(Reuters) Crispian Balmer - Yosef Kuperwasser, the director of Israel's Ministry of Strategic Affairs, said Wednesday that more than 800 rockets and mortar rounds had been fired into Israel from Gaza since the start of the year. "If worst comes to worst, we can (launch) a much wider operation in Gaza. But that is not going to really solve the problem," he said. "There is a wide and deep problem of hate indoctrination that produces more and more terrorists all the time." Kuperwasser said that Hamas leaders had tempered their desire to strike at Israel, aware of the heavy cost the general Palestinian populace was paying in the violence. But he said the smaller groups were far less bothered by such concerns. "Most of the activity is coming now not from Hamas," he said, adding that Islamic Jihad was receiving a relatively bigger share of the weapons that had "been pouring into Gaza." He said that since the downfall of Gaddafi, huge quantities of arms from Libya had been smuggled into Gaza, adding to continued arms supplies from Iran. He said Hamas itself was worried about the gathering strength of other armed factions, but did not know how to deal with them. "They are not very comfortable confronting them....They are not sure that if their people get the order to do it, they will really do it."
2012-10-19 00:00:00Full ArticleBACK Visit the Daily Alert Archive