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Friday, July 16, 2010     INTELLIGENCE BRIEFING

Hamas moves to block unauthorized attacks
on Israel

GAZA CITY — Sources say Hamas believes the 2008 war with Israel was the result of daily Palestinian missile and rocket attacks on Israel that were conducted without authorization by either the Islamic regime's political or military leadership.

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More than 1,000 Palestinians were killed in Israeli air and ground strikes, about half of them Hamas combatants, the sources said. They said an internal investigation recommended a reshuffle of the Hamas officer corps and the dismissal of at least 50 commanders.

The sources say that, currently, Hamas's military appears split over abiding by regulations meant to centralize control in the Gaza Strip.


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Hamas sources said Interior Minister Fathi Hamad has imposed orders that ban operations without the approval of the Hamas leadership. The sources said Hamad's decision has been endorsed by Hamas military chief of staff Ahmed Jabari.

"There is a growing feeling that without iron discipline we will enter another confrontation with the Zionist enemy [Israel] before we are ready," a Hamas source said.

Two of the dismissed commanders were identified as Imad Akel and Bassam Issa. Akel and Issa served as Hamas brigade commanders in the central Gaza Strip and were blamed for failing to follow orders from Jabari.

The sources said Akel and Issa, however, continued to wield power within Hamas's military. They said the two officers have organized other combatants and were refusing to follow orders from a Hamas leadership that they assert was being controlled by Iran.

Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, blamed for the Hamas failure to block Israel's invasion of the Gaza Strip, has increased control over the military in the Gaza Strip. The sources said IRGC's liasion in Lebanon, Hassan Mahdawi, has been working to restructure the Hamas military in an effort similar to that undergone by Hizbullah following the 2006 war with Israel.

A key IRGC recommendation was that Hamad maintain responsibility for Hamas's Executive Force and police, which comprise most of the security units in the Gaza Strip. Several Hamas commanders have objected to being held accountable to Hamad, who replaced Said Siyam, killed during the war with Israel.

Hamad, appointed in May 2009, has pledged to establish civilian control over the security forces. He has enacted regulations that ban police and EF patrols from driving with dark windows or speeding unless they are in pursuit of suspects.



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