Report: Israel Threatens To Cancel Hamas Truce If Islamic Jihad Leaders Enter Gaza

[Purveyor]

Source: HAARETZ

Members of Iranian-backed Islamic Jihad say Israel has warned the militant group's two top leaders against trying to enter the Gaza Strip this week.

The pair had planned to visit Friday, along with Khaled Meshal the leader-in-exile of Hamas, Islamic Jihad's sister group.

Israel and Gaza's ruling Hamas have been holding indirect talks, through Egypt, following an Israeli offensive on militant targets in Gaza last month.

A truce between Israel and Hamas has been in place since November 21, when an Egypt-brokered cease-fire went into effect, putting an end to Israel's eight-day Gaza offensive, Operation Pillar of Defense.


Read more: http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/report-israel-threatens-to-cancel-hamas-truce-if-islamic-jihad-leaders-enter-gaza-1.483156

[azurnoir]

1. and we're supposed to be surprised ?

I knew about 10 days ago when I read that Mesha'al was going to visit Gaza that something like this would ensue, Israel had attempted to assassinate him before on 25 September 1997 in Amman Jordan, I would guess the surprise is that Israel announced their intentions

[Alamuti Lotus]

4. the slightly more surprising part..

Israel announced their intentions, and nobody cared enough to change their travel plans. Gone forever are the days where that pseudo-mythic, PR-driven, omnipresent air of invincibility surrounds that little lump.

[Ash_F]

2. Is Israel ok with the Hamas leader returning?

The article does not specify, just mentions the Islamic Jihad leaders. Also what are their names?

The assassination attempt on Khaled Meshal is one of the craziest stories I've read.

"On September 25, 1997, Mossad agents waited at the entrance of the Hamas offices in Amman, with the intention of assassinating Khalid Mashal. They succeeded in injuring him, using a lethal substance. However, immediately afterward, Khalid Mashal's personal chauffeur and a security guard intervened. The chauffeur, who saw what was happening, hit the agent with a newspaper on his hand. The security guard began to chase the agents and was able to note the license plate number of the car in which they had escaped and boarded a passing car in order to pursue them. The agents were unaware that they were being followed. After some 300 meters, they stopped their car and left it. The security guard chased them and, with the help of a plain-clothes policeman, managed to overpower and apprehend them. The agents were driven by the policeman and the security guard in a taxi to the nearest police station and placed under arrest. When news of the agents' arrest broke in Israel, the head of the Mossad flew to Jordan, with the Prime Minister's consent, in order to report the events to the King in person, bringing with him an antidote to treat Khalid Mashal.

Mashal was given the antidote, thus saving his life. In the negotiations subsequently conducted for the release of the agents, an agreement was reached with the Jordanian authorities whereby, in exchange for the release of Hamas's Sheikh Ahmad Yasin and a number of other prisoners held in Israel, they would release our agents and allow them to return to Israel."

http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Society_&_Culture/mashal.html

[azurnoir]

3. Meshaal is Hamas

he is the chief of the Hamas Political Bureau

[Alamuti Lotus]

6. grudging acceptance, I think...

the incessant refrain of "THE ROCKETS! THE ROCKETS!" aside, Israel has been more accepting of the pseudo-capitulationist stance Mesha'al has been graviating towards lately. I really, really hate to be citing al-Arabiya (Saudi royal trash paper), but see below for a rather lengthy piece that adeptly elucidates some of the more so-called "nuanced" stances Mesha'al has been moving towards lately. The main item of attention (and this point is why the Saudi paper is interested) is the part about Mesha'al moving away from the alleged Iranian arc of resistance to the Saudi/Qatari/Egyptian arc of collaboration. To the relevant powers that be in the United States and Israel, that is the litmus test for what designates a "moderate" and "acceptable" leader. The Gaza-based leaders, including the distinct Izzeddine al-Qassam leadership, are widely resentful of Mesha'al's lifestyle in posh Gulf exile following his exit from Damascus and his impending gravitation towards the US/Israeli camp.

Hitmen on hold, Israelis might talk to Meshaal

Israel once tried to kill Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal in a botched assassination attempt on the streets of the Jordanian capital, Amman.

Fifteen years later, it is starting to view him in a slightly different light and Israeli analysts say he might yet prove the man who can open a dialogue between the Palestinian Islamist movement and the Jewish state.

Meshaal is due to make his first visit to the Gaza Strip on Friday for a two-day stay to join celebrations for Hamas’s 25th anniversary and to take part in what the militant group says will be a victory rally after its recent conflict with Israel.

Israeli leaders have an alternative view of the eight-day conflagration, which ended in a ceasefire. They say they dealt Hamas a sharp blow which should deter rocket fire out of the small coastal territory for many months to come.

They also believe the fighting distanced Hamas further from Shi’ite Iran’s sphere of influence and put it squarely in the camp of Sunni Muslim powers Qatar and Egypt - with Meshaal, who has lived in exile from his native West Bank for 45 of his 56 years, the key player in this evolving regional shift.

“From Israel’s point of view, Khaled Meshaal now plays a more positive role,” said Shlomo Brom, a senior research fellow at the Institute for National Security Studies (INSS), an independent research institute based in Tel Aviv.

“Generally speaking, Hamas is divided into two factions, the Gaza faction and the external faction. There is a debate between them on several levels, and Meshaal’s external faction is much more moderate. This is why he is of interest to Israel.”

http://english.alarabiya.net/articles/2012/12/06/253667.html

[kelliekat44]

5. So Israel will claim to have spotted them entering or claim intel alleging that Jihadi leaders

have entered Gaza and thus bomb the hell out of Gaza once again. This story is really getting old and why isn't the world getting tired of it?