More Palestinian Blood to be Shed: Israel plans to attack Gaza allegedly to decimate Hamas leadership

Editorial Note: The following news reports may be summaries from original sources. They may also include corrections of Arabic names and political terminology.

Date: 17 / 06 / 2007 Time: 12:00

Bethlehem – Ma'an – British newspaper the Sunday Times reported that Israel's new defence minister and Labor party leader, Ehud Barak, is preparing to attack the Gaza Strip in the coming weeks in order to decimate the Hamas leadership that have recently seized control.

The plans laid out by the new defence minister, call for a short-lived high-impact war, in which 20,000 Israeli troops will be deployed to destroy much of Hamas' military capability within days.

Barak is claiming that the decision to invade was triggered by the launching of Qassam rockets at Israeli towns bordering the Gaza Strip, as well as the threat of suicide bombings in Israel.

Barak is to be sworn in as defence minister on Monday, but even before his term begins he has made plans to deploy two armoured divisions and an infantry division, reported the Sunday Times, to be accompanied by assault drones and F-16 Jets.

Israeli intelligence investigations have revealed that the Israeli forces can expect to be confronted by 12,000 Hamas fighters with weapons obtained during the infighting with Fatah, in which Fatah were defeated.

Israeli officials reported that the Israeli military can expected even more ferocious resistance than they encountered in the war in Lebanon last summer, in which the Israeli forces lost to Hezbollah. The second Lebanese war is now considered by many commentators in Israel and abroad to have been a grave misadventure for Israel.

The Sunday Times reported a source close to Barak as declaring that Israel cannot tolerate an aggressive "Hamastan" on its border and an attack is therefore unavoidable.

“The question is not if but how and when,” he said.

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