September 10, 2012:
In the last month Egyptian security forces have swept through the thinly populated (500,000 people in 60,000 square kilometers) Sinai Peninsula and killed 32 terrorists and arrested 38 suspects. The Egyptians also shut down 31 Palestinian smuggling tunnels that were moving weapons (and terrorists) in and out of Gaza. There are believed to be at least a few hundred Islamic terrorists in Sinai and several thousand sympathizers. Israel and the U.S. have been helping the Egyptians with intelligence. All this is in response to an August 5th Islamic terrorist attack that killed 16 Egyptian border guards. Police have identified seven of the attackers, and only one was an Egyptian. The other six were foreigners, as were most of the terrorists killed or arrested in the last month.
Israel warplanes hit four targets in Gaza, in response to rocket attacks yesterday. Israeli officials are now talking openly of reoccupying Gaza, which Israeli security forces left in 2005, as a peace gesture to Palestinians. That has not worked out so well and Gaza has become a base for Islamic terror groups who launch attacks (via rockets and mortars) into Israel and attacks using suicide bombs and gunmen into Egypt. Despite the new Islamic government in Egypt, the increasing activity of Islamic terrorists in Egypt has made Egypt more aware of what a problem, to all the neighbors, Gaza has become. However, an Israeli reoccupation of Gaza would not be popular in Egypt, where decades of anti-Israeli propaganda have made any Egyptian cooperation with Israel automatically unpopular.
There are a growing number of anti-government demonstrations in Gaza and the West Bank. In both places people are upset at poverty and inept government. The West Bank officials are seen as very corrupt and those in Gaza are preoccupied with controlling how people live (according to strict Islamic law), not how well they live.
Lebanon appears increasingly unstable as the hatreds driving the Syrian civil war are showing up in Lebanon. Sunni and Shia gunmen in northern Lebanon have been staging gun battles for weeks. Thousands of the 500,000 Palestinians living in Syria have fled to Lebanon (where 400,000 Palestinians live). The Palestinians are hated in both countries because they support terrorist groups and tend to back the wrong side in civil wars.
September 9, 2012: Three long range rockets were fired from Gaza into Israel. Two of them landed near Beersheba, which is 35 kilometers from the Gaza border, and another at a nearby town. There was property damage but no injuries. A small Islamic terror group in Gaza took responsibility. Hamas has obeyed a ceasefire with Israel and not fired rockets but refuses to shut down the smaller Islamic terror groups that continue attacks.
September 8, 2012: Islamic terrorists in Gaza fired rockets into southern Israel.
September 5, 2012: An Israeli warplane fired on a group of men preparing to launch rockets from Gaza, killing three and wounding one of them.
September 2, 2012: Israel and Egypt are feuding over Israeli attempts to pressure Germany into not building two Type 209 submarines for Egypt.
September 1, 2012: Islamic terrorists in Gaza fired a rocket into southern Israel. Israeli warplanes hit terrorist targets in Gaza in retaliation for recent rocket attacks.
August 31, 2012: Islamic terrorists in Gaza fired two rockets into southern Israel.
