Iran helps Hamas militarily, Israelis say
TEL AVIV–Iran is helping the Islamic movement Hamas upgrade its military capabilities by providing technology, funding and direct training, Israeli security and military sources say.
Hamas has used Israel's withdrawal from the Gaza Strip to build itself up, the Haaretz newspaper said yesterday. "Boosted by their newfound ability to travel abroad, Hamas militants have been going back and forth to hostile countries for training," Maj.-Gen. Yoav Galant told a public briefing. "They are sending activists to Syria, Lebanon, to Iran. And the opposite (happens)."
Asked to elaborate, Galant said, "The Iranians don't have to come (to Gaza) ... If there is a Palestinian who is connected to the Hezbollah and working for Iran and is moving to the Iranian side, learning methods, getting orders, and moving them to the Palestinian side, that is for me good enough to explain the situation."
The comments came on the heels of those by Israel's internal security chief, Yuval Diskin.
"We know that Hamas has started to dispatch people to Iran, tens, and a promise of hundreds," the Shin Beit chief told select media in a rare on-the-record briefing this week.
The training would last months, perhaps years, Diskin said, so "I see this as the strategic danger, more than any weapons smuggled into Gaza.''
Galant said Hamas now resembles an army, with battalions, platoons, special forces, not the ragtag militia it was.
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Thursday, March 08, 2007
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