We held off publishing this story until it appeared in the mainstream media, as it is too important to have just relied on rumor and innuendo.
To begin with, some background: 10% of the Gazan smuggling tunnels are known to be still active and working. Or more accurately, 10% of the outsourced Gaza smuggling tunnels are up and running. There are even more if we count the ones that Hamas built and run themselves - not using the BOT (Build Operate Transfer) model.
This is important to know, because smuggling tunnels are rather useless without something to smuggle.
And Hamas and Iran are already working on that, taking advantage of the election-inspired cease fire.
During the Gaza war, a cargo ship from Iran kept appearing and disappearing as it tried to bring advanced and long-range weaponry to Hamas. It may have succeeded in getting parts of its cargo to ground.
Last week, an Iranian cargo ship was intercepted. It is not clear if this is the same cargo ship as the one during the war. This particular ship was intercepted by the US Navy and it was found to have been smuggling advanced weapons.
The ship was redirected away from any possible landing spots and ports for smuggling, but it seems they got to keep their military cargo, for lack of a legal mechanism to confiscate it!
Rumor has it that the US intercepted the ship as the Israelis planned a military strike on the ship, and the US wanted to avoid that.
Furthermore, it appears that the Iranians have divided their weapon shipments among multiple cargo ships to help ensure at least parts of it manage to sneak through to Gaza ahead of the next round of attacks on Israel.
Wherever I am, my blog turns towards Eretz Yisrael טובה הארץ מאד מאד
4 comments:
Grooooan....
My belly was struck with the dread of it all, with the first inklings in that MSM, a day after Israel stopped....
My wonderings have been, in these last 3 days: are there truly no rockets & stuff being lobbed over the wall into southern Israel....? Being so far away, here in MN, U.S.A., I cannot tell, if it's not on the online sites.....
sincerely, still in prayer,
Ma Sands
Not surprising. What seems to have been quickly forgotten is that Israel deliberately left a number of tunnels unscathed as they were being used for commercial purposes.
"Muhammad al-Zarb said that the Israelis somehow seemed to know which tunnels were commercial and which were run by Hamas, and that they seemed to be selective in their bombing. “If someone has a tunnel for Chipsy, it seems O.K.,” he said. “When a Hamas guy has a tunnel for weapons, they bomb it.” http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/01/world/middleeast/01rafah.html?ref=middleeast
This kind gesture will undoubtedly be taken advantage of, but the hope is that weapons can now be better tracked, especially with international help. In my opinion, this must be seen as the most desirable outcome: this cannot be our fight alone. Others must take responsibility for the mess they created.
While most people of conscience and moral integrity would tend to not be 100% aggressive in 'eliminating' the scourge of Hamas terror, I believe that there is NO OTHER WAY to STOP the terror from Aza; unless, that is, all Israelis keep two week's Shabbosom.
"Rumor has it that the US intercepted the ship as the Israelis planned a military strike on the ship, and the US wanted to avoid that."
Aha, so that's what happened. I was wondering what the real story was, I found it hard to believe that Obama is so concerned for Israel that he would have a ship intercepted just to prevent hamas from getting arms...
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