SWI NEWS: Monday, April 11 2011 7 Nisan,5771
Monday, April 11th, 2011A tense quiet settled over southern Israel on Monday as a shaky cease-fire went into effect, ending several days of Gaza attacks and IDF counterattacks.
Defense officials said that the IDF would remain on high alert along the border.
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On Sunday night, a Kassam rocket hit south of Ashkelon but on Monday the border was quiet, with the IDF, Hamas and Islamic Jihad abiding by a cease-fire reportedly brokered by United Nations representatives to Israel.
IDF sources said they predicted that while the cease-fire had gone into effect, it would likely be limited in time.
“We succeeded in postponing a large-scale conflict with Hamas but that conflict is likely inevitable,” one senior officer said on Monday.
At the same time, the officers predicted that the fighting with Hamas and the other Palestinian terror groups would likely return to the buffer zone along the border between Gaza and Egypt. Since the beginning of the year, the IDF’s Gaza Division has discovered dozens of improvised explosive devices along the border, a sharp increase in comparison to 2010.
The Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories announced on Monday that despite the recent escalation in violence, it had coordinated the transfer of 3,656 trucks to the Gaza Strip with food and medical supplies.
In addition, and in cooperation with the IDF and the Defense Ministry’s Land Crossings Authority, Gaza Coordination and Liaison Administration coordinated the transfer of an additional 1,100 truckloads containing aggregates (gravel for construction) through the Sufa area that was opened specifically for this purpose, and in spite of the numerous security risks involved in this operation.
“Israel will continue to thwart any attempt to harm its citizens but will at the same time, will also continue its humanitarian efforts to assist the civilian population that is not involved in terror in the Gaza Strip,” defense officials said.
Representatives of the International Committee of the Red Cross recently met with Hamas head Khaled Mashaal in Damascus about kidnapped soldier Gilad Schalit, Channel 10 reported on Monday.
The ICRC representatives tried to persuade Mashaal to furnish a sign of life from Schalit before Pessah, according to the report. The last sign of life to be released by Hamas came in a video clip in September 2009.
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Unlike in the past, Mashaal did not reject the request and promised to examine the matter.
The ICRC visit was apparently prompted by the persistent pressure exerted on it by the Schalit family in the five years since Gilad’s capture, which was ramped up recently.
Unlike previously, when the Schalits and activists working for Gilad’s release refrained from criticizing the Red Cross, activists recently demanded that ICRC representatives stop visiting Hamas prisoners in Israeli prisons until the Schalit family receives a sign of life from Gaza.
The activists, Gilad’s grandfather Zvi Schalit told Channel 10, threatened to blockade the ICRC’s Tel Aviv offices if the organization continued to visit imprisoned Hamas members.
Yoel Schalit, Gilad’s older brother, gave a letter to the Red Cross in September of last year, in the hope that the organization would be able to pass it on to his brother.
He visited the Red Cross headquarters in Geneva and handed the letter to head of Middle East operations for the Red Cross, Beatrice Roggo.
'The Building in Judea and Samaria Must Continue'
http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/143501
by Elad Benari and Yoni Kempinski
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On Sunday, 30 days were marked since the brutal murder by terrorists of the Fogel family in their home in Itamar. Family and friends gathered in Itamar, where the cornerstone was laid for Mishkan Ehud, a new study hall that will be built in honor of the slain Rabbi Ehud (Udi) Fogel.
Among the participants in the memorial service was Rabbi Jonathan Blass, rabbi of the community of Neve Tzuf, in which Udi Fogel’s parents live.
“There’s a great sense of loss because of the tragedy of the murder that took place,” said Rabbi Blass in a conversation with INN TV’s Yoni Kempinski.
Rabbi Blass added that beyond the sense of loss, there is also “a sense of determination to continue to build and to expand on those things that were important to the people who were murdered.”
He said that he has known the Fogel family for many years. “The family has been involved with the settlement of Judea and Samaria for many years. Wonderful people, very brave. They’re filled with Jewish faith and faith in the Jewish future.”
According to Rabbi Blass, there are two main messages from this brutal massacre.
“One is that the State of Israel has to take those necessary military measures in order to ensure this kind of thing doesn’t happen,” he said and added: “With all due respect to the international community, I think the time has come to brave those pressures and to take the steps necessary to ensure the security of the people who live all throughout Israel.”
The second message, according to Rabbi Blass is that “the building in Judea and Samaria must continue at a much more accelerated pace.”
A breakthrough is expected in the investigation of the Itamar killings as the IDF continues to arrest suspects from the Palestinian village of Awarta, which remains under a military curfew.
On Sunday, the IDF swept into the village and arrested over a dozen additional suspects in the brutal knife slayings of Udi and Ruth Fogel and their three children, including a three-month-old baby girl.
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According to Palestinians, over 100 residents of Awarta have been detained by the IDF and the Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency) since the Fogel murders. The Palestinian Authority has called the arrests “incessant abuse campaigns held by the Israeli occupation army against the people of the Awarta village.” The Shin Bet has taken fingerprints from detainees, as well as DNA samples. Fifty men remain in custody.
Late Monday night, as he spoke with The Jerusalem Post by telephone, Awarta resident Jamal Kawarik said a helicopter was circling overhead and that soldiers were in the streets, including near his residence.
“Here,” Kawarik said. “I’m holding up the phone so you can hear the sound of the helicopter.”
He added that since the killing, the entire village has lived in fear. “We are not sleeping or eating well,” he said.
Earlier in the month, Kawarik and his wife were taken in for questioning but then released.
“Thank God nothing happened,” he said.
On Sunday morning, he said, the IDF entered the village at 4 a.m. and ransacked a number of homes.
“They threw everything on the floor,” he told the Post. “The oil, the rice, the salt, the sugar, the flour – and they mixed it together as if it was in a mixing bowl. It got on everything – the sofa, the clothes.”
On Sunday, residents of Itamar marked the shloshim, or 30 days since the killings, and laid a cornerstone for a new study hall at the yeshiva where Udi taught before he was killed.
Shots were fired at an Israeli vehicle near Karnei Shomron on Monday night, but no one was hurt, Israel Radio reported.
