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Palestinian Arabs

Gaza pressure cooker poised to erupt - IDF


By Stan Goodenough
August 13, 2007

We warned the government that its withdrawal from Gaza would lead to a serious security situation that would pose a threat to Israel, but our urgings went unheeded.

Now Hamas has built a well-trained army 13,000 strong and preparing to attack Israel.

These frustrations were expressed by senior IDF officials in conversation with Ynetnews - according to a report on the Israeli daily's website Sunday.

Former IDF intelligence chief, Brig.-Gen. Aharon Ze'evi Farkash, was quoted as saying that "when we prepared for the disengagement, we mentioned all the scenarios for what might happen in the Strip, including the possibility of a 'Hamastan'."

In fulfillment of that forecast, the "Palestinian" Islamist terrorist group Hamas took over Gaza last month in a ruthless and bloody coup.

The fault lay with the politicians, Farkash said. They had chosen to continue with the pullout despite the warnings.

Another senior military official reportedly said recently that Gaza was "a security pressure cooker."

Ynetnews said that data gathered by the IDF on Gaza indicates that there is much room for concern.

"Our main problem," said a military source, "is that on the outside, Gaza appears to be very quiet."

While there are Kassam rocket barrages, they are "paradoxically ... at the bottom of our list of threats."

The "disengagement" had "boosted the terror groups' morale and capabilities" and Hamas was now preparing for a confrontation. "It has an army of 13,000 troops that undergo professional training. Furthermore, the group is amassing weapons obtained through smuggling."

Yet another official described how the withdrawal had created a catch 22 situation for Israel, and the risk of an eruption between Gaza and Samaria-Judea (the "West Bank").

“We arrest a suspect in Nablus, and the response comes from Gaza in the form of Kassams; we respond, and we’ve created an escalation” said Brig-Gen (res) Shlomo Brom, formerly a senior official in the Planning Directorate, and now a researcher at the Institute for National Security Studies.

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