The agency reports that Assif Kahil is in Shifa Hospital in a state of clinical death from poisoning. According to the report, senior Al Qassam Brigades leaders - including Ahmed Al-Jabari and Ahmed Al-Ghandour - visited Kahil's house on Sunday night and then Kahil was rushed to the Shifa Hospital on Monday. Apparently, he was involved in a financial dispute and disagreements over weapons transactions.
Thursday, February 18, 2010
- Thursday, February 18, 2010
- Elder of Ziyon
The agency reports that Assif Kahil is in Shifa Hospital in a state of clinical death from poisoning. According to the report, senior Al Qassam Brigades leaders - including Ahmed Al-Jabari and Ahmed Al-Ghandour - visited Kahil's house on Sunday night and then Kahil was rushed to the Shifa Hospital on Monday. Apparently, he was involved in a financial dispute and disagreements over weapons transactions.
Wednesday, February 17, 2010
- Wednesday, February 17, 2010
- Elder of Ziyon
The Egyptian authorities have released a top Hamas operative wanted by the Palestinian Authority and Israel for his involvement in terror attacks over the past few years, PA officials told The Jerusalem Post on Sunday.At this time, Nahro Massoud is under arrest in Syria for suspicion of helping finger Mahmoud Mabhouh for assassination.
The officials expressed outrage over the release of Nahro Massoud - one of the commanders of Hamas's armed wing, Izzadin Kassam - who fled to Egypt more than a year ago. At the request of the PA, Massoud and several other Hamas fugitives were arrested by the Egyptian security forces and held without trial.
A key security operative of the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas was under arrest in Syria tonight on suspicion of having helped an alleged Israeli hit squad identify Mahmoud al-Mabhouh before he was assassinated in Dubai, the Guardian has learned.So did Egypt - or Israel - work on getting Massoud to be a collaborator, and then release him to help with plots like this one?
Palestinian sources in the Gulf confirmed Nahro Massoud, a Hamas security official, was in detention and under interrogation in Damascus in connection with the 19 January killing, which is now widely assumed to have been mounted by Israel's Mossad secret intelligence service.
Massoud's name first surfaced in the Kuwaiti newspaper al-Siyasah which quoted "a well-informed source" in Dubai as saying he had been with Mabhouh until he was killed, raising questions about his involvement."Hamas suspects that he [Massoud] passed on the information that led to Mabhouh's killing," a senior Palestinian source told Israel's Ma'ariv newspaper.
The story gets better every day.
- Wednesday, February 17, 2010
- Elder of Ziyon
A new report prepared by [the security device west?] claims that the Iranian Revolutionary Guard is training members of the Hamas movement to fire ground-to-ground rockets in the Sudan.It will be recalled that last year, a large weapons convoy was bombed in the Sudan near the Egyptian border, with weapons that are presumed to have been meant for Gaza.
The report adds that the first session focused on the preparation of 14 members of Hamas, who had arrived in Sudan from the Gaza Strip early last December. Some of the graduates returned to the Gaza Strip through tunnels to form the spearhead as leaders and trainers in the cells of the rocket fire. These training sessions are confidential, as a very limited number of employees of the Sudanese armed forces areaware of their existence. And the [Iranian] Quds Force has allocated a budget amounted to $170,000 to cover the costs of the courses in the Sudan, has also allocated a monthly stipend of $300 payable to trainees Hamas while they are in the Sudan.
- Wednesday, February 17, 2010
- Elder of Ziyon
The Brigades of the Martyr Izz el-Deen al-Qassam, military wing of Islamic Resistance Movement of Hamas, confirmed the decision to respond with revenge for the martyrs and the great leader Mahmoud Mabhouh has been made, God willing. We are guardians of the blood, our retribution is coming, and your mission is to live in panic and terror and we will keep you obsessed with fear.
The Qassam Brigades will determine the appropriate mechanism for implementation of our vengeance. We will not tell you how and where and when you will receive our fire of anger, and our masterly performance will be in the time and place of our choosing.
We are very aware of what we say, we do not speak empty words or gestures, but the words are a reflection of what will come. today you hear our words, and tomorrow you will see a fire and bullets and acts of reality, so long as you you take the path of treachery, murder and criminality.
I do not understand why you return throughout history to respond with the assassinations of al-Qassam Brigades leaders and the leaders of our people and Mujahideen. ...[the statement goes through the history of Israeli directed killings of major Hamas leaders, saying that Hamas always came back more powerful and with more innovative methods of killing than before.]
This is less than half the statement, which you have to admire for its almost poetic language of death and terror. In Arabic, they are not shy at all about making threats. You won't find this in the English-language Qassam website, meant more for Western eyes.
- Wednesday, February 17, 2010
- Elder of Ziyon
The Jerusalem Post wrote an article about it, linking back to my find.
JTA quotes the Wiesenthal Center's reaction to the find, as well as Jerusalem Dispatch.
Missing so far is any reaction from the crowd of shrill people who were writing op-eds worldwide about how holy the site is. I imagine that they will soon claim that the Palestine Post lied in 1945 - even though it was against the proposed building complex.
- Wednesday, February 17, 2010
- Elder of Ziyon
A Saudi court has sentenced an employee of the kingdom's religious police to 120 lashes for marrying six women.Who knew the Muttawa had an Internal Affairs unit?The court banned the man from standing as a preacher and leading prayers, ordered him not to travel abroad for a five-year period and to memorize two chapters from the Koran.
The man said he was not educated enough to know that Islam does not allow men to marry more than four women at any one time, said an official at Ahad al-Massarha court in the southern province of Jazan.
"The judge did not believe him. Nobody believed him. I honestly did not," the official told Reuters.
The accused, in his fifties, is not a member of the Saudi Committee for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice's morals squad but holds an administrative position there, the official said.
- Wednesday, February 17, 2010
- Elder of Ziyon
Naturally, the students were aghast. They complained to her about it - after all, as a geography professor, she should be committed to propaganda rather than facts. She answered them that when she said Israel, she meant Israel, which is a nation that is recognized by the whole world, and to rename it Palestine is a delusion.
So, the students went up the chain of command, to the university president. They also started a Facebook campaign against the professor, and have held meetings stressing that such maps should never say "Israel" as this is a form of normalization with a state that they have officially been at peace with for over thirty years.
(corrected "him" to "her", h/t Suzanne, and more information here.)
- Wednesday, February 17, 2010
- Elder of Ziyon
The comments sparked outrage in Arab countries, and the UAE embassy in London clarified that "We did not send a pig; instead we offered something decent that represents our culture and our heritage."Gordon Brown: “There are perks, actually the greatest perk for me is that you’re living in, in a building where you can both work and see your family.”
Piers Morgan: “There must be, I mean, private jets, I mean …”
Gordon Brown: “No you’ve got to, everything’s got to be declared. If you get anything. If someone gives me a present I just hand it back and it’s declared as a gift and I don’t have anything more to do with it.“
Piers Morgan: “You don’t keep any of them?”
Gordon Brown: “No, we don’t keep them, I don’t keep them.”
Piers Morgan: “What’s been the best present you weren’t allowed to keep?”
Gordon Brown: “Er, I think the different governments in the Middle East send huge presents. One actually after a dinner was a full pig that they actually sent, that had been roasted.”
Piers Morgan: “Really?”
Gordon Brown: “And I couldn’t accept it.”
The gift had been a roasted goat.
- Wednesday, February 17, 2010
- Elder of Ziyon
- jonathan cook
Jonathan Cook is an extremist writer who has praised Hamas and has a history of writing lies and fantasies (the latter his prediction in 2007 that Israeli teams will start killing Iranian Jews to get them to leave Iran.)
In this article, originally published in The National (UAE,) Cook is trying to make the yeshiva look as extremist as possible. Apparently, people wearing kippot on their heads are automatically considered "settlers" to bigots like Cook, and he tries mightily to make it look like the yeshiva is causing severe problems in Jaffa. The head of the yeshiva disagrees, but of course Cook isn't interested in writing about both sides of the story.
While Cook talks about the Jaffa Arabs who left in 1948, it is interesting to note that in August, 1947, some 18 Jewish families were forced out of Jaffa by Arab violence - arguably the first refugees of the war. (My original posting lost the newspaper images, sorry.) Muslims went on a killing spree, both against the Jews of Jaffa as well as shooting at Tel Aviv. Later in the year some 5000 more Jews, mostly Yemenites, were forced out of Jaffa as well.
But lying journalists like Jonathan Cook can never be expected to mention such facts in his biased articles that are meant more to incite than inform.
- Wednesday, February 17, 2010
- Elder of Ziyon
Peer has been under strict security since arriving in Dubai, with her hotel floor sealed off and her movements in Dubai restricted.Shahar Peer scored a sensational 6-2 7-5 victory over top seed Caroline Wozniacki at the Dubai Championships, sparked a security problem in the process.
The Israeli athlete was controversially denied entry into the United Arab Emirate nation 12 months ago due to her nationality, sparking a human rights debate.
The former soldier has been heavily guarded throughout this week and has played her matches on the outside courts that are easier to protect.
But after defeating 13th seed Yanina Wickmayer, Virginie Razzano and now Wozniacki, Peer is now into the quarter-finals where she is likely to play in the main arena.
- Wednesday, February 17, 2010
- Elder of Ziyon
Meanwhile, Palestine Press Agency quotes Ma'ariv that Syria may have arrested a senior Hamas official in connection with Mabhouh's assassination - the person who might have been one of the Hamas insiders who collaborated with the hit team.
Tuesday, February 16, 2010
- Tuesday, February 16, 2010
- Elder of Ziyon
The organizers were also warned not to speak to the press about their ordeals.
The organizers felt degraded and shamed as their guests were already arriving at the festival.
Other Valentine's concerts that were going to be held were also canceled on Sunday.
Sermons given the previous Friday railed against celebrating the "Festival of Love," as it is translated, and this might have pressured Hamas into acting against the events.
Although shops publicly displayed items associated with the day, young people were in fear of celebrating publicly, according to the report.