Quick Takes: News From Israel You May Have Missed

In a recent interview, a chief Hamas spokesman explained there are more bombers willing to kill themselves than available suicide missions, and he stressed the importance of females and children joining the jihad to reach ‘high security areas which male Palestinian mujahedeen cannot easily reach’ due to the security fence.

Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri said, “There is a widespread misconception, propagated by the Zionist enemy, that there are recruiters among the Palestinian fighters who look for martyrdom bombers. The opposite is true the martyrdom bombers are the ones looking for the resistance factions in order to commit martyrdom operations…We are talking about hundreds…The factions? inability to supply enough operations for all of them is the only obstacle preventing them all from committing martyrdom operations.”

Zuhri stressed the importance of physical and mental health, and said those wishing to become suicide bombers should expect a vigorous and competitive training and selection process.

Physical training is important because ‘a martyrdom operation, whether the storming of a settlement or an explosion, requires physical strength so the mujaheed can reach the final stages of the operation.’ Mental preparation includes intense studying of the Quran with the spiritual department of the particular Palestinian terrorist faction running the recruitment.

Zuhri, though, recognized that Israel has been successful in countering Palestinian terrorism, and stressed the importance of females and children becoming suicide bombers to more easily pass through the security fence and fool Israeli troops.

“There are hundreds of female martyrdom bombers who stream en masse and insist on participating in martyrdom operations,” Zuhri explained. “This is a unique phenomenon, reflecting the live spirit of jihad among the Palestinian people.”

The quartet of Middle East mediators says they are ‘sick and tired’ of Palestinians failing to carry out reforms and told them last week to ‘act soon or risk losing international support,’ diplomats said.



Envoys from the United States, United Nations, the European Union and Russia told Palestinian Prime Minister Ahmed Qureia they have run out of patience with Arafat’s ’empty promises’ of reform and said that he is putting the so-called Palestinian cause at risk. The envoys refused to meet directly with Arafat.

“If security reforms are not done, there will be no international support and no funding from the international community,” a senior diplomat close to the talks in the West Bank city of Ramallah told WorldNetDaily.

But the next day, the UN and EU were lauding the International Court of Justice ruling that Israel’s security fence, credited by even the terrorists for keeping suicide bombers out, is ‘not necessary to attain [Israel’s] security objectives,’ violates international law, and must be dismantled.



Under intense international pressure to reform its policies and media, the Syrian government has now instructed its state-controlled newspapers and television networks to stop addressing members of the ruling Baath Party as ‘Comrade’ and instead use ‘Mr.’

Some Syrians have already noticed the slight change in the official news agency SANA and government newspapers Al-Thawra and Tishrin, which have ceased to use the title ‘Comrade’ for Baath party members in the civil service and other government positions.

A Syrian political analyst, Imad Fawzi al-Shueibi, said the change was ‘a step forward’ and part of the reforms the Syrian government is instituting in response to international pressure.

But a spokesperson from Sharon’s office told WorldNetDaily: “So they changed a word in a newspaper, big deal. When [Syrian President] Bashar Assad stops supporting and financing Palestinian terrorism and aiding terrorists in the insurgency against Americans in Iraq, then maybe we’ll talk about real reform.”


Meanwhile, Israel is seeing through walls. Camero, a small company based in Herzliya, has developed a radar system that uses ultra-wideband technology to produce three-dimensional pictures of the space behind virtually any kind of wall. The pictures, which reportedly resemble those produced by ultrasound, are relatively high-resolution and are produced in real time.

The device has important military and rescue implications: It can be used by troops to get a visual on the inside of a room, providing such crucial information as the number and location of each individual and the kinds of weapons inside.

A security source told WorldNetDaily that Israel also recently developed proprietary technology that can discreetly put an electronic field around a building or area that gives users the ability to monitor and control every electronic emission within that field, from electric can openers to fax machines, computers and cell phones. The source said Israel “may or may not be using this technology on a certain Palestinian leader’s battered Ramallah compound.”

Aaron Klein is chief of WorldNetDaily.com‘s upcoming Jerusalem bureau. He has previously interviewed Yasir Arafat, Ehud Barak, Benjamin Netanyahu and leaders of the Taliban.