(Sunday Times-UK) Marie Colvin - Four green flags of the extremist Palestinian party Hamas were flying last week at the gate of a military training camp built on the ruins of Morag, an evacuated Jewish settlement. Inside the camp, recruits to the Izzedine al-Qassam Brigades, the military wing of Hamas, ran mock attacks and launched rocket-propelled grenades. This is not some clandestine force and the base is no makeshift encampment. Israelis contemplating the evacuation of West Bank settlements will shiver at the discovery that al-Qassam fighters now live and train on the ruins of a place that was home to 37 Jewish families until August. A senior al-Qassam member explained that their mission to fight Israel had not changed, even though Hamas had become the official government.
2006-04-03 00:00:00Full ArticleBACK Visit the Daily Alert Archive