Thursday, April 17, 2008 Defense officials: Iran increasing smuggling efforts to Gaza

Defense officials: Iran increasing smuggling efforts to Gaza
Yaakov Katz and Herb Keinon , THE JERUSALEM POST Apr. 17, 2008
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Iran has increased its efforts to smuggle weapons into the Gaza Strip by
using floatable devices that it drops near the waters off the Gaza coast and
are then picked up by Palestinian fisherman, senior defense officials have
told The Jerusalem Post.

According to defense officials, Iran was sending rockets as well as other
types of advanced weaponry to Hamas and Islamic Jihad in the Gaza Strip via
tunnels dug under the Philadelphi Corridor and connecting the Sinai Desert
with Rafah as well as by sea. Officials said that the Navy was doing an
effective job in curbing the smuggling by sea but that there were shipments
that Israeli forces did not succeed in intercepting.

"They throw the weapons overboard in waterproof sealed tubes which then
float into the Gaza waters and are picked up by fishermen," one official
said. "Sometimes Navy boats intercept them and sometimes they get through."

In recent months, the IDF has noticed an increase in Iranian-made weaponry
in the Gaza Strip, including rockets as well as mortars. Terror groups in
Gaza recently were equipped by Tehran with two different types of mortar
shells made in Iran - one 120 mm with a range of 10 kilometers like a Kassam
rocket and another with a shorter range of six km.

Officials in Jerusalem said that it was impossible that some of the weaponry
now in Gaza was smuggled through tunnels burrowed from Sinai into Egypt, and
that there was obviously an alternative route that was being used to smuggle
weaponry into the Gaza Strip.

In addition to providing weaponry, Iran is also training Hamas and Islamic
Jihad terrorists who have used the periodic openings at the Rafah Crossing
with Egypt as well as the collapse of the border with Egypt in January to
travel to Iran and train there in terror and guerilla warfare.

Officials said that the route the weapons took from Iran to Egypt could go a
number of ways. One possibility is that the weapons are taken by boat from
Iran to Egypt and then are smuggled into Gaza through tunnels or thrown into
the waters off the coast and near the border. Another possible route is that
the weapons are transferred by Iran to Syria, then to Lebanon where
Hizbullah then ships them by boat to Egypt.

A branch of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards - called the Quds (Jerusalem)
Force - is believed to be responsible for overseas operations such as
training Hizbullah and Palestinian terrorists and providing them with
weapons.

Meanwhile Thursday, a terror infiltration into the Kerem Shalom Crossing
into Gaza was thwarted by the IDF. Military sources said that three armed
terrorists were spotted on their way to the crossing - the main conduit for
food and medical supplies transferred to Gaza - and were intercepted by a
force from the Bedouin Desert Battalion that was stationed nearby. One
terrorist was killed and another was wounded in an ensuing gunfight.

The foiled infiltration followed violence on Wednesday when three IDF
soldiers and close to 20 Palestinians were killed in clashes in Gaza. On
Thursday, 10 rockets were fired into Israel, including a Grad-model Katyusha
rocket that hit an open field south of Netivot. No one was injured in the
attacks.

Earlier in the day, two Islamic Jihad operatives were shot dead in the West
Bank town of Kabatiya near Jenin. The IDF said troops surrounded a home in
which the operatives were hiding, called on them to come out. The suspects
refused and in an ensuing exchange of fire were killed.