Source: Arab-trained Palestinian terrorists have entered Gaza
By Amos Harel, Haaretz Correspondent 9 January 2006
www.haaretzdaily.com/hasen/spages/667749.html

Weapons experts in Palestinian terror groups who have undergone training in
Lebanon, Syria and possibly Iran have recently infiltrated the Gaza Strip, a
senior security official said on Sunday.

The official said that after Israel pulled out of Gaza, several Palestinians
who had attended training camps run by Iranians and Hezbollah members
entered the Strip, apparently from Sinai.

Both Iran and Hezbollah have invested a lot of effort during the last few
years inassisting terror organizations in the West Bank and Gaza, helping
them manufacture explosives and high-trajectory weapons such as Qassam
rockets and mortar shells.

In the past, vast technological knowledge has been transmitted via the
Internet or via memory chips used in laptop computers.

In a few cases, the Shin Bet security service has managed to keep
Palestinian and Israeli Arab couriers from smuggling instructions in making
weapons into the territories. However, even when the instructions do reach
the terror organizations, the groups have difficulty achieving significant
operational improvements. That's why the Palestinians have recently decided
to take advantage of the disengagement and focus on sending weapons experts
themselves into Gaza, which has become easier to do since the pullout.

Most of the experts are Hamas members who specialize in making explosive
devices and improving high-trajectory weapons  -specifically, building
warheads and improving the rockets' aerodynamics. Hamas is primarily
concerned with upgrading its operational ability ahead of a possible renewed
confrontation with Israel. At the moment, however, the organization in Gaza
is for the most part heeding an agreement regarding maintenance of "calm" in
the territories, at least until the Palestinian parliamentary elections at
the end of the month.

Israel has also recently received information, not yet fully confirmed, that
improved Katyusha rockets are being smuggled into the Gaza Strip. These
rockets have a 20-kilometer range and a 6.3-kilogram warhead, and are more
accurate than the Qassam rockets. However, the effectiveness of the improved
weaponry is still limited; Hezbollah and Palestinian terror groups have been
firing similar rockets at Israel from Lebanon for many years, but without
much accuracy.

In the West Bank, Hezbollah activity appears to have declined recently, as
compared to that of Palestinian terror groups. In 2003 and 2004, Hezbollah
was the most prominent cause of terror in the territories: The Israel
Defense Forces estimates that more than 70 percent of the terror attacks in
the West Bank were initiated by the Lebanese group, which provided funding
and general instructions for the attacks, most of which were carried out by
Fatah and Islamic Jihad.

Security officials attribute the decrease in Hezbollah activity to several
factors.

First of all, in contrast to its activity in Lebanon, "the organization
worked on quantity instead of quality," said a security official. "The goal
was to carry out as many terror attacks as possible. As a result, the
Lebanese joined a lot of amateurish cells, a large portion of which we
discovered with relative ease."

In addition, some Palestinian cells reported to Lebanon that they had
carried out terror attacks  -in return for which they demanded and even
received money  -although they had not actually done anything.

For these reasons, Hezbollah has decided to limit its activity in the West
Bank. At the moment, the organization is making sure to demand confirmation
of terror activity from the Palestinian cells with which it maintains
contact. In addition, the Palestinian Authority has discovered that it is
easy to "buy the silence" of terrorists who work with Hezbollah. Many of
them  primarily members of Tanzim, which is affiliated with PA Chairman
Mahmoud Abbas' ruling Fatah party  crossed over to work for the Palestinian
security services in the past year, in exchange for a regular paycheck.