This would be a win-win situation for Fatah: The truce would fail, making Hamas look incompetent, and both of Fatah's enemies would inflict casualties on each other. Now that they've been caught, will that change the PA's relationship with Western powers in any meaningful way, or will it be swept under the rug in order to continue to uphold Mahmoud Abbas as a "pragmatic" partner for peace?
Taped confessions claim Gaza peace double-crossed
'Moderates' attempting to sabotage truce while Hamas holds fire
By Aaron Klein
World Net Daily JAFFA, Israel – A Hamas investigation replete with video confessions has discovered that militants from Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah organization received instructions to disrupt a cease-fire that Israel agreed to last week with the Hamas terrorist organization in the Gaza Strip.
WND last week exclusively quoted sources in Fatah's declared military wing, the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades terrorist group, stating they received "understandings" from Abbas' office they are to fire rockets into Israel to sabotage the truce.
U.S. and Israeli policy considers Abbas to be "moderate."
Hamas has been abiding by the truce while Fatah's Brigades took responsibility for firing at least three rockets from Gaza last week.
Now Hamas officials told WND yesterday an investigation concluded that Abbas' officials instructed the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades to launch rockets into Israel.
The Hamas officials said they obtained videotaped confessions from Brigades members allegedly admitting to receiving attack instructions from Fatah. Hamas said it may release the videos on the group's Al Aqsa Television Network later this week.
A senior source in Fatah's Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades told WND last week his group received "understandings" from Abbas' officials that Fatah wants to see the cease-fire "collapse."
The senior Brigades source hinted a top Abbas official gave the Brigades specific instructions to launch Gaza-based attacks against Israel to precipitate an Israeli military response that would initiate a cycle of Hamas reprisal attacks that would, in turn, scuttle the cease-fire.
The Brigades source refused to say which Abbas official may have given his group instructions, but WND understood from informed sources it was Tayir Abdul Al-Rahim, the secretary-general of Abbas' office, who communicated specific instructions to the Brigades to shoot rockets at Israeli population centers.
This past Thursday, the Israel Defense Forces confirmed three Qassam rockets were launched from Gaza into southern Israel. The Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades took responsibility for the attacks.
This weekend, at least four mortars were fired from Gaza, according to the IDF.
Earlier this week, WND quoted a top PA official complaining the truce between Hamas and Israel enhances the position of Hamas and amounts to the Jewish state's tacit recognition of the terrorist group's control of the Gaza Strip.
Officially, the PA, headed by its president, Mahmoud Abbas, endorsed the Gaza truce agreement, which went into effect 11 days ago, hours after Hamas and other local Palestinian groups took responsibility for firing nearly 30 mortars and rockets from Gaza into nearby Jewish communities.
But unofficially, the PA has been expressing to Israeli and American diplomats its strong opposition to the truce, explaining the cease-fire puts Hamas in a more powerful position.
U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice "sold us out," said the top PA official, who spoke on condition of anonymity.
"It is not possible that Israel agreed to the truce with Hamas without U.S. approval," he said. "Israel has now negotiated indirectly with Hamas and is doing business with them. Hamas is the dealmaker and power broker."
The PA official's main complaint was not that Israel was negotiating with a terror group but that the Jewish state, he argued, was enhancing Hamas at the expense of the PA.
The official said the PA took particular offense at talk of eventually expanding the truce to the West Bank, which until now has been considered the territory of Abbas' Fatah organization.
He said if Hamas was seen as the main power broker in the West Bank, it would be a "disaster" for Fatah and the PA.
The official described the mood at Abbas' headquarters following the truce as "one of mourning."
"It's our Tisha B'Av," he said.
Tisha B'Av is the Jewish fast day known as the "saddest day" in the Jewish calendar. It commemorates tragedies that befell the Jewish people, including the fall of Jerusalem and destruction of the First and Second Jewish Temples.
Hamas has controlled the Gaza Strip since last summer, when it expelled the U.S.-backed Fatah organization from the territory.
The Gaza cease-fire officially went into effect last week. Israel has said it will hold off all military operations in Gaza in exchange for a complete cessation of Palestinian rocket attacks and violence.
Hamas, for its part, reportedly instructed its members to refrain from carrying out any attacks.
In spite of the attacks launched from the Gaza Strip, Israel yesterday eased its blockade of Gaza by reopening some border crossings and by allowing a larger number of shipments to enter and may open border crossings closed in recent months.
Israeli security officials have warned in briefings to the Knesset that Hamas would use the truce to rearm itself and strengthen its forces against an ultimate Israeli military incursion into Gaza. The officials said more Israeli troops would likely die fighting in Gaza, because of the off-time Hamas is likely to use to prepare itself for battle.
In a briefing to the Knesset earlier this month, Yuval Diskin, director of Israel's Shin Bet Security Services, identified a recent surge in terrorist activity and arms smuggling in the Gaza Strip. He also said Hamas stepped up the pace of training its gunmen and attempted several major attacks in recent days that were foiled by Israel.
Cease-fire 'victory for resistance'
Last week, WND quoted Gaza-based terrorist leaders calling the cease-fire a "victory" for Palestinian "resistance." The terrorist announced the truce will be used by local terrorist groups to re-arm and prepare for battle against the Jewish state.
"We are humiliating the Israelis. They kept threatening to make a huge operation in Gaza, but they were the ones who begged us to go into the cease-fire," said Muhammad Abdel-Al, a leader and spokesman for the Hamas-allied, Gaza-based Popular Resistance Committees terror group.
Along with Hamas, the Committees took responsibility for firing a massive onslaught of rockets and mortars just before the truce was agreed upon.
"[The rocket attacks] prove we are not going into this cease-fire from a weak point but from a point of force and power," Abdel-Al said.
Abu Abdullah, considered one of the most important operational members of Hamas' so-called military wing, told WND his group will use the truce to rearm itself.
"The hudna (temporary truce) will be used for more training, arming. ... We don't have any intention to stop from bringing in weapons from the Sinai into Gaza," said Abdullah.
He called the cease-fire "one more sign of the collapse of the Israeli army, that this big Israeli army with the so-called best air force in the world didn't succeed to stop the rockets, and they accepted the truce."
The term "hudna," dates back to Islam's founding in the 7th century, when Muhammad declared a 10-year hudna with the tribe that controlled Mecca. Later, after re-arming, Muhammad attacked the tribe, claiming it had broken the truce. In 1994, Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat invoked Muhammad's hudna when he justified the launch of the second intifada during the Oslo peace process.
The Washington Institute for Near East Policy noted in 2003 that Hamas had agreed to 10 cease-fires in the previous decade and returned freshly armed after each one.
"It is important to note," the institute said, "that all cease-fire offers have been presented at a time when Hamas needed a moment to step back and regroup after an organizationally exhausting confrontation with a more powerful foe (either Israel or the PA)."
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