Hamas orders West Bank cells to attack Abbas forces and Israel

DEBKAfile Exclusive Report
May 31, 2009

Hamas gears up to shoot missiles from West Bank

DEBKAfile's military sources disclose that Sunday night, May 31, Hamas commanders in Damascus and Gaza ordered all West Bank cells to unleash a terrorist assault on the West Bank with bomb cars, roadside bombs, snipers and missiles. They were told to set their sights on all Palestinian Authority officials including Mahmoud Abbas as well as taking aim at Israeli cities north of Tel Aviv.

Our sources quote the Hamas directive as saying: "From tonight, you must go into action without delay against every Palestinian/Israel target within reach, using all the resources prepared in recent months."

The directive continues: "There are no limits on targets, the more senior, central and important, the better."

Israel's homeland defense authority was notified of Hamas' declaration of war Sunday as it embarked on "Turning Point 3", Israel's largest civil defense exercise ever, designed to simulate simultaneous missile attacks from Iran, Syria, Hizballah from Lebanon and Hamas from the Gaza Strip.

The new Hamas directive placed Sharon towns north of Tel Aviv squarely within its sights. A number of Qassam missiles are believed to be hidden in Palestinian towns in Samaria, northern West Bank.

Hamas leaders' decision to unleash violence was triggered by three events:

1. In 48 hours, the fundamentalist Palestinian terrorists lost two top West Bank leaders in battle. Friday morning, May 29, an Israeli Border Guard counter-terror unit shot dead its Hebron commander, Abdullah Majid Dudin, when he resisted arrest.

Before dawn Sunday, May 31, a special Palestinian Authority unit killed Hamas' northern Samaria commander Muhammad Saman after a seven-hour shootout in Qalqilya.

PA troops also detained 22 members.

Hamas leaders, convinced that Israeli and Palestinian security forces acted in conjunction to liquidate their top commanders, determined not to let this go unanswered.

2. They believe that the Palestinian Authority US-trained security force directed by Gen. Keith Dayton, is not up to much and a determined Hamas offensive would blow the Fatah-led force away on the West Bank as easily as its comrades were defeated in the Gaza Strip.

3. Hamas is worried by the way the US President Barack Obama and Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas are cooperating, as their White House talks Thursday, May 28 indicated. Its leaders are also fiercely opposed to Obama's forthcoming address Thursday, June offering America's hand of peace to the Muslim world.

From their command centers in Damascus and the Gaza Strip, Hamas chiefs have concluded that the most effective way to scuttle the US president's Middle East projects and his diplomatic and financial backing for Abbas' Fatah-led administration in Ramallah is to set the West Bank on fire by a wholesale terror offensive against the Palestinian Authority and Israeli urban targets.
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