza was a failure and had not cowed the Palestinians.



"The enemy has failed to achieve its goals," Haniyeh said in a speech broadcast on Hamas television. Though he called the war, in which more than 1,300 Gazans and 13 Israelis died, a "popular victory" for Palestinians, he said Hamas' decision to declare a truce on Sunday was "wise and responsible".



On Sunday afternoon, senior Hamas official Ayman Taha announced an immediate ceasefire by the organization's fighters and allied groups in the Gaza Strip, adding that the Islamists gave Israel a week to pull out its troops.



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"Hamas and the factions announce a ceasefire in Gaza starting immediately and give Israel a week to withdraw," Taha said. The Islamic Jihad joined the ceasefire announcement.



The declaration was made shortly after another Hamas source told Ynet that the pause is aimed at allowing the organization's delegation in Cairo to receive clarifications on the completion of the withdrawal, the opening of the crossing and the removal of the blockade imposed on Gaza.


[link to www.ynetnews.com]

ANALYSIS / Israel preparing for Iran bid to rearm Hamas in Gaza inconceivable: Feelings not of bitterness or of missed opportunities, but of satisfaction. From the IDF's point of view, as is stressed by Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Gabi Ashkenazi, and also by the battle-tested army privates, it fulfilled its mission. Should the government have ordered the IDF to conquer the entire Strip, it would have fulfilled this mission too.

In the field, a minimal number of ground forces has been left behind to maintain control the key positions, until the final order is given to completely pull out of Gaza. This apparently will not take much time. Hamas also understands this: Its announcement Sunday, stating that it would agree to an immediate cease-fire if the IDF finishes its withdrawal within a week, was coordinated in advance with Egypt. Cairo forced the Palestinian Islamist organization to make the announcement, promising in return that by the end of the week there would be no more Israeli soldiers on Palestinian territory.
The IDF, however, will continue to amass conscript troops along the Gaza-Israel border, as a threat. Some of the reservists will be released from duty in the coming days, if the rocket fire against Israel does indeed diminish. On Sunday evening, the IDF General Staff believed that the smaller Palestinian militant groups in Gaza were responsible for the last rockets launched into Israel, and that Hamas and Islamic Jihad are currently interested in stabilizing the cease-fire. If substantial rocket fire does continue, though, Israel will respond harshly, in a totally disproportionate manner. The targets for attack have already been drawn up, but it does not appear that ground forces will be ordered to carry out this mission.
With the withdrawal of IDF troops from their posts within Gaza City, their positions have been taken by Hamas police, whose members have been sent out onto the streets. The deployment of the police, dozens of whom were killed in the Israel Air Force bombing of a cadets' graduation ceremony on the first day of the offensive, was meant to show that the Hamas movement has survived the Israeli assault. But this claim is far from the truth. The capabilities of Hamas are limited and its regime is only partially functioning. On the other hand, the group's military wing still has enough armed men to deter the rival Fatah movement from attempting a coup in the coastal territory.

The real condition of Hamas will soon become clear. Khaled Meshal, the group's Damascus-based politburo chief, admitted over the weekend that it had suffered "a harsh blow," but also claimed that "the resistance has not been defeated." It will now take a week to estimate the quality of Israeli deterrence against Hamas. In the organization's announcement Sunday, Hamas said it expected Gaza's border crossings to be opened for the flow of humanitarian goods. This is a critical point for Hamas, over which it torpedoed a truce agreement exactly one month ago.

The problem is even more pressing since Israel has seemingly disabled a large number of the smuggling tunnels running through the Gaza-Egypt border. The tunnels were not only used for the smuggling of weapons, but also of basic goods - such as petrol, food and cigarettes. In light of the economic hardship in the Strip, Hamas is still likely to renew the rocket fire next week if the crossings are not opened. Israel is aware of this and the defense establishment is hinting that that there may be a more lenient policy toward the crossings, if total quiet is indeed enforced in Gaza.

When Hamas estimates the balance of gains and losses in the warfare, it can still chalk up one or two achievements. On a military level, it did not succeed in causing substantial losses to the IDF, despite its threats, but it did preserve a certain capability to launch rockets until the last day of the campaign. On the international plane, it received significant public support from Arab states. European recognition of the Hamas regime is continuing to be established, and the Italian foreign minister is expected to visit Gaza. The Palestinian representative at the Arab summit at Doha was Khaled Meshal, and not Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas.

Split in the Arab world

The war in Gaza and the Doha summit on it, however, demonstrated the internal division in the Arab world. The alliance of moderates - Egypt, Saudi Arabis, Jordan and the PA - leads the strategic line against Hamas. This pragmatic Arab camp knows that the real battle is being fought against Iran, which wishes to undermine stability in the Middle East and to weaken the moderate regimes. In this fight, Tehran does not intend to neglect its Palestinian project, even if it encountered the most serious threat to its existence in recent weeks.

All of the intelligence assessments in Israel point to the fact that Iran seeks to rearm Hamas with the rockets that it lost, and will aspire to widen their range so as to be able to hit Tel Aviv. Egypt, whose President Hosni Mubarak has already defined a Hamas state in Gaza as an Iranian satellite that has grown on its doorstep, has a considerable interest in preventing the groups rearmament. Is Cairo's stated desire and the new Israel-U.S. agreement enough to curb the smuggling and prevent another escalation? Opinion in Israel is split, but this will be the key question in light of which the Gaza campaign's success will be determined.
[link to www.haaretz.com]

Haniyeh: We have achieved victory
In a speech broadcast on Hamas television on Sunday night, Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh said the Palestinians had achieved a historical and strategic victory over Israel, and claimed that Israel's military operation in the Gaza Strip had failed.




Hamas agrees to ceasefire, gives IDF week to leave Gaza

The Hamas leader repeated the terror organization's demand for a complete Israeli withdrawal from the Strip, and for the opening of the border crossings.

Haniyeh promised that Hamas would give aid to Palestinian families whose relatives were killed or injured during the war, and said Israeli leaders should be tried for war crimes.

He went on to say Hamas's decision to declare a truce on Sunday was "wise and responsible."

Meanwhile, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad called Hamas leader in Syria Khaled Mashaal and congratulated him on the "great victory" the Palestinians had achieved over the IDF, the Iranian IRNA news agency reported on Monday morning.

According to the report, Ahmadinejad said that this was "just the beginning of the victory, which will be completed with patience."

The Iranian president reportedly said the victory would be complete once Israel withdraws its forces from the Gaza Strip, lifts the siege and opens the border crossings, and when Islamic countries "break off contacts with the Zionist regime and its sponsors."

He went on to convey the support of the Iranian people in the Palestinians and their "legitimate government."

Mashaal reportedly told Ahmadinejad that Israel had failed to reach its "satanic" goals and promised that the "resistance" will continue until a full withdrawal of IDF troops from the Strip is completed.

On Sunday, hours after its leaders declared that they would continue to fight, Hamas announced a one-week cease-fire and issued an ultimatum to Israel to withdraw IDF troops from the Gaza Strip within that time.

The announcement was made by Hamas officials in Syria. Later, Hamas representatives in the Gaza Strip issued a statement in which they said they would honor the cease-fire.

The announcement came 12 hours after Prime Minister Ehud Olmert announced a unilateral cease-fire that went into effect at 2 a.m. on Sunday.

Initially, Hamas rejected the Israeli cease-fire announcement, saying its men would continue to target IDF soldiers for as long as they remained inside the Gaza Strip and until the border crossings were reopened.

Hamas's announcement that it would halt its attacks on Israel coincided with the Sharm e-Sheikh summit, which brought several Arab and EU leaders together to discuss the situation in the Gaza Strip in the aftermath of Operation Cast Lead.

The announcement was seen as an attempt by Hamas to divert attention from the Sharm e-Sheikh summit and to demonstrate to the world that the movement alone held the key to calm in the Gaza Strip.

Hamas officials expressed outrage over the participation of Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas in the summit even though his term in office expired earlier this month.

Faraj al-Ghul, the minister of justice in the Hamas government, said that Abbas was now the former president of the PA and therefore no longer represented the Palestinians.

The Hamas minister said that no Palestinian government would honor an agreement signed by Abbas after his mandate ended on January 9. He added that according to the PA Basic Law, the government of Ismail Haniyeh was the only legitimate body representing the Palestinians.

The minister also called for Abbas to be brought before a Palestinian court, or any other legal forum, on charges of committing "atrocities" against the Palestinians.

"We call for the arrest of Abbas so that he could be interrogated and tried for committing hundreds of atrocities and for coordinating with [US security coordinator Keith] Dayton and the Israeli occupation against the resistance," he said. "Abbas is also accused of giving a green light to the Zionist occupation to perpetrate the biggest holocaust in history against the Palestinians."

The cease-fire announcement was first broadcast on Syria's state-run TV. Arab political analysts said Syrian President Bashar al-Assad was trying to show the US and the West that important decisions were taken in Damascus, not Cairo. The analysts said that the Egyptians were hoping to emerge as major players in the region by summoning Hamas representatives to Cairo and exerting heavy pressure on them to declare a cease-fire out of the Egyptian capital.

Moussa Abu Marzouk, the deputy chairman of the Hamas "political bureau," read a statement on behalf of his movement and several other Palestinian factions in which they announced the one-week cease-fire.

"In the wake of the failure of the Zionist aggression on the Gaza Strip and its failure to impose its conditions on the resistance and our people, the Palestinian resistance groups announce a unilateral cease-fire in the Gaza Strip," the statement read.

"We also emphasize our demand that the Zionist enemy withdraw from the Gaza Strip within a week and that the border crossings be reopened to allow humanitarian and relief aid to reach our people."

The statement gave credit to the Syrians, Qataris and Turks for their efforts to end the fighting in the Gaza Strip, noting that the rulers of Qatar had held a summit in Doha over the weekend to discuss ways of helping the Palestinians in Gaza.

Daoud Shihab, a spokesman for Islamic Jihad in the Gaza Strip, said that his group would abide by the cease-fire "out of concern for the national interests of the Palestinians and to allow humanitarian aid to be delivered to the people."

Like Hamas, Islamic Jihad also declared "victory" and pointed out that Israel had failed to destroy the "resistance" or topple the Hamas government.
[link to www.jpost.com]

Israel lost this one in a big way!

I'm no fan of any kind of terrorist but I now include Israel in the line-up.

If you don't want Hamas aiming rockets at you then get out of Gaza. Give back the land you stole and take off your blockades.

If Israel attacks Iran then there will probably be no more Israel. Probably a lot of Russians and Chinese blocking you in.

Cont. from above post:

As far as the weapons tunnels, the reporter stated that 50% are still intact.

In fact, on the same show an Israeli soldier was interviewed. The soldier said there were two things that were most difficult about fighting in the Gaza. The soldier said that one of the two things that is most frightening are the tunnels because people can appear from the ground at any time. The other was the booby-trapped houses. Most of the booby trapped houses are occupied by entire families.

In the houses the tunnels are typically located under floor tiles and other inconspicuous spots. The network of tunnels runs from home to home and from place to place. The soldier said it was difficult to sleep (they sleep in the vacant houses) because at any time a person could pop up from the floor or just outside the house from the ground. He saw a bush moving and then a hand at one of the locations (houses) they cleared.

He also talked about how the Hamas was getting messages to each other. For the most part the phone towers and communications of Hamas have been disabled. So, they are using children as couriers. They give the child a note and send them to a location where it is to be delivered. He said the kids HATE the Israeli soldiers and yell at them.

Also, the soldiers were patrolling just a few days ago and they saw what they thought was an old man hunched over with a cane walking down the street. Then the 'old man' suddenly threw off his cane and charged the soldiers with a suicide bomb. They shot and killed him before he could detonate it.

He said that there is allot of rubble and that it is very stark like an alien planet. Sometimes it is like night during the day because of the smoke.

Anyway I thought it was interesting to hear from a soldier that had boots on the ground.

If anyone would like to hear the interview with the soldier, here is the link to it. Just go there download the interview. (because 'listen now' is not working for me)


[link to www.israelnationalnews.com]

:

No one will succeed in wiping out the Jewish People, because our survival was guaranteed by God
do not know how or when God will deliver the Jewish People and the Jewish state from our present predicament. But I do know that hordes of Islamic terrorists and their anti-Semitic allies will never succeed in their ambitions to wipe out the Jewish People, because God has guaranteed our eternal survival: "And I will establish My covenant between Me and you and your descendants after you, throughout the generations, an eternal covenant to be your God and the God of your descendants after you." [Gen. 17:7]
And I also know that when God does decide what will happen to us, He will not consult TIME magazine.

thank you

You have to download it to hear it. The wrong interview is coming through on the 'listen now'
:

im listening now .. very good. thank you..

Its good to know we have a fair and impartial press. I love how they slip in those "buzz" words to make sure Hamas looks like the bad guy. "terrorists", "terror group", "gunman". They were elected as the government of their country. They have every right to arm and defend their country just like any nation does.


.

You are right OP, there's no doubt about that

Is it the right show, because the wrong show came up when I clicked 'listen now'. It should be the Yishai show, not the Tamar show. Is that what you got? If not just download it, because that is working.

Sorry for the confusion, hope you got the right show.

but they are terrorist.. would you want them as your neighbor? i didnt think so?

im listening to it VERY GOOD!!!!GOOD WEBSITE TOO.. THANK YOU SO MUCH IM still listening ..

So was Hitler. No problems there huh?

i agree%100

Israel has killed many many women and children. Many peoples entire families. Of course they are smuggling more weapons you idiot. Israel and its supporters are the fucking bad guys.

You're not the bad guys?

White phosphurus? Depleted uranium? Half of the deaths are civilians.

(Video of IDF forcing children to act as human sheilds)


(Video debunking the hamas rocket threat)


Explain these things away without sounding like a bigotted racist and I will support Israel. Ill go out and buy a large coffee at the nearest starbucks immediately. Interesting how the zionist interest have so much money, power, and authority. Poor little Israel, woe is you, always getting picked on for no reason. Maybe the 20/1100+ if thats even still the death count has something to do with their hatred of you and their continuing hatred of you.

Is that too hard to see?

I think you'd support them either way. I think you are a bigot. I think most Israeli supports are jews who think they are superior because the bible says so, even though they themselves do not possess any deep intellect. Or are intelligent jews and stand to make alot of money from all this and is a bigot.

THERE ARE JEWS WHO DONT SUPPORT IT.

If I was jewish and truly beleived in my god, I would be pretty sure he wouldnt want me killing women and children and terrifying an entire people...

By the way, in case you didn't know, what Israel is doing is terrorism, your people are terrorists, but I guess its ok because you are the righteous terrorists, your holy war is obviously much more important than theirs.

Hopefully Obama will not allow the replenishing of Israel's holy weapons.

your a fool!!!! your not worth my time.

I don't treat my neighbors as sub-human garbage so I don't think I'd have a problem with them. I'm sure they would be better neighbors than illegal mexicans.

Anyone that thinks Hamas and Hezzebollah wish to usher in individual rights and freedom into this world is a stone cold certifiable IDIOT

until they realized you didnt want to worship ALLAH as a muslim then they would just cut your fucking head off

you people should here this

very very GOOD
The Spirit of a Jewish Warrior

[link to www.israelnationalnews.com]

NOW AND THEN GAVE IT TO ME VERY GOOD.....