May 3, 2005
DEBKAfile Special Report
Israeli prime minister Ariel Sharon has all the time in the world for a decision on the fate of the 10,000 Israelis to be uprooted from their homes and the disposition of the properties, farms and businesses they built there. After all, there are still three months to go before the Gaza Strip and northern West Bank are awarded to the Palestinians under his unilateral disengagement plan. Sharon called a special session of senior ministers in Jerusalem Tuesday, May 3, in order to get something decided. Finance minister Binyamin Netanyahu spoke out vehemently against handing evacuated Jewish homes pro bono to the Palestinians. Can you imagine terrorists flying victory flags and dancing on the roofs of the homes of Jewish families whom they bereaved and maimed? Better to tear them down first, he said. Vice prime minister Shimon Peres advised against demolitions and proposed turning the former Jewish towns into holiday homes for the Palestinians. Sharon put off deciding once again.
There is no doubt that the Arafat 1 holiday camp would be a splendid place for Palestinians terrorist commanders to enjoy the pools and lawns of the former Neve Dekalim while supervising at their ease the transfer of surface and anti-aircraft missiles and mortars smuggled in from Egypt to the Gaza Strip and thence to the West Bank. For, while Sharon is in no hurry to move forward, the Palestinians are racing ahead with rearmament plans for the next stage of their war against Israel. They are no longer satisfied with Gaza and Rafah for launching lethal projectiles against sparsely populated southern Israel; now, DEBKAfile’s military sources report, they have moved to Ramallah, the West Bank’s urban hub and the seat of Mahmoud Abbas’ Palestinian government. There, we learn, a chain of small factories are already making Qassam missile components. An assembly line turns out 3 to 5 complete missiles per week. According to our sources, a second row of workshops – also in Ramallah – was fitted out in the last month with assembly lines for mortars and shells.
This information, say DEBKAfile’s sources, was relayed by IDF, police and border guard officers in briefings to local Israeli security teams responsible for the Israeli towns and locations southwest of Ramallah and on the outskirts of Jerusalem: Beit Horon. Givat Zeev, Old Givon, New Givon, the Ofer prison camp for Palestinians and the southern section of Route 443 to Jerusalem.
Three disclosures were contained in the briefing:
1. Palestinian terror tacticians are keeping watch on the protective walls under construction along Route 443 which should be completed in a month. Before then, they will have enough Qassam missiles and mortars to bring the traffic on that vital highway to a halt. A similar offensive is ready for the Trans-Israeli Highway 6 in central Israel. It is being set up by the new Palestinian infrastructure building up in Qalqilya, Jenin and Tulkarm, in the northern West Bank.
2. Palestinian terror chiefs have opted for shooting rather than bombing attacks on Route 443. Israeli high court decisions limited the height of the security fence along the Beit Horon-Jerusalem section - over the objections of the IDF and Border Guard. Specially-trained Palestinians attackers will be able to shoot over the fence while Israeli troops in pursuit will be encumbered by the very fence meant to defend the road. In other words, the new fence will protect the Palestinians while preventing Israeli troops securing the road. This flaw was brought to the attention of senior security authorities but to no avail.
3. The Palestinian can be expected to fill the nights with sniper, missile and mortar fire from Ramallah, in the same way as they do against Israeli locations from the Gaza Strip today.
Witnesses traveling West Bank roads in the last few days report that IDF checkpoints are growing slack. They saw long convoys of waiting Palestinian trucks suddenly waved through without inspection. The terrorists are using this laxness to move their war materiel from one part of the West Bank to another.
The ministers who spent hours Tuesday discussing what to do with the Jewish towns to be evacuated in Gaza seem oblivious to the fact that the northern outskirts of Jerusalem and one of the two highways to the capital are under the eyes of a bustling new terrorist-cum-war production center in Ramallah - alongside the Palestinian Authority administration.
http://www.debka.com/article.php?aid=1022