Officials said Hamas and Hizbullah were directed by Iran's Islamic
Revolutionary Guard Corps in an effort to raise tension along Israel's
borders.
They said Arabs were being recruited through Facebook and Twitter for
demonstrations supported by the regimes in Beirut and Damascus.
The Army has ordered additional non-lethal weapons — including body
armor, stun grenades, tear gas and rubber bullets — to stop the marches.
But officials acknowledged that live fire would probably be required to halt
thousands of people, many of whom were expected to hurl firebombs and rocks
toward Israeli soldiers.
The military has also acquired indigenous systems. They included such
devices as "Scream," designed to produce a sound that results in nausea, and
"Skunk Bomb," which replicates the animal's emission.
"In the end, the commander on the field will explain exactly what should
happen," Gantz told an army battalion deployed in the Golan Heights on May
18. "The important thing is that commanding in the field is done properly."
Officials said the assaults could also come from Jordan, the West Bank
and Gaza Strip. They said organizers were directing Arabs and Palestinians
to prepare large rocks to hurl toward Israeli checkpoints.
"We met up with something like 500 guys approaching the checkpoint [in
northern Jerusalem]," an Israeli infantry commander, recalling the May 15
protest in the West Bank, said. "In the distance, masked people threw rocks.
For 10 hours, they play cat and mouse. They advance and hold back, hide and
attack."
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