Resetting for the Next Round

Hamas is looking to emulate Hizbullah's tactics in the next round of the war with Israel from Gaza. Hizbullah succeeded in destroying large swaths of South Lebanon in its war with Israel, but now Hamas wants to do the same with Gaza.

Israel's spy chief has given a warning that Palestinian militants in the Gaza Strip are garnering increasing numbers of weapons and tactical expertise from Hezbollah fighters since the war in southern Lebanon erupted earlier this summer.

Yuval Diskin, the director of Shin Bet, Israel's equivalent of MI5, said Egypt's Sinai Peninsula was being used as a terrorist base and fast becoming a haven for arms smugglers preparing to shift their wares into the Gaza Strip.

He added that within Gaza terrorists were building rocket hideouts, a bunker network and an anti-tank missile arsenal as they prepared for an escalated confrontation with Israel.

"If we don't move to counter this smuggling, it will continue and create a situation in Gaza similar to the one in southern Lebanon," he said at a private meeting with Israeli MPs last week.

Hizbullah is also trying to provide longer range rockets and missiles to Hamas for use against Israel, along with tons of ammo and explosive through smuggling tunnels. Israel is also looking at the next round dealing with Iran and Syria directly. Well, that shouldn't surprise anyone since Iran and Syria were both using Hizbullah as their proxy army. When the next round commences, Israel is more likely to strike at the supplier directly.

Israel is also repositioning its forces close to the border with Lebanon.

There's been no progress on talks to release Gilad Shalit, as the media seems to be the only place where there is progress notes Gilad's father Noam. Haniyeh confirms there are talks underway, but the price for Shalit's release is going to be too high for Israel - the release of more than a 1,000 Palestinian prisoners.

The PA and Arab countries are working on a 'peace plan,' but that only means Israel in pieces, and not a real peace.

This is a scary thought, that Israelis took to trusting Hizbullah reports about the situation in Lebanon because the Israeli reports were so scarce.

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

UPDATE - fixed positioning of technorati tags and cleaned up quote.