Hamas to ease off attacks in Gaza after pullout: Shin Beth
AFP
Date: 07-26-05
JERUSALEM (AFP) - Israel's home intelligence chief predicted that Hamas will ease off attacks in the Gaza Strip after next month's pullout as thousands of troops began rigorous training for the withdrawal.
Yuval Diskin told a closed-door meeting of MPs that the Islamist group would have a stake in easing tensions in its Gaza stronghold but would instead seek to escalate violence in the West Bank, parliamentary sources said.
The Shin Beth chief said there was a 50 percent chance security forces dismantling Israeli settlements would come under Palestinian militant fire during the operation, local media reported.
His assessment came as an international report concluded that Hamas, behind most anti-Israeli attacks in the last five years, was likely to hold fire during the pullout as it seeks to build a political support base.
Palestinian leader Mahmud Abbas has relocated to the Gaza Strip in a bid to ensure that the withdrawal takes place without militant attacks from Hamas or its smaller rival Islamic Jihad.
Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon again said that the army would not hesitate to take action against such groups in the event of attacks during or after the withdrawal.
"The IDF (Israeli Defence Forces) will react with determination against terrorist activity and will take very serious action against terrorist organisations during the disengagement and after the pullout from Gaza," he said in a speech before leaving for France.
Three weeks before what is to be Israel's first withdrawal from Palestinian territory, 5,000 soldiers and police were undergoing a week of intense training exercises on how to evacuate settlers from their homes.
Evacuation teams are being physically and emotionally trained on how to remove settlers from their homes at an urban warfare site in southern Israel built to resemble a settlement and nicknamed "Chicago".
Troops were being put through their paces and prepared for possible Palestinian militant violence during the operation, closely watched by Defence Minister Shaul Mofaz and chief of staff Dan Halutz, military sources said.
A further 7,000 soldiers and police will undergo the same exercise next week before thousands of troops are deployed to bases just outside the Gaza Strip on August 14, three days before the pullout is set to begin.
Fiercely opposed to the withdrawal, Jewish extremists have cast an ancient Aramaic death curse on Sharon, imploring "angels of destruction" to kill the premier, the online edition of the Yediot Aharonot newspaper revealed.
In a cemetery at dawn last Friday, rabbi Yossef Dayan presided over the "pulsa dinura", or "rod of fire" in Aramaic, attended by around 20 radicals who implored God to curse the premier for his presumed sins.
Far-right Israeli activists held the same ceremony to pray for the death of Yitzhak Rabin in 1995. A few days later the prime minister was assassinated by a Jewish extremist for trying to make peace with the Palestinians.
On Tuesday, the army announced that only immediate relatives of settlers would be allowed into the doomed settlements in Gaza, which earlier this month were declared a closed military zone to anyone without a special entry permit.
Ultra-nationalists have tried to flood the settlements in order to impede the evacuation.
An army spokeswoman said the change of policy was determined following a security assessment of the "illegal presence of large numbers of individuals" in the Gaza Strip.
Palestinian prime minister Ahmed Qorei reiterated that the government was ready to assume responsibility in the territory, but again criticised Israel for failing to supply requested details on the arrangements.
"We are ready on the second day of disengagement to take our responsibility in the Gaza Strip and West Bank," he said, before travelling to Gaza to attend a meeting of a ministerial committee tasked with overseeing the pullout.
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