Quick Takes: News From Israel You May Have Missed

The terrorists who carried out this week’s well-orchestrated raid against a major military station and kidnapping of an Israeli soldier were trained by Iranian Revolutionary Guard units and Hizbullah guerillas, according to Israeli security officials. The information comes in part from a Hamas terrorist allegedly involved in the plot who was arrested by Israeli forces in Gaza the day before the kidnapping.

Senior Palestinian security officials linked to Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas’s Fatah party said Hamas and other Gaza-based groups have been receiving advanced military training by Iran and Hizbullah in recent months.

The officials said the training included carrying out guerilla attacks such as the one perpetuated this week, methods of intelligence collection, and instruction in the use of advanced missiles. The training, they said, took place in the Egyptian Sinai desert and at special camps set up in Sudan.

Hamas leaders in Gaza said that following the kidnapping operation the Syrian government provided overall Hamas leader Khelad Meshaal with a larger than usual security detail.

Meshaal resides in Syria and is thought to have called for the Hamas raid. According to diplomatic sources involved in hostage negotiations, Meshaal has been the key official in Hamas ordering the terror group to hold on to the Israeli soldier.

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If Israel launches a ground assault in the Gaza Strip, the Al Aksa Martyrs Brigades terror group will attack Israelis with over 20 different kinds of chemical and biological weapons the group has developed, according to a pamphlet distributed by the Brigades.

Israeli security officials dismissed Al Aksa’s claim as “rhetoric.” They said Israel has information the group in the past has conducted low-level experiments adding some kinds of chemicals, including cyanide, to suicide belts, but that Palestinian groups currently don’t have “serious” chemical or biological capabilities.

They also said Palestinian terror groups currently do not have capabilities to add chemical or biological agents to missiles but that there was a fear some countries, particularly Iran, may be assisting in such efforts. Sources in the Al Aksa Brigades said the group was experimenting with chemical agents. They claimed they currently have in their weapons arsenal certain agents that can be thrown or shot at civilians in canisters, but they declined to name the specific agents.

One Al Aksa source said the group’s work in Gaza so far has been limited mostly to Al Aksa members who are studying chemistry at local universities where biological agents are not available and chemical agents are limited. He said “outside parties” were helping the group add agents to missiles, but would not comment on the current status of the program or name the outside parties.

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Israel must quickly withdraw from Judea and Samaria to ensure a Jewish majority by separating from the large Palestinian population within the territories slated for evacuation, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said during a speech last week.

Olmert ad top officials from his Kadima party have stated many times that the planned uprooting of Judea and Samaria’s Jewish communities is due to urgent demographic issues that threaten Israel’s Jewish makeup should the country retain the territories.

The conclusion ignores contrary data predicting that in 20 years Jews will outnumber Arabs by two-to-one, even if all territories are maintained. A study led by American Bennet Zimmerman found that the current data on Palestinian population figures is inflated by almost 50 percent, with some major cities even being counted twice. In some cases, census counts include residents who moved out of the territories years ago.

Israel largely relies on Palestinian population information collected by the PA Bureau of Statistics, which claims there are 3.8 million Palestinian Arabs in Gaza, Judea and Samaria. The number is also accepted by the U.S. and the international community. Zimmerman’s study found the actual current Palestinian population in Judea and Samaria is 1.4 million, with 1.1 million in Gaza for a total of 2.4 million Palestinians.

The Israeli government officially states it is browsing Zimmerman’s study. It has yet to express any conclusion regarding the study’s findings. Although, the projected Judea and Samaria withdrawals largely dominate Israeli news, the country’s media agencies have given the study scant coverage.

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Israel has information that members of Force 17, Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas’s presidential guard detail, carried out a series of shooting attacks over the past few days that killed one Israeli and wounded several others, including three schoolgirls, security officials said.

The United States and Israel recently transferred to Force 17 a large cache of American weapons, including 3,000 M-16 assault rifles and one million rounds of ammunition.

Abu Yousuf, a senior Force 17 officer and Al Aksa Martyrs Brigades terror group member, told WorldNetDaily in an exclusive interview that the American weapons shipment already was shared with the Brigades and will be used to shoot Jews.

Yousuf said he personally was involved in an attack last week against an Israeli school bus that injured three girls. He hinted that the American weapons were used:

“It is not a coincidence that as soon as these new weapons arrive, there is an increase in shootings against Israelis,” said Yousuf.