Hamas in Gaza in dire straits – Shin Bet head

The head of Israel’s internal secret service tells the Knesset’s Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee that Hamas is in strategic distress in Gaza and that its status as the sovereign power in the Strip has been eroded.

Shin Bet head Yoram Cohen asserts before the committee that most of the funds earmarked for the rehabilitation of Gaza have not come through, partially on account of the feud between Hamas and the Palestinian Authority. Israel, he says, according to a censored transcript circulated by the committee’s spokesman, is the central element urging and advancing the re-building of Gaza after the 50-day war there in the summer of 2014.

Despite the economic hardships, he says, Hamas has labored to re-build its military capacities. Cohen says the Islamist organization has been re-establishing its offensive tunnels – the transcript does not mention if today any of those tunnels cross into Israeli territory – and that it has been working to develop and produce new rockets. Hamas has also been making efforts to acquire funding from Iran, he adds.

At this time, he says, Hamas has little interest in launching a war against Israel and, while it could wage a significant military campaign, it would be limited in its efficacy.

In the West Bank, Cohen says, there has been a steady rise in what he termed folk terror. Since 2012 there has been a 50 percent rise each year, from 683 attacks in 2012 to 1,834 in 2014, he submits.

Over the past year 130 organized terror plots were foiled, he says, with an additional 60 plots over the course of the first half of 2015.

Finally he says that the ongoing security cooperation between Israel and the Palestinian Authority is what has enabled the PA to endure the constant Hamas action in the West Bank.

— Mitch Ginsburg