Ma'an News Agency reports that the Hizbullah Brigades of Palestine has declared that they have fired five rockets against Israeli targets since the declaration of unilateral cease-fire by the Palestinian factions yesterday.
I will be quite honest, until two days ago i myself had never heard of the 'Hizbullah Brigades of Palestine' (كتائب حزب الله فلسطين). Apparently they declared their existance in October 2008, stating that they were independent of and neutral towards all existing political factions in Palestine. When the reknowned Arabic daily ash-Sharq al-Awsat obtained the founding declaration of the organization, it added that the reliability of the declaration could not be confirmed.
Soon after its existance was declared, the 'Hizbullah Brigades of Palestine' launched a rocket towards Sderot (in violation of the Hamas-sponsored unilateral cease-fire). The Jerusalem Post were quick to assert that this was part of the 'growing al-Qaeda threat to Israel'.
At the time of the declaration of 'Hizbullah Brigades of Palestine', Hamas publicly declared that there was no such organization in Gaza and accused it of being a creation of the Israeli intelligence services. Another Hamas commentary speculated that Fatah could have been the authors of the founding statement. The following day, published at a pro-Fatah website, the 'Hizbullah Brigades Palestine' replied that the group was attracting Hamas followers disagreeing with the then cease-fire policy upheld by Hamas.
This might be a bit speculatory, but wouldn't a small unknown Islamist terrorist group firing rockets unto Sderot, in violation of the cease-fire declarations, provide a perfect excuse for Israel to resume its aggression on Gaza? In other words, an agent provocateur in action. We should not be to quick to draw conclusions, but we should also be vigilant to all deceptive tactics of the enemy. We must not forget how Israel contributed to the emergence of Hamas, in order to challenge the PLO within the Palestinian community in the 1980s. If there would be 'al-Qaeda presence' (a designation that is by its nature ambigous, since there is no centralized al-Qaeda organization as of today) in Gaza it could perhaps legitimize further Israeli bloodsheding, at least in the eyes of the American public opinion.
Do note that the Western media rarely bothers to distinguish which of the 10+ militant factions in Gaza claim responsibility for rocket launches. See for example article in SvD or Dagen.
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News links on Gaza: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9
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