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Hamas is busily fortifying the Gaza Strip with the help of Iranian expertise and funding for what may be the fiercest fighting that embattled enclave has ever seen.
"They're digging bunkers and tunnels 20m underground equipped with air conditioning," said Brigadeer General Shalom Harari, a retired Israeli intelligence officer. "That's something the Iranians taught them."
Since Israel's withdrawal from Gaza a year and a half ago, hundreds of Hamas fighters have made their way to Iran for intensive military training sometimes lasting months, according to the head of the Shin Bet security service, Yuval Diskin. Iranian experts have also reportedly reached Gaza.
Diskin said this week that militants last year smuggled more than 30 tonnes of explosives into the strip, mostly through tunnels from Egypt. According to an Israeli assessment, there are 120,000 automatic weapons in Palestinian hands in the 40km-long strip.
Diskin told the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defence Committee that Hamas had significantly upgraded its rocket arsenal and was capable of hitting Israeli towns 20km away. Hamas had also acquired in recent months Russian missiles capable of penetrating heavily armoured tanks. Newly acquired anti-aircraft missiles would challenge Israel's domination of the skies over Gaza for the first time.
"Hamas and Iran have formed a strategic alliance," said Harari. "Iran sees Hamas as part of a pincer aimed at Israel."
The other arm of the pincer, in Lebanon, is Hizbollah. Like Iran, Hizbollah belongs to the Shiite branch of Islam. Hamas members by contrast are Sunni but they share Iran's fundamentalist ethos and its militancy towards Israel.
It is believed Iran is also funding militant groups in the West Bank, which borders Israel's heartland. However, Israeli forces are still deployed in the West Bank and their almost nightly arrests of militants have prevented Hamas from gaining traction there.
Israel is monitoring developments in Gaza and has drawn up detailed plans for a large-scale incursion which officials would like to press home before Hamas reaches Hizbollah's level of military sophistication.
"Hamas wants quiet now so it can continue its preparations," Harari said. "But their build-up will oblige an Israeli operation, probably before the end of the year."
A major clash with Hamas threatens to be far bloodier than the war with Hizbollah. South Lebanon, where most of last summer's war was waged, is a thinly populated rural area. Its residents were warned by Israel through leaflets and radio broadcasts to flee before their villages were bombed or shelled. Gaza, by contrast, is one of the most densely populated areas in the world and there are few secure places to which civilians could flee. If Israeli forces wished to root out Hamas armories and rocket workshops, they would have to fight their way into built-up areas. In all the years of skirmishing, Israeli troops have never engaged in significant house-to-house fighting in Gaza City or other urban locations.
Given the Israel Defense Force's lacklustre showing against Hizbollah last year, it is highly motivated to seek a decisive victory against Hamas. International pressure, however, could prove a restraining force on Israel if many civilians are killed.
EU cautious
European governments yesterday cautiously began opening the door to a possible easing of a year-long international boycott after a coalition government of "national unity" was finally agreed by the two main rival Palestinian factions.
Fatah, Hamas and other smaller groups agreed a Cabinet line-up which will now include a narrow combined majority of Fatah and independent members in the hope of ending internal armed conflict and gradually lifting the economic blockade of the Palestinian Authority. Israel said the formation of the new government under the Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh was a "step backwards rather forwards" and vowed not to deal with any of its ministers whether they were in Hamas or not.
But European governments, including France and Britain, signalled they would seek to maintain contacts with non-Hamas members of the new Government.
- Independent
