The Conundrum, Part 5

There is word that Gilad Shalit is still alive, but still no word on when Hamas will release him. Tests confirmed that the letter received was in Shalit's handwriting. Egypt is still trying to push a prisoner swap to secure Shalit's release.

The Palestinians once again show their inhumanity as a Palestinian terrorist uses a child to shield himself from being fired upon by Israeli soldiers, and then proceeds to open fire on those soldiers moments later. This isn't the first time that the Palestinian terrorists have done this, and they regularly put children in harms' way by having them throw rocks at Israeli soldiers to draw fire, especially if there are Palestinian gunmen just down range.

The soldiers had surrounded a house in the Arab village Sanur - not far from the evacuated-and-destroyed Jewish town of Sa-Nur - hoping to catch wanted terrorist Nabil Hanani. Hanani then came out of the house holding a small child.

The soldiers refrained from shooting, as he expected. He then quickly passed the child to a man standing near him and opened fire at the soldiers. The soldiers recovered quickly and killed him with their return fire. No soldiers were hurt.

A similar case occurred last Tuesday in Bethlehem, during the arrest of terrorist cell leader Ali Tzalhat. Tzalhat headed a cell - of which all the members have been killed or arrested by Israeli forces - that was responsible for murdering four Israelis as well as a series of shooting attacks in southern Jerusalem. When the soldiers arrived to arrest him, he came out of the house with a baby in his hands. The soldiers did not shoot, arresting him peacefully instead - as was their plan from the start.

American soldiers have also faced a similar threat in Baghdad's Sadr City, where the Iraqi insurgents have picked up on the Palestinian playbook.

President Bush and Abbas are scheduled to meet later today. I don't expect much to come of the meeting; very little comes from meeting with the Palestinians because they are so utterly incapable of putting down their arms and dealing with Israel peacefully. Abbas can't control Hamas or the other terror groups, let alone Fatah's militant al Aqsa Martyr's Brigade thugs, and the security situation in Gaza is awful.

Israeli authorities also busted a terror funding scheme in a number of Palestinian areas, including Ramallah. More than 10 million shekels were recovered.

The Germans have authorized their navy to begin patrolling off the Lebanese coast. Malaysia is sending 360 peacekeepers to Lebanon.

UPDATE:
Did Hizbullah crack Israeli radio codes during its 34 day war with Israel? Defense Tech has more, including the difficulty of cracking such codes and that the US uses a similar system. Iran appears to have provided the technical details enabling Hizbullah to make this breakthrough. Also, it's noted that a few weeks back that Hizbullah was able to dominate the media war by announcing Israeli casualties before the Israelis were ready to announce them, though it is more likely that Hizbullah was able to intercept cellphone communications, which are far less secure than the military radio systems. Either way, it's a development worth watching. Richard at Hyscience is also worried about what other technologies Iran and Syria have provided proxy armies (aka Islamic terror groups), and what they might yet provide them.

Technorati: terrorism, fatah, Gilad, Shalit, Olmert, Eliyahu, Asheri, Ashri, Abbas, Regev, Goldwasser, PRC, Hamas, Gaza, palestinian, Israel, hizbullah, hezbullah, hezbollah, lebanon, syria.