Hamas terrorists
Hamas terrorists
The barrage of Kassam rocket fire from Gaza during Independence Day celebrations Tuesday was part of an extensive Hamas-led kidnapping operation, thwarted by the IDF.



Dozens of rockets and mortar shells rained down on the western Negev Tuesday morning from various points inside Palestinian Authority-controlled Gaza, according to PA sources.  IDF sources said that only two rockets and eight mortar shells had been identified by Israeli security forces as having landed in Israel.



An IDF spokesman said that only determined IDF action prevented the kidnapping of a soldier during the attack. “Hamas has continued to plan terrorist attacks against the citizens of Israel, cynically using the ceasefire,” read an official IDF statement.  implying criticism of the government’s unilateral ceasefire with the terror group.



Hamas’s Izz a-Din al-Kassam Brigades announced that it had fired 30 rockets and 50 mortar shells at Israeli targets as “a reaction to the continued Zionist crimes against our people in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.”



More than 200 rockets have been fired at Israeli towns since the Olmert government agreed to withdraw IDF forces from Gaza once again in November in return for another promise of a ceasefire.



"The ceasefire has been over for a long time, and Israel is responsible for that," Hamas spokesman Abu Ubeida told PA radio. "This is a message to the Zionist enemy that our strikes will continue. We are ready to kidnap more and more, and kill more and more of your soldiers."



Fatah chief and PA chairman Mahmoud Abbas insisted Wednesday that the Hamas-led attacks were an “abnormal incident” and did not nullify the ceasefire. "The violation of the truce is an exceptional event that will not last," Abbas reportedly told journalists in Rome, where he is a guest. "I take this opportunity to appeal to Israel to show the necessary self-control so that this will not happen again."



Prime Minister Ehud Olmert seemed to have taken Abbas’s advice, declining to convene his security cabinet Tuesday and waiting for a scheduled meeting Wednesday to discuss the response to the attacks with Israel’s security brass.



The government will be submitting a formal protest to the United Nations Security Council Wednesday.



Advance Warning

IDF intelligence knew that Hamas was preparing to carry out additional kidnappings. They were therefore carefully monitoring areas where extensive tunnels have been constructed. It is believed that one of those tunnels was to be used Tuesday to carry out the abduction.



Violence Elsewhere

Two soldiers were lightly wounded by a bomb in Shechem on Tuesday night. The soldiers were brought to a hospital for treatment.



Soldiers arrested a wanted terrorist in Hevron. The terrorist has been transferred to security services for questioning.



Gaza’s Abu-Shareikh clan broke into the Palestinian Legislative Council building in Gaza City Tuesday in protest of the murder of Hassan Abu-Shareikh, who was kidnapped and murdered by a local terrorist group. Family members carried Hassan’s corpse into the building, fired guns into the air, called on PLC members to find and punish Hassan’s killers, and criticized ongoing violence and lawlessness in the region.



A group called “Army of Islam” admitted to killing Hassan, and said that the murder was a mistake. The group praised the Abu-Shareikh family for their support of terrorism against Israel, and said that the individuals responsible for the murder would be brought to justice.