Hamas placing rockets near water reservoirs, digging dozens of ‘terror tunnels’

[aris2chat]

Hamas is increasingly using sensitive civilian facilities in Gaza to protect its military assets from being targeted by Israel, ahead of a further round of conflict. It is also digging dozens of “terror tunnels” into Israel, The Times of Israel has learned.

Gaza’s Islamist rulers have been placing rocket launching pads next to water reservoirs, and attaching reconnaissance cameras to mosque minarets and water towers, The Times of Israel was told, in a bid to avoid IAF airstrikes during an upcoming round of confrontation.

The IDF has noticed a recent shift in Hamas’s strategy: While actively preventing rocket launches toward Israel by rogue groups in the Gaza Strip, the Islamist organization — which violently took control of the territory in 2007 and has ruled it ever since — is investing its limited resources digging tunnels leading into Israel for the purposes of a large-scale terror attack or a kidnapping modeled after that of Gilad Shalit in June 2006. At the same time, Hamas still maintains a large number of locally manufactured M-75 rockets, which can reach Tel Aviv and beyond.

The 2009 Goldstone Report — commissioned by the United Nations to investigate the Gaza war, known in Israel as Operation Cast Lead, that year — blasted Israel for targeting the Maqadmeh Mosque in Gaza’s Jabaliya neighborhood, killing 15 people and wounding 40. Goldstone initially accused Israel of deliberately targeting civilians, a claim he retracted in 2011. Israel said at the time that Hamas was firing rockets into Israel from positions adjacent to schools and mosques, and storing ammunition in or close to schools and mosques as well.

Dozens of tunnels are currently being dug into Israel, the IDF estimates, at a cost of over $1 million per tunnel. One such tunnel exposed last October, from Khan Yunis to Kibbutz Ein Hashlosha, ran for 1,700 meters (1 mile) and contained over 500 tons of cement arches. The men employed in the digging of the tunnels belong to the Izz Ad-Din Al-Qassam Brigades, Hamas’s military wing.
Palestinian Hamas security guards walk near an Egyptian watch tower on the border with Egypt in Rafah, southern Gaza Strip, on July 5, 2013 (photo credit: Abed Rahim Khatib/Flash90)

Palestinian Hamas security guards walk near an Egyptian watch tower on the border with Egypt in Rafah, southern Gaza Strip, on July 5, 2013 (photo credit: Abed Rahim Khatib/Flash90)

Both Hamas and Islamic Jihad are maintaining the understandings reached with Israel following Operation Pillar of Defense in November 2012. Since that brief war, the number of rockets fired at Israel from Gaza has dropped dramatically: forty-seven rockets, none of which was fired by Hamas. Last year, Hamas established a special unit comprising hundreds of soldiers to prevent rocket fire at Israel by breakaway factions of Islamic Jihad and other insubordinate groups in the territory.

On Tuesday, Hamas deployed its anti-launching unit along the border with Israel, following a recent escalation in the Strip that included rocket attacks on Israel and retaliations by the Israeli Air Force. Anticipating further attacks from Gaza, the southern city of Ashdod canceled school on Monday, leaving 4,000 pupils at home.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Tuesday warned Gaza’s Hamas rulers not to forget past lessons, alluding to Israel’s decisive showings in the two recent rounds of violence

“We foil terrorist attacks when we identify that they are in the making and we respond against those who attack us,” Netanyahu said. “If Hamas and the other terror organizations forgot this lesson, they will learn it again the hard way and very soon.”

Read more: Hamas placing rockets near water reservoirs, digging dozens of 'terror tunnels' | The Times of Israel Hamas placing rockets near water reservoirs, digging dozens of 'terror tunnels' | The Times of Israel

 

[Phoenall]

Hamas is increasingly using sensitive civilian facilities in Gaza to protect its military assets from being targeted by Israel, ahead of a further round of conflict. It is also digging dozens of “terror tunnels” into Israel, The Times of Israel has learned.

Gaza’s Islamist rulers have been placing rocket launching pads next to water reservoirs, and attaching reconnaissance cameras to mosque minarets and water towers, The Times of Israel was told, in a bid to avoid IAF airstrikes during an upcoming round of confrontation.

The IDF has noticed a recent shift in Hamas’s strategy: While actively preventing rocket launches toward Israel by rogue groups in the Gaza Strip, the Islamist organization — which violently took control of the territory in 2007 and has ruled it ever since — is investing its limited resources digging tunnels leading into Israel for the purposes of a large-scale terror attack or a kidnapping modeled after that of Gilad Shalit in June 2006. At the same time, Hamas still maintains a large number of locally manufactured M-75 rockets, which can reach Tel Aviv and beyond.

The 2009 Goldstone Report — commissioned by the United Nations to investigate the Gaza war, known in Israel as Operation Cast Lead, that year — blasted Israel for targeting the Maqadmeh Mosque in Gaza’s Jabaliya neighborhood, killing 15 people and wounding 40. Goldstone initially accused Israel of deliberately targeting civilians, a claim he retracted in 2011. Israel said at the time that Hamas was firing rockets into Israel from positions adjacent to schools and mosques, and storing ammunition in or close to schools and mosques as well.

Dozens of tunnels are currently being dug into Israel, the IDF estimates, at a cost of over $1 million per tunnel. One such tunnel exposed last October, from Khan Yunis to Kibbutz Ein Hashlosha, ran for 1,700 meters (1 mile) and contained over 500 tons of cement arches. The men employed in the digging of the tunnels belong to the Izz Ad-Din Al-Qassam Brigades, Hamas’s military wing.
Palestinian Hamas security guards walk near an Egyptian watch tower on the border with Egypt in Rafah, southern Gaza Strip, on July 5, 2013 (photo credit: Abed Rahim Khatib/Flash90)

Palestinian Hamas security guards walk near an Egyptian watch tower on the border with Egypt in Rafah, southern Gaza Strip, on July 5, 2013 (photo credit: Abed Rahim Khatib/Flash90)

Both Hamas and Islamic Jihad are maintaining the understandings reached with Israel following Operation Pillar of Defense in November 2012. Since that brief war, the number of rockets fired at Israel from Gaza has dropped dramatically: forty-seven rockets, none of which was fired by Hamas. Last year, Hamas established a special unit comprising hundreds of soldiers to prevent rocket fire at Israel by breakaway factions of Islamic Jihad and other insubordinate groups in the territory.

On Tuesday, Hamas deployed its anti-launching unit along the border with Israel, following a recent escalation in the Strip that included rocket attacks on Israel and retaliations by the Israeli Air Force. Anticipating further attacks from Gaza, the southern city of Ashdod canceled school on Monday, leaving 4,000 pupils at home.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Tuesday warned Gaza’s Hamas rulers not to forget past lessons, alluding to Israel’s decisive showings in the two recent rounds of violence

“We foil terrorist attacks when we identify that they are in the making and we respond against those who attack us,” Netanyahu said. “If Hamas and the other terror organizations forgot this lesson, they will learn it again the hard way and very soon.”

Read more: Hamas placing rockets near water reservoirs, digging dozens of 'terror tunnels' | The Times of Israel Hamas placing rockets near water reservoirs, digging dozens of 'terror tunnels' | The Times of Israel

I wonder how the miners would react to controlled shaped charges being buried in the ground and exploded. A small package in a shaped charge that directs the force of the explosion downwards in a cone shape should collapse any tunnels and trap the terrorists far from home. Even pile driving equipment set up close to the border should deter the muslims as the shock waves will cause subsidence around the tunnels.

 

[Lipush]

Death to Hamas and their helpers

 

[Sweet_Caroline]

So now this is public news do Hamas think Israel will avoid targeting those areas. They show their stupidity more and more. It is the innocent civilians trapped with Hamas as a government that I feel sorry for. Hamas neither cares for its people, nor for its infrastructure which will of course surely be targeted. They can run, but they can't hide.

 

[waltky]

Water Shortages Pose War, Terror Threat...

Why global water shortages pose threat of terror and war
Saturday 8 February 2014 ~ From California to the Middle East, huge areas of the world are drying up and a billion people have no access to safe drinking water. US intelligence is warning of the dangers of shrinking resources and experts say the world is 'standing on a precipice'

On 17 January, scientists downloaded fresh data from a pair of Nasa satellites and distributed the findings among the small group of researchers who track the world's water reserves. At the University of California, Irvine, hydrologist James Famiglietti looked over the data from the gravity-sensing Grace satellites with a rising sense of dread.

The data, released last week, showed California on the verge of an epic drought, with its backup systems of groundwater reserves so run down that the losses could be picked up by satellites orbiting 400km above the Earth's surface. "It was definitely an 'oh my gosh moment'," Famiglietti said. "The groundwater is our strategic reserve. It's our backup, and so where do you go when the backup is gone?" That same day, the state governor, Jerry Brown, declared a drought emergency and appealed to Californians to cut their water use by 20%. "Every day this drought goes on we are going to have to tighten the screws on what people are doing," he said.

An Egyptian farmer shows the dryness of the land due to drought in a farm formerly irrigated by the river Nile.

Seventeen rural communities are in danger of running out of water within 60 days and that number is expected to rise, after the main municipal water distribution system announced it did not have enough supplies and would have to turn off the taps to local agencies. There are other shock moments ahead – and not just for California – in a world where water is increasingly in short supply because of growing demands from agriculture, an expanding population, energy production and climate change.

Already a billion people, or one in seven people on the planet, lack access to safe drinking water. Britain, of course, is currently at the other extreme. Great swaths of the country are drowning in misery, after a series of Atlantic storms off the south-western coast. But that too is part of the picture that has been coming into sharper focus over 12 years of the Grace satellite record. Countries at northern latitudes and in the tropics are getting wetter. But those countries at mid-latitude are running increasingly low on water. "What we see is very much a picture of the wet areas of the Earth getting wetter," Famiglietti said. "Those would be the high latitudes like the Arctic and the lower latitudes like the tropics. The middle latitudes in between, those are already the arid and semi-arid parts of the world and they are getting drier."

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