September 9, 2009: Peace talks with the Palestinians are going nowhere, and aren't expected to ever succeed. The Palestinians, to their own people, promise the destruction of Israel and call for no compromise. The Israelis know this (the many Israelis that understand Arabic can tune in Palestinian TV and radio stations and get all the reminders they can stomach). Western diplomats report this situations to their bosses back home, but the U.S. and the West persist in believing that getting the Palestinians to pretend to do a deal is all that is needed. The Palestinians are willing to pretend, for a price. The Israelis want a payoff as well, and a clear understanding that any "peace deal" will not threaten Israeli security. The U.S. and Europe are not as concerned about that as the Israelis, which is a point of contention.
Hezbollah continues to pour rockets into southern Lebanon, and build underground storage areas, often under the homes of civilians, in preparation for, well, no one is quite sure. But it looks like preparations for another war, like the one in 2006.
September 4, 2009: Israeli warplanes again bombed a kidnapping tunnel in northern Gaza.
September 3, 2009: In northern Gaza, Israeli warplanes bombed a second Palestinian "kidnapping tunnel" under construction. This tunnel was meant to get terrorists outside the Gaza security fence, for the purpose of kidnapping Israeli soldiers or civilians. While the area next to Gaza is the sparsely populated Negev desert, there are roads, which have some traffic, and a few settlements. The Palestinian terrorists hoped to ambush some of these vehicles and capture Israelis, who would be moved back to Gaza via the tunnel. Palestinian terrorists continue to fire mortar shells into southern Israel from northern Gaza. There are some farms just outside Gaza, but the shells rarely even hit crops, much less people. Hamas does it mainly to maintain their reputation as fighters, and to make the farmers nervous. Since last January, there have been about 225 rockets and mortar shells fired, including seven shells today.
September 2, 2009: In the last few days, Egyptian police found and seized nearly five tons of explosives (mostly TNT) that was about to be moved through smuggling tunnels into Gaza. Hamas was apparently the owner of the explosives.
September 1, 2009: According to Hamas, Israeli tank fire killed two Palestinian terrorists in northern Gaza. But locals report that the two died when the bomb, they were planting near the border fence, went off.
August 31, 2009: An Israeli Arab was arrested and charged with assisting Hezbollah (with information on the activities of the head of the Israeli military, which Hezbollah was planning to assassinate.)
August 30, 2009: In Gaza, Jund Ansar Allah members set off two bombs in front of a Hamas compound. There were no injuries. Hamas police went to the Jund Ansar Allah compound and found two more bombs, which were disarmed. There are still several radical groups in Gaza that are opposed to Hamas, and willing to use violence to prove it. In northern Gaza, Israeli warplanes bombed a Palestinian tunnel under construction. This tunnel was over 1,500 meters long and meant to get terrorists outside Gaza for the purpose of kidnapping Israeli soldiers or civilians. The terrorists are still firing rockets into Israel, without much effect, but they believe kidnapping can have a much larger impact, as the Israelis are willing to exchange hundred of imprisoned terrorists for one Israeli.
