The Hamas commander was in a hurry. Hunched forward in a navy-blue parka, with
the wind-chapped skin and drawn eyes of someone who had been outdoors all
night, he had just returned from the front line with Israel. The whine of
drones overhead signalled that his enemy was hunting for blood.
For someone who had survived the fiercest fighting between Israelis and
Palestinians since 2000 and the deaths of scores of his fellow fighters, the
commander, already a senior figure in his late twenties, appeared remarkably
composed.
He is in the vanguard of the Izzedine al-Qassam Brigades, the military wing of
Hamas which is growing into a disciplined army, trained to fight for victory
rather than be consigned to the “martyr’s death” of the suicide bomber.
Israel has long insisted that Iran is behind this training. Last week Yuval
Diskin, the head of the Israeli internal security service Shin Bet, said as
much when he claimed that Hamas had “started to dispatch people to Iran,
tens and a promise of hundreds”. He provided no evidence.
The Hamas commander, however, confirmed for the first time that the Iranian
Revolutionary Guard has been training its men in Tehran for more than two
years and is currently honing the skills of 150 fighters.
The details he gave suggested that, if anything, Shin Bet has underestimated
the extent of Iran’s influence on Hamas’s increasingly sophisticated tactics
and weaponry.
Speaking on the record but withholding his identity as a target of Israeli
forces, the commander, who has a sparse moustache and oiled black hair, said
Hamas had been sending fighters to Iran for training in both field tactics
and weapons technology since Israeli troops pulled out of the Gaza strip of
Palestinian territory in 2005. Others go to Syria for more basic training.
“We have sent seven ‘courses’ of our fighters to Iran,” he said. “During each
course, the group receives training that he will use to increase our
capacity to fight.”
The most promising members of each group stay longer for an advanced course
and return as trainers themselves, he said.
So far, 150 members of Qassam have passed through training in Tehran, where
they study for between 45 days and six months at a closed military base
under the command of the elite Revolutionary Guard force.
Of the additional 150 who are in Tehran now, some will go into Hamas’s
research unit if they are not deemed strong enough for fighting.
Conditions at the base are strict, the commander said. The Palestinians are
allowed out only one day a week. Even then, they may leave the base only in
a group and with Iranian security. They shop and “always come back with
really good boots”.
According to the commander, a further 650 Hamas fighters have trained in Syria
under instructors who learnt their techniques in Iran. Sixty-two are in
Syria now.
But what Hamas values most is the knowledge that comes directly from Iran.
Some of it was used to devastating effect by the militant group Hezbollah
against Israeli forces in Lebanon in 2006.
“They come home with more abilities that we need,” said the Hamas commander,
“such as high-tech capabilities, knowledge about land mines and rockets,
sniping, and fighting tactics like the ones used by Hezbollah, when they
were able to come out of tunnels from behind the Israelis and attack them
successfully.
“Those who go to Iran have to swear on the Koran not to reveal details, even
to their mothers.”
He said the Hamas military, which numbers about 15,000 fighters, was modelling
itself on Hezbollah. “We don’t have tanks. We don’t have planes. We are
street fighters and we will use our own ways,” he said.
Nodding in agreement was his companion, another senior Qassam fighter, from
Hamas’s manufacturing wing. Dressed in a new, olive-green uniform, he said
his job entailed “cooking” – putting together the explosive mixture that
Hamas inserts into Qassam rockets.
Everyone was working overtime, he added. He too had been out all night. He
said he had launched five mortars and faced heavy machinegun fire in return
from Israeli lines.
The commander was particularly impressed with advances made using Iranian
technology. “One of the things that has been helpful is that they have
taught us how to use the most ordinary things we have here and make them
into explosives,” he said.
Such technology had been most useful of all in developing the Qassam rocket
and mines deployed against Israeli tanks.
Hamas had just developed the Shawas 4, a new generation of mine, with Iranian
expertise, he added.
“We send our best brains to Tehran. It would be a waste of money to send them
and then have them come back with nothing.”
They travelled to Egypt, flew to Syria and, on arrival and departure from
Tehran, were allowed through without a stamp for security reasons.
“Anything they think will be useful, our guys there e-mail it to us right
away,” the military technician said. THE latest spiral of violence, which
has killed 130 Palestinians and 12 Israelis, including eight students
massacred at their seminary in Jerusalem last Thursday, was triggered 10
days ago by a chance event.
For weeks, Hamas had been launching rockets into Israel to little effect. But
then a rocket aimed at Sderot, a town in the western Negev desert, killed
Roni Yichia, a 47-year-old mature student, as he stood in his college car
park. The next day, Israel launched the fierce ground and air assault on
Gaza dubbed Operation Hot Winter.
Its targets, as Hamas intensified the rocket attacks, ranged from Qassam
launchers in the northern Gaza Strip to the interior ministry in the centre
of Gaza City. Last week, as the blasts and counter-blasts subsided, it was
not only Hamas that was counting its losses. As many civilians as fighters
had died.
Ra’ad Abu Seif, a 40-year-old lorry driver, had herded his family into an
interior room as their street exploded. His 12-year-old daughter Safa ran to
an upstairs flat to fetch her uncle. An Israeli sniper shot her just below
the heart, he said.
Abu Seif heard screams and ran to find her lying on the floor. “I didn’t see
the bullet hole so I picked her up and then I felt the blood on her back,”
he said. “We put her by the water tank and opened her clothes and found the
bullet holes.
“We tried to close the holes by holding them and putting cotton on them,” he
said. Safa lived for two more hours. “Then her head went back, and her eyes
rolled,” he said, covering his face with his hands. “The one who shot her, I
just want to ask him, how can you be a human being and shoot a little kid?”
Abu Seif blames not only Israel but Hamas as well. “They have been firing
these rockets for seven years, and look what happens,” he said. “Hamas
should admit it has made a mistake and try another path.”
A short distance away, Mohamed Abu Shabak was mourning his daughter
Jacqueline, 17, and son Iyad, 16. He sat gaping at a hole in a second-floor
window that he said had been made by an Israeli sniper. His hand shook and
he could not speak for a while.
Iyad was the first to die. He had got up at about 1am to go to the lavatory
and was hit in the chest by a single shot through the window. Jacqueline
came running in and was shot in the head.
Their father was in the West Bank city of Ramallah, having fled Gaza because
he was an official in the Fatah administration deposed by Hamas last year,
and was on the militants’ wanted list.
The last time he spoke to Jacqueline, who wanted to be a doctor, she had
minutes to live. “She called to tell me, father I am so scared, there is
shooting everywhere. She was worried about her 12-year-old brother,
Mohamed,” he said.
When the Israelis withdrew last Monday, Hamas claimed victory, but it did not
seem like one to many in Gaza. Attacks continued from both sides last week.
One of them would claim the youngest victim of the conflict.
Mohamed Abu Asser, a 37-year-old taxi driver, and his wife, Nadia, 30, took
their two youngest daughters, two-year-old Nadine and 20-day-old Amira, to
visit a sick friend of the family last Tuesday.
This weekend, however, Nadia lay in a hospital bed. Large tears spilled from
her eyes as she described how Amira had died.
“We heard fierce shooting,” Nadia recalled. “The Israelis called over the
microphone to evacuate the house. But when I went out, holding up my baby, a
small red light came on me and they shot me. They didn’t let the ambulance
come for three hours.”
Her husband told the same story. “We decided Nadia should go out first, with
the baby – they would be less likely to shoot her,” he said. “Now my first
photo of my smiley baby is when she is dead.”
Tragedy came to Israel as well. At 8.30pm on Thursday, Alaa Abu Dheim, a
25-year-old driver from largely Palestinian east Jerusalem, arrived at the
entrance to Mercaz Harav seminary, carrying a big television box. He took an
AK47 out of the box and shot his way in, carrying magazines as well as two
hand guns.
While a student whispered for help to emergency services over his mobile, Abu
Dheim was calmly replacing his AK47 magazines, one after another, and
killing students trapped in the library with shots to the head.
He was eventually killed by David Shapira, an Israeli para-troop captain on
leave, who had been reading a bedtime story to his children when he heard
the shots and ran to the seminary.
Yehuda Hillel Shulman, 19, was one of the nine wounded who were still in
hospital this weekend. His mother Miriam said that when the first shots were
heard, a rabbi had turned off the lights and told his students to jump from
a balcony.
“They all jumped out of the second floor and that’s how they saved their
lives, before Abu Dheim reached their room. The rabbi was the last to jump,”
she said.
Gaza’s gunmen poured into the streets on hearing the news, shooting into the
air in celebration of the massacre. CAN anything be done to stem the
bloodshed? Tortuous negotiations in which Egypt acted as an intermediary
produced a truce that was still in place yesterday. But any further incident
could result in another Israeli incursion.
Condoleezza Rice, the American secretary of state, also persuaded Fatah’s
Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, to resume talks with Israel, but he
has not said when.
Hamas, which is pledged to destroy Israel, remains excluded from any
negotiations. But it emerged this weekend that senior members of the Israeli
security establishment were urging the government of Ehud Olmert to talk to
Hamas. They believe any agreement made without Hamas would fail.
Fundamentally, however, the real problem may be that much of Hamas seems
willing to fight on for “liberation”, no matter how hopeless the cause.
The conflict is further complicated by the role of Iran which, by supporting
Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in Gaza, has created two potential fronts for
Israel. If Israel’s military is occupied with an internal threat, its
reasoning goes, Olmert will be loath to mount the attack Tehran fears on its
nuclear programme.
As for the Hamas commander, he is focused on making sure his forces are
equipped and trained for the next Israeli incursion. “They are occupying us,
we are not occupying them,” he said. “We will never stop resisting.”
Reformers banned from poll
A record low turnout is expected in Iran’s parliamentary elections this week
after the ruling hardliners banned the majority of reformist candidates from
standing.
Despite a faltering economy, runaway inflation, falling living standards and
international isolation, the elections pose little threat to the deeply
conservative regime led by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
The Council of Guardians, which decides the legitimacy of candidates, barred
reformers including Ali Eshraghi, 39, the grandson of Iran’s late
revolutionary leader Ayatollah Khomeini.
The conservatives, known as the principalists, backed by Ahmadinejad are
virtually assured of 70% of the 290 parliamentary seats because of the
guardians’ decisions.
Joe (Edinburgh)
I am horrified that you know so little about the history of the Holocaust.
Jews did a great deal - there were Jews who begged the Allies to bomb Auschwitz, who even committed suicide to draw attention to the murder of their families but nobody wanted to listen - hence the US State Department official who wrote in response to passionate pleas for assistance that it was just "whining Jews". Similarly there were rebellions against the holocaust - notably the Warsaw Ghetto uprising, and the blowing-up of some of the murder facilities at Auschwitz. You are lamentably poorly informed about this.
Churchill is about the only politician of the day who comes out of WWII with honour - he wanted to bomb the tracks and stop the "deportations" but was vetoed because it would take resources away from fighting the war - paradoxical because that was just what the Germans were doing to destroy the Jews.
Get your facts right.
Rabbi, Liverpool, UK
The truth is that Western countries are not care about Democracy and human right in the middle East , all they want, is to have control on the oil and Gas resources.So , the best thing to achieve this aim, is to have a state like Israel in the heart of the reigon. Looka at different criterias of human right and Democracy that they apply on facing different countries,( For example, Saudi Arabia and Iran, the former is an important
ally for the Uk and USA, and the latter is an enemy).
That is true, israel and the west support palestinians right to exist, but what kind of government do they want to run the palestinain state?1
Azad
Azad, Uk,
Iran apparently involved again ! But there is no proof, just alligations from those who see Iran as a threat. i.e Israel/USA. unless the world wakes up and stops beleiving the mass media and propoganda on all are television sets, we are doomed. peace in the middle east !! Peace in the middle east !!
emile , London, United Kingdom
The Israeli soldiers are being blaimed for all the deaths in the Gaza, and yet they never once stop to consider the facts
1. The IDF informs them (the Palestinians) when they are about to invade. When was the last time Hamas gave a warning?
2. The IDF attacks in response to Hamas' incessent rocket attacks and suicide bombers.
3. The IDF does not purposefully target civilians. The Palestinians celebrate civilian deaths (most sickening fact of all)
4. Israel is trying to negotiate peace, unfortunately they are negotiating with lunatics (Hamas) who feel they have every right to kill innocent people.
Eleanor, Charleston, South Carolina
Ron Cohen - your analogy is so wrong - some the victims were boys aged 15 at a religious school - so imagine some school boys at whatever school - does it really make a difference - killed by a gunman. Sure other victims were older and served in the army but in Israel there is near compulsory draft and people who don't serve are considered as they would be in any other country in a similar situation, as leaving others, unfairly to shoulder the burden. As for what they learn - have you got any clue as to their curriculum? The Bible and endless commentaries by the rabbis.
js, london,
To Suha Khouri,
Israel DOES recognise Palestine's right to exist! Peace talks all focus on a two state solution and Israel have withdrawn from Gaza, allowing it to be self-governing, thus recognising this right. It is Hamas who refuse to recognise Israel's right to exist and who will settle for nothing more than the complete destruction of the State of Israel.
Ruth, Cambridge,
All civilian Palestinian deaths should be laid at the feet of Hamas! Not only do they purposefully target Israeli civilians, but then they hide among their own women and children, knowing that this will cause them to die, which will be disadvantageous to Israel in the long run.
joe, ny, ny,
Curious, long sad descriptions of Palestinian casualties and not a line about the Israelis who were killed. Roni Yichia, killed by a qassam, was the father of four, three of whom are under 14yrs old. During the funeral, his wife Ester screamed in pain: "I love you, Roni, you left so young. How will I manage without you?" Yechiah's daughter was also grief-stricken by the sudden loss: "What will we do? I want my dad," she said while weeping.
Eric, CIncinnati, OH
Hamas should learn from Hizballah, who also received training from Iran, to abide by the rules of the game. Not to kill civilians, attack military targets only, and cut it out with the suicide bombing. That's how Hizballah gained (more widespread) legitimacy and drove Israel out of Lebanon. Only a clean fight will win the propaganda war and maybe, just maybe force Israel to recognize Palestine's "right to exist".
Suha Khouri, Beirut, Lebanon
Are Jews the only people enslaved by the Roman Empire not to get their country back?
Why does the world not allow Isreal to defend herself?
Will those who want Jews to return Isreal to the Palestinians tells us where they want them to go.? To what country ( remembering 2000 years of Christian persecution) or is it to the gas chambers.?
When condoning Palastinian and Muslim hatred of Jews please give your solution to the problem.
wilma, brisbane, Qld
Try to imagine an academic institution running by the BNP where the students spending their time learning white supremacy and doing military training then you will have an idea of what this "religious seminar" is about.
ron cohen, London, UK
So a highly trained sniper killed a 12 year old girl so does that mean it was a regrettable mistake, incompetence or complete disregard for any and all Palestinians.
I have to think that the sniper knew what he was shooting at and simply did not care.
As for the fact that the Jews were killed on mass 65 years ago and the rest of the world did nothing; well lets also remember the Jews themselves did nothing and the World really did not believe or know it was happening until the very end.
I would be more inclined to support Israel if they did not manage accidentally to kill so many innocents.
I am disgusted with both sides and neither of you have the moral high ground or right to murder innocents either deliberately or by accident.
joe, Edinburgh, Scotland
Dave Hall - The generally accepted best estimates of Dresden deaths are around the 35,000 mark. Around the same number of jews the Nazis were murdering every single week during the last three years of the war. So, if the Dresden bombing shortened the war by one week . . . awful arithmetic but that's war.
Mac, London,
The Hamas commander states (quote) "We do not have tanks, we do not have planes, we are street fighters, we find our own ways..". This has an echo of the 1942 battle of Stalingrad, where German tanks were thwarted by mountains of rubble from destroyed buildings , and fanatical diehard Soviet troops used this wreckage as cover. No doubt the Iranian and Hamas intelligence organisations have studied their history well. The brilliant military analysts of Iran have undoubtedly also learned from the Israeli strategy of using proxies on their fighting zones. Increasingly nowadays it sounds like Israel"s chickens are all coming home to roost.
Augustus Blear, Langport, UK
Minu, a few things have happened since 1947, which was over 60 years ago. For instance, the Oslo peace process all through the 1990s. The Israeli withdrawal from Gaza in 2005 and the uprooting of all the settlements there. The mutual acceptance of the two state solution and the progress on finding a solution for East Jerusalem and the descendants of the 1948 refugees. Why did the Second Intifada commence in 2000 when Clinton, Barak and Arafat were on the brink of a permanent solution? Why have the Palestinians been firing rockets into Israel AFTER Israel totally evacuated Gaza - and why did the rocket fire increase dramatically after the Annapolis process commenced? This is the question, the only question, to be asked today. The rest is for the historians.
Sharon, Ganei Tikva, Israel
I agree that people should not celebrate when innocent cilvilians are killed. Most affected are the civilians and I wish people from both sides will do enough to bring lasting peace to the Holy land. One need to realise also that by dispalcing palestinians from their homeland and depriving of their basic rights you can't expect them to sit tight and behave as civilized people. These people have no house, no health care and no education. We need to look at the root problem.
If I get thrown out of my house dont expect me to be a Gandhi. So Jewish people should also remember that you are unjust to the palestinian by building more towns in their homeland, kicking them out of their houses, economically depriving them.
This is a problem which started in 1947. So pls understand the history before we blame one another.
Minu, London, UK
"I wonder what British response would be to to weekly rocket attacks coming from Wales... "
spanner, California, uSA.
Britain gave Germany _Dresden during ww2 , killed about 250 thousand men , woman and children in a firestorm in 1 night .
Israel is the only country in the world who is not allowed to defend herself .
dave hall, canada, canada
Jayil, it seems you have missed the point here. Israel is working, along with the US to negotiate for the emergence of the Palestinian state, which is generally agreed to be the answer to that region's problems. The soldier's training is totally different to that provided by iran- it is to avoid hitting civilians as much as possible- pretty difficult when the enemy are hiding behind them, wouldn't you say?
Ultimately, when all the dictatorships in the region have fallen, there will be some kind of EU-type federation of free countries, including Israel as a prominent member. Whilst this now seems light-years away, don't forget the 'velvet revolution' in the former USSR. The people may wake up from their daze and just demand a better way of life, press freedom and all the other good things Westerners enjoy daily.
Until that day dawns people need to think for themselves and see through propaganda. The phrase 'sometimes your best friends are your worst enemies' rings so true here.
Gideon D, Kashiwa, Japan
i want to clarify a few points (and i'm sorry if my english is not perfect):
1) israel and the IDF are never targeting civilians! yes, unfortunately civilians has been killed in the idf lasd raid in gaza, but only because hamas is firing rockets from school yards, and neighborhoods. and uses civilians as a humen shield!
2) the big majority of the deads were gunmen and not an innocet civilians!
3) israelis are not dancing in the streets and eating sweets when palestinians are killed (yes, even when it's terrorists). on the other hand the palestinians are celebrating every death of a jew.
4) you can not compare between harming civilians by mistake (what we very sorry aboute) to a deliberate attack on innocet students.
5) israel is not deny the palestinians right to exist, but hamas and iran are saying loud and clear that israel has no right to exist.
6) 65 years ago jews has been slaughtered and the world did nothing - never again!!! now we have every right to defend ourselvs.
eyal, jerusalem, israel
The surprise in this article is the Hamas commander's truthfulness. To Westerm media, the usual reason for jihad is we are "in their lands."
Ultra-conservative Islam demands us (infidels) to convert, pay ransom to live under Islamic rule as second class citizens, or they must kill us.
We support Israel, the only secular democracy in the region. Their armed forces, like ours, carry out the legislated will of their elected government. I'm amazed at their restraint.
I wonder what British response would be to to weekly rocket attacks coming from Wales...
spanner, California, usa
Jayil,
The big differnece which you and most of the arab/persian/islamic world forget is Israel, the US etc all accept and want a palestinian state to exist. Hamas & Iran donot accept Israel's right to exist. The morals of the situation are worlds apart. Firing rockets randomly into civilian areas or shooting unarmed students at a school is morally so different from targeting the rocket firers (self defence for starters) & unfortunatley killing civilians that the rocket firers use as cover. Until Hamas, Iran, etc accept israels right to exist then we will go nowhere. Hamas need to maintain the conflict to maintain their own political power base as no conflict = no 'resistance' =no need for hamas= no power. The same goes for Iran. It exeternalises/nationalises the politics to divert attention from their poor internal administration. Without maintaining war with israel neither Hamas or the fool in Tehren would be able to remain in power. They are using their populace for their own needs
C, brisbane,
So, does it make it right? Or do you believe that just because one side does something bad that it makes it ok for the other side to escalate?
AJ, Los Angeles, USA
"Iran trains Hamas to wage war on Israel"
U.S provides full training with added fighter jets, tanks, laser guided missiles, smart bombs, cluster bombs...etc, most importanly billions in aid, a blank cheque and vito powers to Israel. Which are all used to wage war against Palestinian civilians.
To complain about 'others' aiding Palestine is double standards of the highest level.
jayil, london, uk