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Israel Conducting Global War on Hamas
(Washington Times) Eli Lake - Israel's security agencies are stepping up targeted attacks throughout the world on Hamas' leadership in what one Israeli national security official called "intelligence-based prevention." In the past two months, Israeli operatives have intercepted a German ship in international waters, fired a missile at a suspected Hamas leader in Sudan, and captured a Hamas engineer in the Ukraine, according to Israeli and Western officials. "Israel defeated the wave of suicide bombing attacks against it in 2002 by identifying the leadership that was behind it and making it clear to them that they would pay a price," said Dore Gold, a former Israeli ambassador to the UN and specialist on international terrorism. "Presently, the effort to cripple Hamas' military capabilities is no longer confined to the Gaza Strip alone, but to the entire Hamas global network and that of its allies." The renewed Israeli approach is in some ways a response to the international condemnation of the Gaza operation of 2009. Because the covert campaign targets leaders and is often done in secret, the diplomatic damage to Israel for these actions tends to be muted.