02-Jan-16: Friday night rocket volley on southern Israel: little-reported and most of the damage is inside Gaza

Since they are so rarely reported, Friday night's rocket volley on southern Israel is something we feel the need to mention here:

Two rockets fired from the Gaza Strip exploded in Israel on Friday night, in the south's Sha'ar HaNegev Regional Council. No one was injured and there were no reports of damage. A further two rockets at least were thought to have fallen short and landed inside the Gaza Strip. The number of rockets fired in one volley is unusual in the relative quiet that has persisted since the end of Operation Protective Edge. Several explosions were heard after a rocket alert sounded at 11:07pm in Sderot and communities in Sha'ar HaNegev... [Ynet, Friday January 01, 2016]

Other Friday night reports indicated that the volley consisted of five rockets. Two crashed into Israel, as Ynet reported, and three are "Fell Shorts", meaning they failed to get as far as Israel and fell and exploded onto the heads and homes of Palestinian Arabs living in the Hamas-dominated Gaza Strip.

The outcomes of these Fell Shorts, which represent a large proportion of all the Israel-bound rockets despatched by Gaza's rocket-rich terrorists, are almost always shrouded in Hamas-imposed secrecy. It's a very rare thing for news reporters to challenge that news ban. So there's very little understanding outside of Israel and Gaza about the death, injuries and damage caused to Gazans by the flourishing rocket-firing industry based there.

In Haaretz, Jack Khoury says he knows who is seeking "credit" for last night's explosions:

Israeli detection systems picked up the launches and identified two projectiles that crossed the border, the other three exploded on the Gaza side of the border... The "Aj'nad Beit al-Maqdis" (Soldiers of the Holy Temple) organization, ideologically affiliated with Al-Qaida, claimed responsibility for the five rockets fired from Gaza toward southern Israel on Friday... According to Gaza residents, it is possible that minority factions operating on the ground took advantage of the stormy weather to carry out the rocket fire... There is often tension among Hamas and organizations affiliated with ISIS and Al-Qaida regarding operations on the ground in Gaza. Disputes over power struggles between commanders in the field are often expressed through rocket fire toward Israel. Israel's defense establishment therefore responds proportionately, in order not to provoke an additional response from Hamas.

Was it Aj'nad Beit al-Maqdis? Times of Israel says terrorists

affiliated with the Islamic State terror group claimed responsibility Saturday for firing rockets at Israel from the Gaza Strip late on Friday night. The Ansar Bayt al-Maqdis Islamist group issued a statement hailing its attacks on “occupied Palestine” and gloating that it had “turned night into day” for residents in the Sderot area. Nonetheless, Israel has said it holds Gaza’s Hamas rulers responsible for any attacks out of the Hamas-run Strip.

If the jihadists of Ansar Bayt al-Maqdis are the shooters, they come with a long record of mayhem [see here]. We have posted about them here at least a dozen times, most recently when they launched a rocket at Israel on a day when school-children were on the roads and could easily be hit ["01-Sep-15: Inbound rocket from Gaza announces new school year"]; that assault, like three of Friday's rockets, was also a Fell Short.

Designated as terrorists by Egypt, United Kingdom and the United States among others, the Ansar people have claimed to be part of ISIS since November 2014.

01-Sep-15: Inbound rocket from Gaza announces new school year

Israeli schools go back this morning, which may be part of the reason for an inbound rocket alarm that sounded around 5:15 this morning (Tuesday) across southern Israel. For now, the thinking is that this one, like so many before it, was a Fell Short, doing damage to people or property on the Hamas side of the Gaza/Israel fence, but it's still early to know for sure. And if it does turn out to have crashed onto Gazan heads or farms or homes, it's highly unlikely we will be hearing details via anyone, least of all the terrorist regime that rules the area, of damage or pain.

The Jerusalem Post is reporting that the launch was done from Gaza's Beit Lahiya and the rocket was pointed in the general direction of the Israeli coastal city of Ashkelon, but did not get there. Ansar Bayt al-Maqdis, said to be connected to ISIS, claimed "credit".

01-Jul-15: ISIS violence, terror and chaos rage on Israel's southern flank

Scene of the Cairo assassination of Egypt's state prosecutor
on Monday [Image Source]

Egypt's Sinai Peninsula has grown steadily more restive in the past two years. We have posted dozens of times during that period [see "Sinai"], tracking the crescendo of Arab-on-Arab violence and terrorism that has exacted a steady toll of lives in the desert as well as in Egypt's cities. Today, in Egypt and in its capital city, Egypt is at war.

Just two days ago, on Monday June 29, 2015, Hisham Barakat, who had served as Egypt's state prosecutor since July 2013, was killed when his secure motorcade was hit by a bomb blast in the capital Cairo [source: Aljazeera]. Barakat's appointment had come very soon after Egypt's military removed the country's elected Islamist president, Mohamed Morsi. In the course of the past two years, Barakat was responsible for a series of legal measures directed at reducing the power of the Islamists, including freezing the assets of 15 prominent members of the Muslim Brotherhood, and ordering the arrest of the group's Supreme Leader leader, Mohamed Badie.

We showed Badie embracing Hamas arch-terrorist Khaled Meshaal back in January 2012. Badie was charged with inciting violence outside the Republican Guard headquarters where 51 people were killed.

Deposed president Morsi, along with hundreds of his supporters, have since been sentenced to death by Egypt's courts in a series of mass trials. Barakat also oversaw the court acquittal of former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak.

There's some background to the events of the past few days. During May 2015, ISIS' Egyptian affiliate urged its followers

to attack judges, opening a new front in the world's most populous Arab state. Earlier in the same month, three judges were shot dead in the northern Sinai city of al-Arish... [Aljazeera] 

Then, right after Monday's assassination in Cairo, a visibly infuriated Egyptian president, Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, publicly pledged to escalate the battle against the Islamic "militant" terrorists. An AFP report published yesterday captured some of the anger and rising threats:

"The arm of justice is chained by the law. We're not going to wait for this. We're going to amend the law to allow us to implement justice as soon as possible," Sisi said in a televised speech surrounded by Barakat's mourning relatives. "Do courts in these circumstances work? Do these laws work? They work with normal people," said Sisi, shaking a clenched fist for emphasis. Hundreds of policemen and soldiers have been killed since Morsi's ouster by militants based in the sparsely populated Sinai Peninsula... At least 1,400 people, most of them Morsi supporters, have been killed in a police crackdown on protests. Meanwhile, thousands of people, mostly Islamists but also including secular dissidents, have been jailed and hundreds sentenced to death. Morsi himself has been sentenced to death... Outside the mosque where the funeral was held, a crowd of 50 protesters chanted: "The people demand the execution of the Muslim Brotherhood." Inside, Justice Minister Ahmed al-Zind, a recently appointed hardliner, told judges to avenge Barakat's killing. "The ball is now in the judges' court. Take your revenge using the law. Effective, swift law that doesn't take five years." Politicians and pro-Sisi media -- virtually all the channels and newspapers in Egypt -- have called for an even harsher crackdown on Morsi's Brotherhood and militants. ["Egypt's Sisi pledges tougher laws after prosecutor killing" | Agence France-Presse, June 30, 2015]

Instead, what they got today was one of the most dramatic of those Sinai days. It's an ongoing situation that is worrying at multiple levels. A brief Reuters report today ["Death toll in North Sinai militant attacks rises to 70: sources", July 01, 2015] summarizes the carnage.

Today's news reports suggest the Islamic "militant" terrorists mounted a cluster of simultaneous attacks on Egyptian army targets across the northern Sinai during the morning hours, producing a blood-bath.

Ansar Bait al-Maqdis, the ISIS affiliate in Egypt [click here for our previous posts about the havoc they have brought to the region] claimed responsibility for the attacks. Their version, not contradicted by anyone at this stage as far as we know, is that they hit some 15 army and police positions, and executed three human bomb attacks. Two of those targeted military checkpoints; one hit an officers' club in El-Arish.

A Times of Israel report says "the attackers on Wednesday used mortars, rocket-propelled grenades as well as assault rifles. Two of the checkpoints, which were apparently located in close proximity, were completely destroyed." Other reports say the terrorists succeeded in seizing Egyptian soldiers and are now holding them captive for what we presume will be barbaric purposes that have become sickeningly familiar. They also seized Egyptian army weapons and armoured vehicles.

Kerem Shalom Crossing: In April 2015, 523 laden trucks passed through
and crossed into the Gaza Strip each day, on average. It was shut down today
because of the nearby Arab-on-Arab carnage. [Image Source] 

Not surprisingly, the IDF has been "closely monitoring the border area with Egypt and Gaza in light of the events". Israel's Ministry of Defence took the decision some hours ago [source] to shut down Israel’s border crossing into the Gaza Strip and another into Egypt, with immediate effect:

Gates at the Kerem Shalom crossing were closed, cutting off the main conduit for goods transferred from Israel to Gaza by hundreds of trucks every day. In addition, the Nitzana border crossing, used by commercial traffic moving between Israel and Egypt via Sinai, was also closed. The Taba border crossing, used by pedestrian travelers visiting Egypt in the less-restive southern Sinai peninsula, was still open during the early afternoon. [Times of Israel, today]

Inside Egypt, there's considerable related violence underway this evening. Just in the past hour:

Egyptian security officials say special forces killed nine members of the outlawed Muslim Brotherhood, including a former member of parliament, during a raid on a Cairo apartment... [source]

31-May-15: In Sinai, Islamist terrorists threaten Eilat and Hamas

Funeral procession in Sinai honors the lives of four dead jihadists, caught in
the act of firing rockets in the direction of Israel [Le Figaro, August 11, 2013]

Ansar Beit al-Maqdis ("Champions of Jerusalem", in Arabic) is the Islamist jihad group that has brought considerable misery in the past several years to Egypt's Sinai Peninsula.

They are in the news again this morning because the natural gas pipeline running from Egypt through the desert to both Israel and Jordan was blown up yet again in the early hours of this morning, Sunday. And as numerous news agencies (Associated Press, for instance) point out, that's a target they have openly attacked [see "26-Oct-14: The ongoing savagery just over the border" for instance] more than a dozen times already.

Security officials in Egypt say suspected Islamic militants have blown up a natural gas pipeline outside el-Arish, the provincial capital of North Sinai. The officials say authorities stopped the flow of the gas to extinguish the fire after the blast, which happened early Sunday morning. No group immediately claimed the attack. However, Ansar Beit al-Maqdis, or "Champions of Jerusalem," a jihadi group based in the Sinai Peninsula, has claimed responsibility for more than a dozen similar bombings and attacks on security forces. It pledged allegiance to the Islamic State group late last year... [AP, today]

The same terror organization has been mentioned this past week [here], issuing mortal threats against Hamas and the southern Israeli city of Eilat:

Jihadists in Egypt's Sinai Peninsula who have pledged allegiance to the Islamic State have threatened to strike the port of Eilat "in the coming days," according to reports in Egyptian media. The reports state the Ansar Beit al-Maqdis (Partisans of Jerusalem), which changed its name to Welayat al-Sinai (Province of Sinai) "threatened to strike the Eilat Port, following coordination with Islamic State's wing in the Gaza Strip" ...Salafi groups began to surface in Gaza in 2006 and have had a tense relationship with Hamas, which seized the territory from forces loyal to the Western-backed Fatah group in 2007. The tensions between the two terrorist groups in the coastal enclave began on May 3, when Hamas destroyed a mosque belonging to a group known as the "Supporters of the Islamic State in Jerusalem." The group responded by threatening to kill Hamas members – publishing some of their names and photos - unless Hamas releases several men, including a local Salafi sheikh. In March, a senior IDF official said that Israel was "preparing for a multi-pronged terror threat directed against our forces and civilians in the Eilat area..." Ansar Beit al-Maqdis has spearheaded an insurgency in Egypt's restive Sinai Peninsula since the army overthrew Islamic president Mohammed Morsi.

Click here for some past posts about the terror raging in Egyptian Sinai.

27-Nov-14: Hamas terrorist ring is busted; Israel says the handlers operate from Turkey; Qatar is involved

Haniyeh of Hamas is greeted by Erdogan of Turkey in the Turkish
parliament, during a solidarity visit, January 2012
[Image Source: Paltimes]

A week ago, an unconfirmed Times of Israel report by Avi Issacharoff revealed details of a Hamas terror group that had recently been exposed, penetrated and busted by Israel's security services. It had been active inside the areas controlled by the Palestinian Authority and dozens of its members were said to be under arrest.

Issacharoff claimed the organization was based in, and run from, Turkey, under the control of already-well-known senior Hamas terrorists, and had undertaken several terror attacks, all of which (according to his report) had been thwarted or failed.

Funding and overall direction were in the hands of Saleh Muhammad Suleiman al-Arouri, a convicted terrorist who had been arrested and imprisoned several times over and deported by Israel from the West Bank to Turkey in 2010. From his new Turkish base, he assembled a "management team" that included a number of terrorists freed by Israel in the catastrophic Shalit Deal of 2011.

As far back as July 2013, Ehud Yaari, one of Israel's best-known and -respected strategic affairs commentators, writing in New Republic, had said Al-Arouri had "taken sole control of the movement's activities in the West Bank". Did the Turks know this? Does it matter to them?

Al-Arouri, according to an August 2014 profile in the Washington Post, was one of the main figures responsible for the revival of Hamas terrorist actions in the West Bank and an advocate of the usefulness of kidnapping innocent Israelis.

The Meir Amit Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center published a report three months ago asserting that al-Arouri had

told the participants of the fourth conference of the World Union of Islamic Sages (held in Turkey) that Hamas' military-terrorist wing was behind the abduction and murder of the three Jewish youths in Gush Etzion (June 12, 2014). He read his speech, saying that he was speaking on behalf of Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal (calling him the "head of this resistance"). He was apparently recorded without his knowledge and his speech was uploaded to YouTube and received much feedback. In his speech he claimed that "the struggle of the masses has grown to include all the occupied lands. It reached a height in the heroic action carried out by the [Izz al-Din] al-Qassam Brigades, which captured three settlers in Hebron." He claimed the abduction and murder were committed to support the hunger strike of the Palestinian detainees in Israeli prisons. According to the speech, the abduction and murder a part of Hamas' campaign to ignite a new intifada throughout all of Palestine (including Israeli Arabs...) [Source: Meir Amit IITC, August 24, 2014]

Turkey's increasingly open involvement with the jihadists of Hamas was the focus of a recent Foreign Policy article ["Thorn in the Side | Why is Turkey sheltering a dangerous Hamas operative?", Jonathan Schanzer, September 17, 2013]:

In his attempts to strengthen Hamas, Erdogan has... allowed his country's ties with Israel to suffer. The Turkish leader famously stormed offstage during a contentious 2009 panel with Israeli President Shimon Peres, in protest of Israel's isolation of Gaza. Relations between Ankara and Jerusalem plummeted further the following year, after Turkey's largest NGO dispatched a flotilla that tried to break Israel's blockade of Gaza, leading to clashes between Israeli commandos and activists that left nine Turks dead... More recently, however, the two countries have take steps to bury the hatchet. This year, U.S. President Barack Obama facilitated a phone call between Erdogan and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, which began a process that resulted in Israel issuing an apology for the incident and agreeing to pay reparations to the victims' families... However, Erdogan's support for Hamas could become a serious stumbling block for a further warming of ties with Israel. The Turkish premier's ties with Hamas remain as strong as ever - in fact, they appear to have deepened... If Arouri is behind the funding, recruiting, or planning of any of these Hamas operations in the West Bank, it will have grave consequences for Turkey. To the letter of the law, Turkey could meet criteria as a state sponsor of terrorism. [Schanzer, Foreign Policy]

Today, the facts of last week's Times of Israel exclusive were validated by fresh new revelations ["Hamas gang plotted ‘major attack’ at Jerusalem soccer stadium", Times of Israel, November 27, 2014]. It turns out that, indeed, more than 30 Hamas terrorists were arrested by Israeli security during September 2014, according to the Israel Security Agency - better known as the Shin Bet, Israel's internal security service.

The majority were recruited while studying in Jordan and trained in either Syria or the Gaza Strip, which they entered via tunnels from Sinai. The Shin Bet said the ring was preparing to kidnap Israelis in Israel and abroad, enter Israeli villages, detonate car bombs, perpetrate roadside attacks, and execute a major terror attack in [Jerusalem's] Teddy Stadium... The network, Palestinian officials said, was funded and directed by Hamas officials in Turkey who have set up a de facto command center in the Muslim country...

Jerusalem's Teddy Stadium [Image Source]
A key target of the Turkish-directed Hamas gang

Israel has complained to NATO, according to an Israeli newspaper reputedly close to Netanyahu

and demanded it take action against Turkey, after learning it has allowed Hamas to set up operational headquarters in Istanbul. Senior political sources in Jerusalem said Hamas has chosen to relocate its diplomatic and military headquarters from Damascus to Istanbul, over the civil war raging in Syria. Official communiqués sent from Jerusalem to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization's office in Brussels, via several channels, said it was inconceivable that a member of the intergovernmental military alliance would maintain ties with a terrorist organization... A senior source said Tuesday that there was little doubt that Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, a staunch supporter of the Muslim Brotherhood, was aware of Hamas operations in Istanbul, and that he had most likely authorized the move. [Israel Hayom, yesterday]

In today's announcement, the Shin Bet says the men arrested had a long shopping list of terror targets including shooting Israeli drivers in Judea and Samaria; infiltrating Israeli communities in order to carry out close-range killings; kidnappings of Israelis in Judea/Samaria as well as outside Israel's borders; car bombings; further recruiting in Jordan of new would-be killers; and (which has attracted the bulk of the media attention, understandably) terror attacks on Jerusalem's Teddy Stadium and on the Jerusalem Light Rail. Had they been executed, and in the absence of intelligence on the Turkish-controlled cell, some or all of these attacks might have been ascribed to "lone wolf" jihadists. We now know a little better.

Turkey is not the only foreign state being accused of deep involvement with the terrorism of this gang.

The officials accused Turkey as well as Qatar - the current home of Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal - of enabling Hamas to operate freely within their territories to carry out attacks against Israel and undermine the Palestinian Authority... It appeared that the ring announced by the Shin Bet [today] began to unravel with a failed roadside attack on August 31, 2014... The Shin Bet said that intelligence work done in the wake of that failed attack enabled the organization to arrest the perpetrators and some 30 other suspects, revealing “a wealth of information about the infrastructure.” [Times of Israel today]

That 'wealth of information' might make for some revealing analysis in the coming days.

27-Oct-14: Palestinian Arab report says the Egyptians plan to keep the Gazans far away for now

Simpler times: A section of the Egypt/Gaza
border in 2009 [Image Source]

Here, unedited, is the full text of a Palestinian Arab news site's report on major changes announced by Egypt to address its perception of lethal challenges facing it from the Gazan side. It comes from Palestinian News Network, and went up in the past hour. There are some obvious problems with the report (like spelling, and the notion of a buffer zone that's nine miles high, which is 14 kilometers) but those are small details. We will add our own commentary later.

Egypt to build buffer zone on Gaza borders
Published on Monday, 27 October 2014 15:18
PNN/ Cairo

Egyptian authorities tody announced the decision to build buffer zone on its borders with Gaza, with the depth of 500 meters, and a height of 14 KM, to hinder terrorist groups from entering Sinai, that recently resulted in killing 33 Egyptian soldiers.

The buffer zone construction will result in displacing thousands of bedouins in the Sinai desert, that Egypt vowed to relocate and give compensations before beginning the construction.

The Egyptian soldiers were killed during an attack on a checkpoint on Friday in the Sinai Peninsula bordering Israel and Gaza. The assault bore the marks of attacks claimed by Egypt's most active militant group Ansar Bait al-Maqdis.

Egyptian president, Abdul Fattah Sissi, promised taking "many measures" in the border, that it is likely to be expanded in order to pursue militants and stop them from entering Egyptian land.

Sissi expected help from the US to stop "terror" in Egypt.

As a result of the attacks on Egyptian soldiers, the indirect negotiations between Palestinian and Israeli delegations, which were decided to take place last Monday,  have been postponed until the second half of November.

---
The people who put PNN together describe themselves as

a group of independent Palestinian journalists and editors who work on a strictly professional level without favoring one political party over another or any religion over another. We report from a Palestinian perspective as we see that the media is rife with Israeli sources.

Wikipedia says their efforts are part of

the charitable organization the Holy Land Trust and is based in Bethlehem...

26-Oct-14: The ongoing savagery just over the border

The entrances to smuggling tunnels (foreground) are seen on the border between Egypt
and the southern Gaza Strip, near Rafah August 8, 2012 (Photo: Reuters)

From The Independent (UK), October 25, 2014:

Two attacks in Egypt's Sinai Peninsula killed 33 security personnel, security sources said, in some of the worst anti-state violence since Islamist President Mohamed Morsi was overthrown last year... Thirty people were killed in the first attack in the al-Kharouba area northwest of al-Arish, near the Gaza Strip, the sources said. Military helicopters transferred the dead and wounded to Cairo. Among them were several senior officers from the Second Field Army based in Ismailia, security sources said. The car bomb attack targetted two armoured vehicles at a checkpoint near an army installation, the sources said. They said the big explosion and high death toll were likely due to the vehicles being loaded with ammunition and heavy weapons. Security officials gave conflicting accounts of the first attack, with one Sinai-based official saying a rocket-propelled grenade was used. More than 25 people were wounded. Hours later, gunmen opened fire on a checkpoint in al-Arish, killing three members of the security forces, officials said.

Wikipedia gives the context:

The Sinai peninsula has long been known for its lawlessness, having historically served as a smuggling route for weapons and supplies. Security provisions in the Egypt–Israel Peace Treaty of 1979 have institutionalized a diminished security presence in the area, enabling militants to operate with a freer hand. Moreover, the limited government-directed investment and development in Sinai has discriminated against the local Bedouin population, a population that values tribal allegiance over all else. The combination of Sinai's harsh terrain and lack of resources have kept the area poor and hence ripe for militancy

And an update ["Curfew and state of emergency in North Sinai follows deadly attacks"] via Mada Masr, an independent Egyptian news site, from Saturday:

On Friday night, Abdel Fattah al-Sisi issued Presidential Decree No. 366 (2014), which stipulates that large swathes of North Sinai (including Arish and Sheikh Zuwayed) be placed under a three-month state of emergency, along with a curfew from 5 pm to 7 am each day, until further notice. Violations of the curfew are punishable by imprisonment...
In a statement to the newspaper, Prime Minister Ibrahim Mehleb said, “The state will take strict measures to confront this dirty war,” adding, “lowly acts of terrorism will not keep us from realizing our political roadmap.”
Authorities also decreed the indefinite closure of the Rafah border crossing, the only legal access point into or out of Egypt from, the Gaza Strip as of Saturday. The exact reasoning behind this closure was not explained by Egypt's Ministry of Foreign Affairs, or other state officials.

The Chinese news agency Xinhua said on Saturday:

The Gaza-based Corporation for Crossings and Borders said in an emailed press statement that Egyptian authorities have officially informed the Palestinian side on the closure of the main crossing for the coastal enclave. "Egypt informed us today morning that it shut down Rafah crossing until a further notice due to the deteriorated security situation in Sinai," said the statement.

Though these reports don't say it, most of the frequent bombing attacks on Egyptian security forces, on Egyptian public facilities, on Egyptian politicians and on the Egypt-to-Jordan gas pipeline have been ascribed to the Salafist jihadists of "Ansar Beit al-Maqdis, the most active militant group in Egypt". Since 2011, its terrorists have also repeatedly fired rockets [source] into southern Israel, including the resort city of Eilat.

Friday's assault was "the biggest loss of life in decades for Egypt's army, which has been carrying out an offensive against jihadists in northern Sinai". The Egyptian campaign has involved their forces destroying (they claim)

more than 1,600 tunnels connecting the Sinai Peninsula and the Gaza Strip, most of them since the ouster of Islamist president Mohamed Morsi last year. The Islamist group Hamas, the main power in the blockaded Palestinian enclave, uses the tunnels to smuggle in arms, food and money. [AFP, September 20, 2014]

Egypt's Al-Ahram says the number of tunnels destroyed by Egypt is larger than that, and hints at Egypt's grievances against Hamas:

Egypt's military has destroyed a total of 1,813 smuggling tunnels in the Sinai Peninsula since January 2011, state news agency MENA reported. The network of smuggling tunnels connects the desert region with the Palestinian Gaza Strip, controlled by the Islamist Hamas movement. Egypt's army has been waging an offensive in North Sinai to counter a rising jihadist militancy that has left hundreds of police and army personnel dead in the last two years. The military has raided suspected sites and has routinely announced the killing or arrest of militants. Egypt has accused Hamas of interfering in its internal politics. Hamas has vehemently denied such accusations... Hamas is an ideological offshoot of Egypt's now-banned Muslim Brotherhood group, from which ousted president Mohamed Morsi hails. Relations between Egypt and Hamas, which has ruled Gaza since 2007 until recently, have been tense since Morsi's ouster in July, 2013. [Al-Ahram, October 9, 2014]

Here in Israel, there are some less sanguine opinions about the effectiveness of Egyptian efforts to shut down those Sinai-Gaza tunnels:

For their part, the Bedouin smugglers acknowledge that the Egyptian crackdown has forced them to think smaller. The massive tunnels that used to accommodate cars and trucks have been destroyed, but many of the one- to two-meter-wide corridors have survived. One Bedouin guide told Reuters that smugglers had built up to 200 more such tunnels in the last two years, bringing the total of working tunnels up to 500. Comparatively, before the crackdown, there were some 1,500... ["Smuggling between Sinai and Gaza still thriving", Times of Israel, August 22, 2014]

20-Jul-14: In Egypt's media, suddenly a falling away of the customary solidarity with Palestinian Arabs

Tawfik Okasha, Egyptian TV current affairs commentator [Image Source]

It's now 5:30 pm Sunday in Israel. Israeli communities right across the south have been taking a painful rocket-pounding in the past half-hour following a day in which the IDF has been engaged in fierce fighting on the ground in Gaza City's suburbs.

Since 5:00 pm, the IDF's Iron Dome intercepted 4 rockets over Ashkelon, and Tzeva Adom incoming-rocket sirens blared in Beersheba, Ofakim, the Hof Ashkelon region and Netivot [Times of Israel].

Against this turbulent background, here's an eye-popping analysis published today that lloks at how the fighting between Hamas and the IDF is perceived in one of the world's most complex and important Arab media markets. It comes from AFP, the French international news agency, and from the France24 global television news channel.

Egyptian media applauds Israel’s Gaza offensive 
AFP | France24 | Text by Boualem RHOUBACHI | Latest update : 2014-07-20

Since the beginning of Israel’s offensive in Gaza, much of the Egyptian media has laid the blame squarely on the Islamist group Hamas, which controls the tiny Palestinian enclave. Some journalists have even said that all Palestinians are to blame for their current plight.

Israel’s escalating attack on the Gaza Strip has triggered worldwide debate. Egypt is no exception. But there is little of the traditional Arab solidarity towards Palestinians to be found in the Egyptian media.

Adel Nehaman, a columnist for the Egyptian daily El-Watan, said bluntly: "Sorry Gazans, I cannot support you until you rid yourselves of Hamas."

Azza Sami, a writer for government daily Al-Ahram, went so far as to congratulate Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Twitter: "Thank you Netanyahu, and God give us more men like you to destroy Hamas!"

Star presenter of the Al-Faraeen TV channel, Tawfik Okasha, an ardent supporter of Egypt’s military regime and known for his firm stance against the ousted Muslim Brotherhood, attacked the entire Palestinian population live on air. “Gazans are not men,” he declared. “If they were men they would revolt against Hamas.”

His broadcast was even picked up by Israeli TV to demonstrate Egyptian support for Israel.

Why the hatred of Hamas?

The hostility of these journalists is part and parcel of the movement that saw democratically elected president Mohammed Morsi removed from power in a military coup in 2013. They are now applying the same logic behind the ouster of Morsi, who was the favoured candidate of the now-censured Muslim Brotherhood, to the ongoing conflict in Gaza.

In 2013, a significant chunk of the Egyptian media called for the Muslim Brotherhood’s “liquidation”. That same sentiment is now applauding Israel’s efforts to disarm Hamas, originally the Brotherhood’s Palestinian branch. These Egyptian journalists link Hamas to ongoing violence in the Sinai Peninsula where in the last 12 months, armed Islamist groups have attacked Egyptian security forces on an almost daily basis.

Egypt’s current rulers insist that the Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas are behind these attacks (even though other groups, such as Ansar Bait al-Maqdis and Ajnad Misr regularly claim responsibility).

Much of Egypt’s media toes the government line. They see the neutralisation of Hamas as crucial to winning Egypt’s undeclared war in the Sinai Peninsula. They don’t hesitate to criticise Hamas and Palestinians generally, who they hold in contempt for failing to revolt against their Islamist leaders as Egyptians did in 2013.

Some Egyptian journalists are shocked by this stance. Tarek Saad Eddin, deputy editor of Al-Musawar magazine, told FRANCE 24’s Arabic service: “These people are part of a media that takes its orders straight from the government. They have claimed that it was Hamas that was responsible for killing protesters in Tahrir Square during the 2011 revolution [which saw unpopular former president Hosni Mubarak removed from power]. But going so far as to criticise all Gazans is appallingly wide of the mark.”

Media campaigns against an entire nationality are not unprecedented in Egypt. In the aftermath of Morsi’s ouster in the summer of 2013, Syrians were targeted.

Tawfik Okasha accused all Syrian refugees in Egypt of being supporters of the Muslim Brotherhood, and the wider media onslaught resulted in violent attacks on Syrian refugees on the streets of Cairo.

There are 80,000 Palestinian refugees living in Egypt. Many of them fear an escalation in anti-Palestinian rhetoric.

Not all Egyptians are hostile to their besieged Arab neighbours. There have been demonstrations against Israel’s attack on Gaza in Cairo and Alexandria in recent days, but these only attracted a few thousand people at the most.

A group of young Egyptian activists, mostly linked to far-left groups, also organised a solidarity convoy to the Rafah border between Egypt and Gaza. The group was turned back by the Egyptian army and sent back to Cairo.

Beyond this very small minority of pro-Palestinian militants, Egyptians are broadly unsympathetic to the plight of their Gazan neighbours. Hosni Mubarak fostered a general distrust of Palestinians for years. It hasn’t gone away.

16-May-14: More jihadist killings in East Africa today

Kenya is experiencing a rising wave of terror attacks. Today, Friday, two explosions in Narobi, the capital, killed 10 people and injured 70. Both were caused by improvised explosive devices placed in the Gikomba market area close to the city's downtown precinct. A mini-van used for public transportation was hit by one of the explosions. Earlier in the week, both the United States and the UK issued renewed warnings about terror attacks in Kenya. (Buses were bombed in Nairobi earlier this month; innocent people were killed then too.)

The US embassy in Nairobi which was devastated in a huge attack in 1998, issued a fresh travel alert early this morning to American citizens warning of a continued terrorist threat in Kenya. The embassy itself had said a day or two earlier that it is taking steps to increase security “due to recent threat information regarding the international community in Kenya.” The UK government has warned its citizens to avoid the coastal city of Mombasa and beach towns nearby. Hundreds of British citizens have cut short their holidays and have flown home.

Prior to today's murderous attacks, Kenya's president Uhuru Kenyatta had rather bizarrely criticized the warnings on the grounds, according to Reuters, that "such warnings strengthen the will of terrorists".

According to the BBC's report, Kenya's government

recently round up all refugees of Somali origin in an attempt to rid the city of terror suspects they believe to be hiding among refugees. The al-Qaeda-linked group al-Shabab has launched a series of attacks against Kenyan targets in recent years, claiming to be retaliating for Kenya's military involvement in Somalia since 2011.

Terrorists rarely attack without attributing their rage to some pre-existing cause. In the case of the al-Shabaab of Somalia, its composition is thought to be multi-ethnic, led by Afghanistan- and Iraq-trained ethnic Somalis and foreigners. It is loosely connected to the Boko Haram of Nigeria and, like them, describes itself as waging jihad against "enemies of Islam".

15-Mar-14: Terror and safety in the work-place

Ansar Bait al-Maqdis, one of the most lethal of the currently-active Egyptian terror groups, and the main source of terrorist activities in the increasingly chaotic Sinai peninsula, has just announced the termination of the career of one of its founders.

According to AFP quoting the terrorist group, Tawfiq Mohamed Fareej died last week when a bomb he was transporting in his car exploded prematurely when the vehicle was involved in a traffic accident. They are now saying Fareej was in charge of the bloody cross-border terrorist attack on southern Israel on August 18, 2011 that killed 8 Israelis. Eight Israelis, six of them civilians and two security force personnel, died in that attack. [See our report: "19-Aug-11: Summarizing the events of Thursday"] 

Fareej was probably also involved in a string of sabotage attacks on the Egypt-to-Israel gas pipeline, a failed assassination attempt on the life of Egyptian interior minister, Mohammed Ibrahim, on September 6, 2013, and the bombing of an Egyptian police building [see our report "26-Jan-14: Sinai's terror problems are now Cairo's nightmares"]. 

Among other recent 'work accidents' involving jihadists and Islamists:

• Yesterday (March 14, 2014): An intending car bomber in Somalia, thought to be part of the al-Qaida-linked al-Shabab jihadist organization, accidentally detonated his explosives prematurely while attempting a terror attack on a hotel in the capital, Mogadishu. No one else was killed or injured in the failed murder attempt. [Source: AP/Washington Post]
• March 11, 2014: Four Palestinians were killed on Tuesday in a house explosion in the northern Gaza Strip town of Beit Hanoun, in what local officials have termed a work accident. Hamas reported on its website that the four were activists in its Izz a-Din Al-Qassam military wing, and said that their bodies were transferred to a hospital in Gaza. According to reports, the blast came from inside the house and was not the result of any external rocket or explosives [Source: Haaretz, "Four killed in Gaza, apparently while making bomb"].
• March 9, 2014: The Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades division of Hamas mourned the untimely death in Rafah (Gaza) of one of its "field commanders", Ibrahim al-Ghoul, and injuries to nine others as a result of a mishap during a training session on building bombs. The English-language Alqassam website termed the death an act of martyrdom that followed "a long bright path of jihad, hard work, struggle and sacrifice.” Gaza's Hamas-controlled Health Ministry, quoted by the Maan News Agency and via a spokesperson, said the injuries to the other bomb-making cadets were "serious".
• February 10, 2014: No fewer than 22 Iraqi "militants" (the misleading name given in the UPI and New York Times reports to religiously-inspired persons engaging full-time in terrorism) from the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria terror group, went to their heavenly virgins when a lesson on making car bombs and explosive belts went catastrophically wrong as a result of a "fumble". Associated Press said “a glitch set off one of the devices”.
• February 10, 2014: In another part of Iraq, more or less on the same day, 25 other terrorists died in a truck-bomb explosion in Salahudin province. Xinhua, the Chinese newsagency, said they "were building the bomb when it exploded Sunday in a village near Samarra". Several more were injured. [UPI]

Not often we are privileged to see accidents as the cause for untold numbers of lives being saved.

16-Feb-14: As the Sinai turmoil escalates, Israel-bound tour bus explodes in terror attack

The Taba Hilton Hotel [Image Source: Wikipedia]

The jihadist chaos and carnage that plague Egypt's Sinai Peninsula exacted fresh lives this afternoon. 

A tour bus carrying some 32 Korean Christian pilgrims, having started its journey in Cairo, passed through the ancient Greek Orthodox monastery of St. Catherine in central Sinai (we know it better in Israel as Santa Katarina) and then the coastal town of Nuweiba and was on its way to Eilat when an on-board bomb exploded just before the travelers reached Taba and the border crossover point to Israel. (Reuters has video footage.)

According to Times of Israel - 

Initial investigation indicated that the bomb was planted under the driver’s seat of the tourist bus... The bomb was detonated by remote control, as the bus waited near the Taba Hilton hotel to obtain permission to cross into Israel. Security arrangements at the crossing are such that the terrorists would not have been able to carry out the attack at the Israeli side of the border or inside Israel, security sources said Sunday night without elaboration.

The destroyed tour bus [Image Source]

In the minutes after the explosion, the Israeli news media showed photos of a long line of Magen David Adom ambulances waiting on Israel's side of the border. Now we know that there were some two dozen of them, but their services were rebuffed. As the Times of Israel reported

Egypt refused Israeli offers of medical assistance for the tourists... Three Korean tourists and the Egyptian bus driver were killed in the bombing, and at least eight passengers were seriously injured. The bomb was placed under the driver’s seat and detonated by remote control as the vehicle neared the crossing into Israel.

Ansar Bait al-Maqdis, a terrorist organization said to be an al-Qaeda affiliate, took credit right away. These are the same Salafi jihadists who have already "conducted dozens of attacks in North Sinai, as well as a handful in the Egyptian mainland" ["The Strategy of Egypt's Ansar Bayt al-Maqdis", David Barnet, February 10, 2014] and claimed to be behind the rocket attacks on the Israeli resort city of Eilat two weeks ago. There's little reason to expect the mayhem they are causing to come to an end soon, even as the Egyptian military's counter-terrorism measures remain in full force. 


Nor is there much reason to expect certain mainstream news channels to use the word "terror" in its coverage of the death and destruction the terrorists sow. The closest they get in tonight's BBC report ["Sinai attacks: Deadly bombing hits Egypt tour bus"] of the lethal Taba attack is in their repeated resort to the word "militants". The story's more or less the same at the New York Times ["Bombing of Tourist Bus Kills at Least Three in Sinai"].

Israeli emergency vehicles and crews lined up at border, but
Egyptian authoritiss refused to allow them in [Image Source]

At The Guardian, they're considerably less coy. An analytic piece there, "Egypt faces new threat in al-Qaida-linked group Ansar Beyt al-Maqdis" two weeks ago says the Sinai jihadist group

displays an affinity for al-Qaida, and the proficiency of its attacks suggest some level of external training. But until Ayman Zawahiri, al-Qaida's leader, mentioned "our people in the Sinai" in an audio message on 24 January, there had been no confirmation that al-Qaida recognised Sinai jihadists. "It really caught my attention," said Barnett. "It supports the view that there are foreign fighters in the Sinai, and it's a message from al-Qaida that your cause is being recognised by us and foreigners are likely coming to aid you."

We wonder how South Korea's public opinion is dealing with the way its victims could have been treated by some of the most experienced and effective first responders anywhere... but weren't because of the decision by the Egyptian authorities to prevent Israeli ambulances and crews,  ready at the border within minutes of the terror attack, from crossing into Egypt. No doubt there will be some lofty political explanations, but the families of seriously injured loved ones now being transported to who-knows-which desert town clinics might not find them terribly persuasive.

1-Feb-14: Friday night rocket attack on Eilat

Eilat's north beach area [Image Source]

With the Sabbath just ended, we wish a Good Week (Shavua Tov) to all, and renewed prayers for a week of more good sense and fewer opportunities for the crazies and the jihadists.

Israel's cutting-edge Iron Dome defense system intercepted a rocket heading for Eilat around 9:30 on Friday night, the Jewish Sabbath. The IDF Spokesperson's Unit, quoted by Ynet, says the Tzeva Adom ("Color Red") incoming missile alert siren was heard throughout Israel's southern-most city after security forces detected an Israel-bound launch in the Sinai Peninsula. A Jerusalem Post report says there was a mid-air intercept by the Israeli system and two separate explosions were heard on the ground. A remarkably laconic Reuters report from Friday night echoes the part about the terrorist rocket being stopped.

Tonight, there's a report that the Salafi terrorists of Ansar Bait al-Maqdis have claimed credit for the thwarted attack. AFP reported that the jihadists, who executed the same sort of attack in the same area on January 20, 2014 [see "21-Jan-14: Eilat under rocket attack tonight"], "threatened to follow Friday's foiled rocket fire with further attacks". Untroubled by the need to adopt Western-style pretence at painting their evil in quasi-political language, the Ansar statement quoted by AFP says in blunt terrorist terms:

"Jews, you have to know that nothing will stop us from fighting you, even if the entire world's armies move on your instructions. If they create a barrier between us and you, with God's help and strength, we will get you and kill you."

These are the same people who are behind the mass attacks on Egyptians that we looked at here last week: 26-Jan-14: Sinai's terror problems are now Cairo's nightmares. 

There's more in-depth coverage of those terrorists from David Barnett on the Threat Matrix/Long War Journal site where he follows Ansar's activities closely.

And a slightly bizarre background note to the mid-air intercept aspect of this report. On Thursday, a day before this latest rocket attack on Eilat, that same Iron Dome installation was the target of a strange assault. According to Israel National News, an Arab male ran at the soldier guarding the anti-missile battery, screaming “Allahu Akbar” (“G-d is great” in Arabic).

Fearing a terrorist attack, the soldiers shot at the man’s legs in order to stop him. The man was hit and injured. He was taken to Eilat’s Yoseftal Hospital. It is not yet clear whether the man is armed and was attempting a terrorist attack, or is mentally ill. [Israel National News]

26-Jan-14: Sinai's terror problems are now Cairo's nightmares

Police inspect bomb crater after attack on
Cairo Security Directorate building,
downtown Cairo, Friday [Image Source: Reuters]

For the past few years, we have devoted dozens of posts here to the rise of terror in the Sinai peninsula and what this might mean for Israel's security.

Things have gotten better in some ways and worse in others during the past few months. The authorities in Cairo have committed significant forces to the area to reimpose a degree of order, including shutting down many of the tunnels that deliver goods into and out of Gaza, but that also provide Gaza's terror forces with armaments and facilitate interaction among the jihad-mind Islamists on both sides of the Egypt/Gaza border. And there has been a scaling up of the terrorist presence not only in Sinai itself but now - after the overthrow of the Morsi/Moslem Brotherhood regime - in the cities of Egypt.

This past Friday was a very bad day for the Egyptians. An analysis by David Barnett that appears today on the website The National Interest ["Can Egypt Handle Ansar Bait al Maqdis?"], provides a penetrating overview. Barnett is a research associate at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, where he focuses on Salafi jihadists in Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula. Some extracts:

• "Shortly after 6:30am in Egypt on Friday, a massive car bomb detonated outside the Cairo Security Directorate. The attack killed at least four people and wounded more than 70, Egypt’s Health Ministry said. 
• "In the hours that followed at least three additional explosions were reported in the Cairo area with reports of two more fatalities and scores wounded.
• "In the immediate aftermath of the first attack, some Egypt observers, myself included, said the car bombing was likely the work of the Sinai-based jihadist group Ansar Bait al Maqdis (ABM). In a statement released to jihadist forums Friday night, ABM claimed responsibility for all of the attacks...
• "With crowds calling for the Muslim Brotherhood’s “execution" after Friday’s attack... it makes sense politically for the government to blame supporters of fallen Muslim Brotherhood president Mohammed Morsi, who continue to partake in efforts to delegitimize the new regime. This is why Cairo, which believes it is in an existential battle, declared the Brotherhood a terrorist organization shortly after the Mansoura bombing [we reported on that here: "24-Dec-13: Violent chaos in Egypt escalates to more chaotic and considerably more violent"].
• "Cairo’s current approach, in other words, may not be properly addressing the serious jihadist threat to Egypt that was once clearly limited to the Sinai Peninsula, but has now reached across the Suez Canal. Recent admissions by Egyptian officials indicate that Sinai jihadists have been avoiding security sweeps and reaching the Nile Delta and Cairo, among other locations. This, along with Friday’s attacks, raises serious questions as to whether enough resources are being deployed to deal with Egypt’s growing jihadist problem, particularly as these forces display an ability to adapt to ongoing Egyptian military operations.

In the hours since the article appeared, events in Sinai have heated up still further.

• Twenty-nine people were killed during anti-government marches on Saturday [Reuters], three years to the day after President Hosni Mubarak was overthrown. 
• An Egyptian military helicopter has crashed and its crew is missing in the northern Sinai Peninsula where its forces are battling Islamic militants. This happened near the Sinai village of el-Kharouba. 
• And in the city of Suez, a car bomb exploded outside a Central Security Forces (CSF) camp, also on Saturday [Al Ahram's Online website], injuring 16 people and underscoring the sense that events are spinning out of control.

21-Jan-14: Eilat under rocket attack tonight

There has been a rocket attack on the Israeli resort city of Eilat tonight (Monday).

AFP is reporting that "at least one rocket struck the outskirts" of Eilat; authorities found their remains on the city's outskirts. Searches are continuing for signs of more rockets. Residents reported hearing several explosions during the evening, but at this stage (it's just after midnight) both the Israel Police and the IDF are still unable to confirm that there was rocket fire. At various points in the past five hours, it was suggested that rockets had crashed to earth near one of Eilat's best-known hotels; those reports are almost certainly wrong and may simply reflect the reality that people hearing sudden loud explosions are not always well-placed to judge how close the source of the noise is.

Over at Haaretz, they say that what was heard in Eilat was a series of explosions, indicating incoming rockets from the Sinai Peninsula. The blasts were around 7:00 pm, Monday. A police search will get underway at dawn.

Times of Israel says there were two GRAD rockets and that they struck an open area close to the city. (GRADs have been deployed by Sinai-based terrorists in their attacks on Eilat in the past - in April 2013 for instance.) Egyptian military forces are carrying out anti-terrorism operations in the north of the Sinai peninsula - with Israel’s blessing, according to a military source referenced in the Times of Israel piece tonight.

UPDATE Tuesday January 21, 2014: Credit for the attack on Eilat has been claimed by the terror group Ansar Bait al-Maqdis, which Times of Israel describes as having close ties to Egypt’s Salafi movement. Their motivations are not so complicated: "Our war with the enemy in Egypt will not distract us from the war with the nation’s first enemy, Israel. With Allah’s help, from us the Jews will see only injury.”

24-Dec-13: Violent chaos in Egypt escalates to more chaotic and considerably more violent

From CNN's coverage

We keep hearing about how Israeli actions are what keep the Middle East turmoil going. But the hour-by-hour Syrian carnage and the ongoing pan-Arab repression of minorities are among a host of factors reminding us how untrue and self-serving that simplistic view of a complex situation is.

An Associated Press report yesterday (Monday) pointed to the steady rise of terrorist rhetoric and violence in Egypt, and in particular at threats made by a group with Palestinian Arab ties against Egypt's post-Moslem Brotherhood government.

Ansar Beit al-Maqdis, or the Champions of Jerusalem, said it considers Egyptian troops to be infidels because they answer to the secular-leaning military-backed government. The group and others based in the Sinai have been blamed for a surge of attacks against the security forces since a July coup toppled the country's former Islamist president, Mohammed Morsi. In reaction, Egypt's armed forces launched a military offensive in the Northern Sinai province in August, going after suspected militants in the region. Speaking at a public forum Monday, the military spokesman Ahmed Mohammed Ali said so far the operations have resulted in the killing of 184 militants and the arrest of 803 others. He said about 25 percent of those killed and arrested are foreign fighters, but didn't provide further details. The group is believed to have ties with Palestinian militants in the neighboring Gaza Strip and officials have said other foreign militants have found refuge in Sinai during the ongoing turmoil. [AP]

The terrorists of Ansar Beit al-Maqdis have mostly been in the news owing to the wave of terror attacks they have instigated in Egypt's volatile Sinai Peninsula. AP quotes Egypt's army saying that since August it has killed 184 terrorists in North Sinai, where near-daily attacks have been carried out against security forces. We have been writing regularly in this blog about the spiral downwards into murderous chaos that has infected the Sinai in the past two years.

Now those jihadists have raised the stakes, calling in a statement yesterday (Monday) on the country's army and police to desert. Otherwise, it said, security officials will face death at the hands of the terrorists.

Early today (Tuesday), they delivered on the threat. Egypt is in a state of shock as it sees the Islamist terrorists strike viciously beyond the confines of the troubled Sinai. From AFP in the early hours of this morning:

A powerful blast at a police headquarters in the Egyptian city of Mansoura early Tuesday killed at least eight people and wounded 90 others, officials said. Egyptian security sources said the explosion in the city, north of Cairo, was massive and a part of the building had caved in... The impact of the explosion was felt around 20 kilometres (12 miles) away and shattered windows of nearby buildings, the security sources said. [AFP]

Al Ahram says the police headquarters bombing, around 1:00 am today, has risen to at least 14 lives and injured 130. Some reports [for instance, Telegraph UK] say that the Egyptian prime minister

"has declared the Muslim Brotherhood movement a "terrorist" group, after a car bomb ripped through a police building and killed at least 14 people. Prime Minister Hazem Beblawi's condemnation of the group comes just weeks ahead of a referendum on a new constitution that is billed as the first major step toward democracy since the ouster of president Mohamed Morsi in July... An Egyptian court has already banned the activities of the Muslim Brotherhood, to which Morsi belongs, while the interim military-installed authorities have often accused the group of funding and training militants in the restive Sinai Peninsula."

At Aljazeera, they say there will be an Egyptian cabinet meeting later this morning to consider formalizing the Moslem Brotherhood ban.