`Secret' Hamas cell operating in Gaza Strip
By Amos Harel
Mohammed Deif
The Gaza-based branch of Hamas has established a "secret organization" that operates as a separate unit from the better-known military wing of the organization, Iz a Din al-Kassam. One of the main activists in the "secret organization" is Mohammed Deif, who is believed responsible for most of the "quality" attacks in the Gaza Strip over the past year.
These attacks, which were considered professionally prepared, included the murders of Israelis and attempts to infiltrate settlements and Israel Defense Forces bases. In some cases, they were successful.
The organization's top bomb-making experts are located primarily in the Gaza Strip and the quality of their munitions is superior, since most of the explosive devices are made from old IDF mines that were left behind in areas evacuated by Israel.
Thus far, since the start of hostilities last September, the IDF's deployment, including the border fence around the Gaza, has prevented suicide bombers from leaving the Strip for the heart of Israel. As a result, alongside its ongoing efforts to get suicide bombers into Israel and in an effort to gain attention, Hamas has tried to conduct "spectacular" terror attacks inside Gaza itself.
Deif, who was released from a Palestinian prison early in the intifada, established an infrastructure so secret that other Hamas activists and operatives, from the military as well as political wings, are also ignorant of its activities. Deif, one of the veteran Hamas fighters who has managed to elude Israeli attempts to capture him, was one of the key people responsible for the bus attacks in the spring of 1996, when dozens of Israelis were killed by a series of suicide bombers.
The secret organization is reminiscent of the cells created in the early 1990s by Imad Akal, when he was the leader of the military wing of Hamas. Akal was killed by the IDF in Gaza in 1993.
Deif's cells are based on connections he made while in prison. Apparently, he is also in touch with Salah Shehade, an aide to Sheikh Ahmed Yassin and considered the head of the military arm of Hamas, as well as with bomb expert Adnan Al-Rol. The Palestinian Authority announced over the weekend that it had arrested Al-Rol, who prepared most of the bombs used for suicide attacks inside the Gaza Strip in the past year.
Deif's "secret organization" has focused primarily on sophisticated attempts to infiltrate settlements. The settlements in the northern part of the Gaza Strip - Dugit, Alei Sinai and Nissanit - are the organization's targets both because they have less sophisticated Defense systems and because of their proximity to the Jabalya refugee camp and the northern neighborhoods of Gaza, from where most of Def's men come.
Deif's organization is believed to be responsible for a series of lethal operations over the past year, including the attack on Alei Sinai that left two youths dead in October, the attempts to attack Nissanit and Dugit, and, possibly, the murder of Prof. Baruch Zinger, who was killed last week in a drive-by shooting near Alei Sinai.
Military sources have told Ha'aretz that there has been a dramatic improvement in the professionalism of the attackers. "This is not what we've known in the past. It's beginning to be reminiscent of Hezbollah," said one officer. The attacks,the sources say, include lots of preparation, guides, lookouts, an advance command unit, a diversionary unit and improved equipment, and they are conducted only after extensive intelligence gathering that looks for weak points in the Israeli Defenses.
In late November, following the assassination of Mahmoud Abu Hanoud from Nablus, a group calling itself "the secret organization" of Hamas issued a leaflet in which it accused senior security officials in the PA of cooperating with Israel and helping the IDF find Abu Hanoud. It is not clear whether the two "secret organizations" are one and the same, or affiliated.
There are other armed groups operating in Gaza, competing over which can carry out the most spectacular attack. Among these is a cell led by Abdullah Arafar, a local activist from Khan Yunis who linked up with the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine and whose men were involved in the attack on the Marganit outpost that left three Givati soldiers dead in August this year. The commander of that operation was Isam Abu Dika, who, since then, quit Maruf's faction and set up his own cell. Palestinian sources say that Israeli forces went into PA territory at Khan Yunis last Thursday looking for Abu Dika, but that he managed to escape. |
