Before the Hajj started, Elder of Ziyon noted:
Now, Palestine Press Agency reports that Hamas is planning to embarrass Egypt into opening Rafah by demolishing the wall near the crossing and forcing Egypt to directly stop the pilgrims from going to Egypt – or forcing Egypt to let them through. PPA says that Hamas plans to demonstrate on Friday and demolish the wall on Saturday. Whether this is true or not, Hamas is clearly playing political games with their devout Muslim population.
Now in Gaza, Hamas might be planning to do the same at the Israeli border. (via memeorandum)
Israel has put paramilitary police on standby and boosted surveillance along the Gaza border in case Palestinians try to break through into Israel as they did in Egypt last month, security sources said on Sunday.A pro-Hamas group said it would hold a peaceful protest on Monday in which it estimated that 40,000 to 50,000 women and children would form a “human chain” stretching the length of the Gaza Strip. Organisers said they had no intention of breaching the border.
A spokeswoman for the Israeli Defence Forces said: “The IDF is preparing based on reports from the Palestinian media.” She declined to elaborate.
Like Elder of Ziyon noted a few months ago, the intelligence about what’s going to happen was in the Palestinian media.
Hundreds of thousands of Palestinians poured across the Rafah border breach into Egypt to stock up on goods in short supply in the coastal enclave because of an Israeli blockade.
This is the short version. Residents of Gaza flush with cash bought quite a few luxury goods also. And Israel is pretty certain that terrorists and materiel also crossed the border at that time.
LGF observes:
And they’re releasing children from school so they can be on the front line.
Hamas’s stage managers in Iran must think the time is ripe for the usual misdirection that accompanies international attention to their nuclear weapons program.
Or it might just be now that the dry run worked so well in Egypt they want to breach the Israeli border to increase the ease with which terrorists could slip into Israel again.
Crossposted on Soccer Dad.
