JERUSALEM Ñ For the first time, a Palestinian insurgency group has
explicitly threatened to launch nonconventional weapons attacks against
Israel.
The Hamas movement said in a memorandum that it has been experimenting
with chemical weapons for attacks against Israel. The movement said that so
far the attempts to produce such weapons have failed.
The Islamic insurgency group has claimed responsibility for most of the
suicide attacks against Israeli targets. The Hamas memo listed the group's
aim as using chemical weapons that would ensure that survivors of the
initial blast would die from poisoning.
"The idea of using chemical substances in explosive devices is not new,
but all experiments have failed so far," the memo released by Israeli
military sources said.
"The chemical substance loses its effectiveness in the heat caused by the
explosion, and usually, we were using quite simple chemicals. But when we
acquire the techniques of using those materials, a new gate will open in the
development of suicide attacks, with the help of Allah."
The group expressed confidence that it would succeed in developing
chemical weapons. Once this takes place, the group said, Hamas would carry
out what it termed would be massacres in Israel.
The Hamas warning was issued as Israeli authorities report that five
Palestinian suicide bombers have been sent to carry out attacks in the
Jewish state. Officials said three attempted suicide attacks were foiled in
the Jerusalem area.
"The terrorists are trying to carry out mega-attacks," Defense Minister
Binyamin Ben-Eliezer said. "They have gathered huge amounts of explosives in
trucks and other vehicles."
So far, Hamas, which later denied the memo, has tried to use cyanide and
rat poison in suicide bombings, Israeli officials said. The attempts failed
because of the difficulties in weaponizing cyanide and the failure in
preventing the heat of the blast from neutralizing the lethal agents.
Israeli officials said no Palestinian group has ever explicitly
threatened to launch nonconventional weapons attacks against the Jewish
state. They said Hamas has organized other Palestinian insurgency groups in
a campaign to attack Israeli civilian and military targets in the northern
Gaza Strip.
