Ariel Rusila's Conflicts [Ex-BalkanPerspective]

A proposal to provide the Gaza Strip with an outlet to the rest of the world through a man-made island could soon become a reality, Israel’s Intelligence and Transportation Minister Israel Katz said Monday [20 th June 2016], according the Jerusalem Post . Although the idea of building this artificial island has been floating around for years, real headway has only been made in the recent months, according to Katz, who estimates the project will cost some $5 billion. The project would include a 5 km. bridge from the Gaza Strip through Israeli waters and into the planned 8 sq. km. chunk of land, which likely would have a marine port and, eventually, an airport, in addition to a hotel and small port for yachts. Gaza island model as presented on June 20, 2016. (photo credit:COURTESY/THE ISRAEL PROJECT) Hamas has said that among its conditions for a long-term truce with Israel are the reopening of the Strip’s Yasser Arafat Airport and construction of a new seaport. Such an option ...

  Gaza’s tunnel war continues on all fronts – on Egypt-Gaza border, on Israel-Gaza border and on home front. While Egyptian army flooded again a Hamas tunnel, the Israel army discovered the first terror tunnel inside Israeli territory since the end of the war in the Gaza Strip in the summer of 2014. Hamas says its smuggling and terror tunnel network is twice as large as the Viet Cong’s was at the height of the Vietnam War. On home front Hamas smuggles in cement, diverts from construction and humanitarian donations, and even raids civilian construction sites in order to rebuild its tunnels. The new tunnel flooded again by Egypt Palestinian media reported Monday morning [18 th Apr. 2016] that the Egyptian army flooded a Hamas tunnel in the southern part of Gaza Strip. Seven Hamas terrorists are missing. The tunnel flooded was a commercial tunnel, used by Hamas to smuggle commodities into Gaza Strip, and not a military tunnel. The collapse happened after the Egyptians per...

T he IDF’s intelligence on Hamas’s military wing in Gaza has increased greatly over  the past two years, and the Southern Command’s war preparations have been enhanced as a result, a senior military source said on 14 th April 2016 according Jerusalem Post .   In Gaza, the military wing is gradually growing in power at the expense of the political wing. Figures like Muhammad Deif, who leads the military wing, Yihye Sinwar, who was released in the Gilad Shalit exchange and Marwan Issa, are taking power away from Hamas’s political wing, as well as from overseas leader Khaled Mashaal. Hamas military wing members receive military training also in Iran and earlier in Syria, in addition Hamas has military training camps for children who also receive hate indoctrination from public media and in schools and camps. The Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigade is a separate armed military wing, which has its own leaders who do not take their orders from Hamas. Some ce...

Israel-Greece-Cyprus alliance aims to “promote a trilateral partnership in different fields of common interest and to work together towards promoting peace, stability, security and prosperity in the Mediterranean and the wider region.” ( Cyprus - Israel - Greece Trilateral Summit Declaration ) The signing of an agreement of cooperation between Israel, Greece and Cyprus in Nicosia in February has tremendous implications for the future of this strategic region and for Israel. The trilateral Israel-Greece-Cyprus alliance is a potential game changer at a juncture when new regional alignments are forging in the Middle East after the lifting of sanctions against Iran. The new alliance gives Israel much-needed strategic depth. Publicly all three countries say that this alliance is not against any other country, meaning specifically Turkey. However the reality probably is the opposite. Of these countries, Israel is the only major military power. Both Greece and Cyprus have major economic...

Israel will have five policy options regarding Judea and Samaria when Mahmoud Abbas departs from his post as leader of the Palestinian Authority and none of these options is ideal. This is the conclusion of analysis by Professor Hillel Frisch, professor of political studies and Middle East studies at Bar-Ilan University, and a senior research associate at the Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies. Prof. Frisch is trying to craft a coherent Israeli policy toward a post-Abbas Palestinian Authority (PA). The task is challenging as the situation is constantly buffeted by tremors and underground currents. These include a wave of terrorist violence against Israelis, albeit declining; a growing rift within Fatah between Abbas and his detractors that is very much linked to the battle over his succession; and the possibility that linkage between those two developments could degenerate into civil war (another arena in the proxy war waged between Iran and Saudi Arabia and their respective al...

Israel  has started testing a secret new weapon for defeating the tunnel systems which the Palestinian Hamas and Hizballah are busy digging for surprise attacks  against Israel. Following Operation Protective Edge in the summer of 2014, a  great deal of attention shifted to Israel's need to develop a technological  solution to the underground tunnel problem. Now, according to Foreign Policy magazine, it  appears Israel has found that solution. Western sources reported on 11 th   March 2016, that the new weapon, dubbed the  “Underground Iron Dome,” can detect a tunnel, then send in a moving missile ton blow it up. The new weapon is not counter measure only against threat from Gaza  and Lebanon but against Iran nukes too. US intelligence sources disclosed only  that new weapon is equipped with seismic sensors to detect underground  vibrations and map their location before destroying them. Western experts haven been talking for ...