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Originally posted by therealcatman
Hamas denied involvement in the terror attacks on Israel, with the latter claiming Israel was looking for a pretext to attack Gaza.
Funny thing is they always take credit
something fishy going on if u ask me
Midday attacks
The attacks in southern Israel began around noon, when gunmen strafed a bus on route 12, a desert road which flanks the Egyptian border, some 25km north of Eilat.
Most of the windows were shattered but there were very few bullet holes in the bodywork, said an AFP reporter.
Reports said most of the passengers on the bus were Israeli soldiers on their way home from their respective bases for the weekend.
Shortly afterwards, the gunmen detonated a roadside bomb as a military vehicle rushed to the scene; they also opened fire on a second bus, killing the driver.
In another incident on route 90, a desert road near the Jordanian border, gunmen fired an RPG at cars some 15km north of Eilat, security sources said. Medics said five victims died in that attack, four of whom were in a civilian car.
It was not immediately clear where the seventh victim, a soldier, was killed.
Israeli troops quickly locked down the area and engaged in a running gunbattle with the group that ended with seven of the attackers killed, Tal Russo, head of the army's southern command, told AFP.
Russo said two were shot dead in Israeli territory, while a third blew himself up with explosives strapped to his body.
Four more were killed on the Egyptian side of the border - two shot dead by Israeli troops firing across the border, and another two shot by Egyptian forces, he said.
There was no confirmation by Egyptian officials.
Taher Nunu, a spokesman for the Hamas government, denied the militants’ complicity, saying Hamas “has nothing to do with these attacks.”
But the Israeli military said the attacks had been executed by a Hamas-linked group known as the Popular Resistance Committees, and that their objective had been to kidnap civilians or soldiers.
Read more: www.dailystar.com.lb...
(The Daily Star :: Lebanon News :: www.dailystar.com.lb...)
But of course, that's only if they're not busy blowing each other's heads off !! $$$$
The New York Times published an editorial on Sunday criticizing the expected vote on Palestinian statehood at the United Nations in September, saying its “consequences could be profoundly damaging for all involved.”......
It argued only direct talks between Israel and the Palestinians could effectively revive the peace process. The best way of achieving such an outcome, it said, was for Washington to present a new outline for talks between the two with the backing of the international community.
But the Israeli military said the attacks had been executed by a Hamas-linked group known as the Popular Resistance Committees, and that their objective had been to kidnap civilians or soldiers.
Read more: www.dailystar.com.lb...
(The Daily Star :: Lebanon News :: www.dailystar.com.lb...)
Im not familiar with that group... Anyone have info on them?
The Popular Resistance Committees (PRC) (Arabic: لجان المقاومة الشعبية) are a coalition of various armed Palestinian factions that oppose the conciliatory approach adopted by the Palestinian Authority and Fatah towards Israel. Active in the Gaza Strip, the military wing of the PRC is the al-Naser Salah ad-Din Brigades.[1]
Set up in late 2000 by former Fatah and Tanzim member Jamal Abu Samhadana, the PRC are composed primarily of ex-Fatah fighters and al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades members and are alleged by Israel to be inspired and financed by Hezbollah. The PRC specializes in planting roadside bombs and vehicle explosive charges - directed against military and civilian convoys in the Gaza Strip. The PRC is described as a terrorist organization by Israel and the United States. The group's military wing is known as the An-Nasser Salah Ad-Din Brigades.
The Popular Resistance Committee is an umbrella group made up of militants from different armed factions.
However fighters from the two groups have staged joint coordinated attacks in the past years and the PRC's leaders took similar political positions to that of Hamas regarding the Palestinian Authority's peace moves with Israel.
Ecstasy, along with marijuana, hashish, heroin, and coc aine, is heavily used and traded in Israel today, in what some call a sign of the times. Contemporary Israel is an affluent, drug-consuming country-with an estimated 300,000 casual drug users and some 20,000 junkies. There are no reliable statistics on Ecstasy use in Israel, but in 2000 alone, police confiscated 270,000 Ecstasy tablets from smugglers, students, and partygoers in a series of stings. That same year, according to an online report by the Israeli Authority for Combating Drugs, Israeli agents confiscated more than 80 kilograms of heroin, 30 kilograms of hashish, 8,885 kilograms of marijuana, and nearly 8,000 "sheets" (resembling sheets of postage stamps) of '___'. Those numbers may pale beside comparable statistics for the United States where, according to U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) estimates, more than 15 million junkies reside. But they add up to serious drug problems, especially among Israeli youth-and have led to commando-style raids in tree-lined residential neighborhoods of Jerusalem, Haifa, and Tel Aviv. According to a report of the United Nations Office for Drug Control and Crime Prevention, 75 percent of all crime in Israel is drug-related. And, compounding Israel's worries, the drug trade has led to troubling breaches of Israel's borders with Egypt, Lebanon, and Jordan……..
According to a U.S. State Department White Paper on Global Narcotics, issued in 1998, the Jewish State is "a drug-consuming country with serious marijuana, hashish and heroin use, and a growing problem of coc aine, '___', and amphetamine consumption." But perhaps more striking, the report found that Israel is "no longer just a user nation, but like Colombia, Thailand and Pakistan, it has also now become a trafficking power." Authorities say Israeli crime groups have for several years had a virtual monopoly on global distribution of Ecstasy (though police say Russians are also major players, and Colombian and Dominican groups, realizing the potential for profits, are gaining ground.)….
"Nobody suspects nice Jewish kids [of] being dope smugglers," says a former NYPD detective in the Manhattan District Attorney's office, "especially Orthodox Jews."
The Israeli mafia is the general term for organized crime groups operating in Israel and also internationally. Allegedly there are 16 crime families operating in Israel, five major groups active on the national-level, and 11 smaller organizations. Many heads and members of the crime groups have either been killed or are in prison…
Organized crime in Israel
The major crime groups are the Abergils, the Abutbuls, the Alperons, the Dumranis, the Shirazis, the Amir Mulner and Zeev Rosenstein syndicates.[1] The illegal activities they are engaged in include:
Operating casinos and other forms of gambling inside and outside Israel
Prostitution and trafficking in women
Money Laundering
Protection and extortion rackets
Loan sharking
Drugs and arms dealing
Fencing stolen goods
Diamond smuggling
According to Israel’s former Police Commissioner David Cohen, Israeli crime organizations had penetrated the formal economic sector and local governments, and “equipped themselves with large quantities of combat means explosives and arms.” In a mob war starting in the early 2000s between the crime families, several crime bosses were killed. It also cost the life of innocent bystanders.
Ex-Soviet organized crime
Ex-Soviet organized crime in Israel began with the mass immigration of Russian Jews to Israel in 1989.[3] The Russian mafia saw Israel as an ideal place to launder money, as Israel's banking system was designed to encourage aliyah, the immigration of Jews, and the accompanying capital. Following the trend of global financial deregulation, Israel had also implemented legislation aimed at easing the movement of capital. Combined with the lack of anti-money laundering legislation, "Russian" organised crime found it an easy place to transfer ill-gotten gains. In 2005, police estimated that Russian organised crime had laundered between $5 and 10 billion in the fifteen years since the end of the Soviet Union. Even non-Jewish criminals such as Sergei Mikhailov, sought to get an Israeli passport, using fake Jewish documentation.
$$
Israel is party to the 1961, 1971 Drug Control Conventions. It has acceded to but not yet ratified the 1988 convention. However, no legislation is currently planned for the implementation of article 12 of the 1988 convention. Israel regularly complies with its reporting requirements under the treaties. In February 1998, the INCB has fielded a mission to the territories under the jurisdiction of the Palestinian Authority and Israel to assess the situation with regard to the implementation of the international drug control treaties. The Government of Israel holds the view that, due to the mixed sovereignty in the Palestinian Autonomous Areas, the treaties are currently not applicable in these areas.
Trafficking in Israel mainly supplies the local market. Lebanon is frequently cited as a prime source in this respect, also for trafficking of coc aine from South America through family-based networks. However, these sources appear to reflect the situation in the early nineties. Recent reports point to an increasing trafficking of heroin in Jordan. Given the small market in Jordan, a significant amount of this heroin may be destined for Israel. Most synthetic drugs are are reported to be trafficked from Europe, mainly the Netherlands….
Drug abuse is spread among all social strata in Israel. The main drugs of abuse are cannabis and heroin, heroin has become more prominent in the recent years. In 1996 reports, Israeli authorities reported a rise in the consumption of coc aine and a sharp increase in the use of '___' and amphetamines. In addition, the authorities are concerabout the widespread abuse of tranquilizers. The drug-related crimes are reported to represent 75% of the total crimes committed in Israel.