The attack on Dizingoff Street in Tel Aviv last week was carried out by a terrorist of the military wing of Hamas named Mu’etaz Al-Khawaja from the village of Naalin in the Ramallah area.
He was a released terrorist well known to the Shin Bet who served a 4 year prison sentence in an Israeli prison, he did not have a permit to enter Israel and he infiltrated Tel Aviv with the help of an Israeli driver who smuggles workers who do not have work permits in Israel.
Hamas officials say that the attack on Dizingoff Street in Tel Aviv was a response to the “massacre” that Israel carried out last week in the Jenin refugee camp and in the village of Jabba, in which 10 Palestinians were killed, and that this was an action that was well planned in advance by the military wing of Hamas, just like the attack In the village of Hawara where 2 Israeli civilians were murdered and which was carried out by another terrorist of the military wing, Abdelfatah Kharusha from the Askar refugee camp in the Nablus area.
The military wing of Hamas promised in an official statement that the attacks would continue.
Hamas officials say that the latest attack in Tel Aviv is the beginning of a new phase of attacks inside Israel.
According to them, this will be Hamas’ method of response to the IDF’s operations in Area A in the West Bank and that the goal is to make it clear to the Netanyahu government that its citizens have no security within areas of 1948.
Moustafa al-Sawaf, a commentator in the Gaza Strip who is very close to Hamas, says that the next attacks will be more dangerous and in the territory of Israel itself and not only in the West Bank, Hamas has decided to renew the attacks inside Israel because the attacks in the West Bank do not deter the IDF.
Hamas claims that the organization has succeeded in establishing an infrastructure in the West Bank of individual terrorists and small squads that are not related to each other and have no central leadership in order to make it difficult for the Israeli Shin Bet to stop them.
PA activity against Hamas in Nablus
In recent days, the Palestinian Authority’s security forces began an extensive arrest operation of Hamas operatives in the city of Nablus.
This is not an activity by the PA to prevent terrorist attacks against Israeli targets, but a preventive activity against Hamas, which is trying to destabilize the rule of PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas.
The wave of arrests began following an incident in the city of Nablus in which PA security personnel forcibly dispersed the funeral of the terrorist Abdelfatah Kharusha who carried out the murderous attack in Hawara.
PA security personnel used tear gas to disperse the funeral and arrested some of its participants, during the dispersion the body of the terrorist fell on the road.
Hamas claims that the dispersal of the funeral was done by the Palestinian Authority in accordance with the understandings with Israel at the security meeting in Aqaba and that the Palestinian Authority is preparing for the meeting in Sharm el-Sheikh in a few days to present receipts that it is fulfilling its obligations to act against Hamas in order to demand that Israel also fulfill its obligation to strengthen the Palestinian Authority’s rule in the West Bank and freeze construction in the settlements.
Security officials in Israel say that Hamas is trying to take advantage of the tense security situation in the West Bank to provoke demonstrations and strikes by trade unions that are affiliated with it in order to try and create a situation of chaos and show that the Palestinian Authority has weakened and lost its security control in the area.
The month of Ramadan is approaching and according to the announcements of the leaders of Hamas it will be a month full of attacks and violent incidents in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, Hamas is determined to heat up the area in order to provoke a new armed intifada against Israel and at the same time to undermine the Palestinian Authority’s rule.
