TEL AVIV — Israeli military sources said a would-be Palestinian suicide bomber
slipped past the security fence in the northern Gaza Strip and entered
Israel. He was arrested on July 23 near Kibbutz Nir Am in the western Negev
desert.
It was the first reported infiltration since the intensification of Israeli military
preparations for a withdrawal from the Gaza strip which has diverted forces from normal defense duties.
The insurgent, identified as Jihad Shahada, was said to have planned to
blow himself up in Tel Aviv. The sources said Shehada, an 18-year-old Fatah
operative, was wearing a five-kilogram explosive belt, Middle East Newsline reported.
A military statement said Shahada, a resident of the Jabaliya refugee
camp north of Gaza City, was sent by a Fatah operative named Salem Tabat to
conduct a suicide attack in central Tel Aviv. The statement did not cite a
specific target.
Shahada was accompanied by another Palestinian, who was later caught in
the home of a relative in Jaffa. The 25-year-old Palestinian was meant to
help Shahada find a target in Tel Aviv.
This was the second Fatah suicide bombing attempt from the Gaza Strip in
as many months. In June 2005, a 21-year-old woman tried to cross into Israel
from the Erez terminal with a suicide belt. She was arrested without
incident.
[On Tuesday, an independent group was scheduled to release an 83-page
report, entitled "Palestinian Security Assessment," that warned of a
collapse of PA security forces. The Washington-based Strategic Assessments
Initiative said PA police and security forces faced a huge shortage in
ammunition and weapons in contrast to such well-equipped insurgency groups
as Hamas and Islamic Jihad.]
In 2005, Israel foiled 92 Palestinian infiltration attempts from the
Gaza Strip, the military statement said. Most of the infiltrators were
detected as they approached the high technology security fence around Gaza.
"This is the first Palestinian terrorist who has managed to infiltrate
Israel from inside Gaza since the beginning of the year," the statement
said.
The sources said the Israeli military has been struggling to deploy
sufficient manpower to seal the Gaza Strip from Palestinian infiltration.
Last week, about 17,000 army and police troops were sent to southern Israel
to prevent a march to the Gaza Strip by 40,000 withdrawal opponents.
On July 24, the Israeli daily Hatsofe reported that paramilitary forces
were removed from the Egyptian-Gaza border to stop the marchers. As a
result, the newspaper said, the eight-kilometer border was left unprotected
at several points.
