UN to accept UNIFIL has not done its job?

Ahead of tomorrow's special meeting of the United Nations Security Council, UN Watch Executive Director Hillel Neuer visited the Israel-Lebanon border to examine the Hezbollah terror tunnels that have just been discovered.

The cross-border tunnels, a massive, multi-million dollar building project financed and masterminded by the Islamic Republic of Iran, were designed for a Hezbollah surprise attack against Israel in which gunmen would suddenly emerge into nearby Israeli towns, in order to kidnap and murder civilians.

The tunnels dug under and into Israel by Iran's proxy terrorist organization amount to a flagrant violation of UN Security Council Resolution 1701—which prohibits any military activity or even presence of Hezbollah south of the Litani River—and constitute a threat to the peace under the UN Charter.

Moreover, at lease one tunnel was dug from a civilian home in Lebanon — a war crime under international humanitarian law because Hezbollah sought to use Lebanese civilians as human shields to protect their military infrastructure.

When the UN Security Council meets tomorrow, they must send a strong message by demanding that the Government of Lebanon—and the world body’s own UNIFIL forces—implement the requirements of Resolution 1701, concretely and immediately

Hezbollah tunnels reach Israel

The IDF has found another Hezbollah tunnel extending into an

Israeli apple orchard, just 200 meters from Israel's border with

Lebanon. Israeli resident and farmer Levav Weinberg

discusses with host Tracy Alexander.

Hamas Promises Blood for Blood

The following is from a letter from a friend commenting on the media coverage of Israel's blowing up a tunnel which was reaching inside Israel

As I'm sure is well known, the military effort of Hamas since our last clash with them, which has continued full steam since then, has concentrated on building tunnels into Israeli territory, through which to launch attacks on farms, villages, etc.

Prior to the last clash they had planned a huge coordinated attack through the tunnels, as a major military strike intended to disrupt life here totally. This must have been trimmed to smaller isolated attacks now since a lot of that infrastructure was damaged.

However, the object of the exercise remains clearly military strikes at civilian centres as part of their war to the death.

Such a tunnel was discovered in the last day or two, having reached 2 km. from an Israeli centre. It was blown up.

So here is one of today's headlines:

Hamas promises ‘blood for blood’ after tunnel bombing…….

Hamas political leader Ismail Haniyeh on Tuesday said the terror group intends to respond with violence to the deaths of seven Gaza terrorists Monday after Israel blew up an attack tunnel that stretched into Israeli territory………

 

Do you see what madness/sickness we are  up against day in and day out? And what as incredible achievement it is by the intelligence and defence authorities, that we can live full daily lives completely normally, relaxed, feeling just as safe if not safer than in many countries in the world.

Who actually cares that foreign aid is diverted from needy Gazans to terror?

 Arnold Roth in his latest blog “This Ongoing War”  discusses what can only be called “apathy” and even “irresponsibility” to the disclosures that tax payers money is beinig used for one of the most expensive projects in the world – the tunnels under Gaza.

He writes “Audit firms, governments and Christian aid groups are sorting out their post-exposé strategies following the arrests of several Palestinian Arabs on charges of illegally and surreptitiously siphoning vast sums into Palestinian Arab terror”

In a precised version of the blog, he further writes - "Yet the human rights organisations and the taxpayers around the world don’t seem to be expressing concern at the diversion of funds have caused.

The latest news from Gaza - just this month and just from Palestinian Arab sources indicates this vast engineering project is not going smoothly:

·                August 6, 2016: Tunnel collaps." [IMEMC, a Palestinian media source which "combines Palestinian journalists’ deep understanding of the context, history, and the socio-political environment with International journalists’ skills in non-partisan reporting."]

·                August 10, 2016: Another tunnel collapse [Ma'an News Agency, based in Bethlehem]

·                August 14, 2016: Yet anoth collapse. The Institute for Palestine Studies reported in 2012 that Hamas authorities had counted 160 deaths inside the tunnels since the Israeli blockade began in 2007, and in August 2014, al-Jazeera reported that figure to be as high as 400." [IMEMC]

This is infrastructure investment is on a truly serious scale. So, in hideous terms, is the pay-off:

"A Hamas operative who was captured in June after illegally crossing into Israel revealed that the terrorist group’s fighters can travel underground throughout the entirety of Gaza." [The Tower, August 11, 2016]

David Feith, of the Wall Street Journal reaffirms the depressing point ["Your Tax Dollars Fund Palestinian Terror", August 11, 2016] that none of this could happen but for the willful blindness of governments, foremost among them the United States.

This revelation should spur a broader reassessment of American aid to the Palestinian government... [since] the Palestinian government has used U.S. and other foreign taxpayers’ money to pay generous rewards to the families of terrorists. The deadlier the crime, the larger the prize, up to about $3,100 a month, or several times the average salary of a worker in Palestine’s non-terrorist economy... No U.S. official can plead ignorance. Palestinian law has sanctioned these payments since at least 2004, specifying how much money is earned depending on the circumstances of the attacker and the body count. [WSJ, August 11, 2016] 

Unfortunately there have been few signs from the aid agencies themselves that they acknowledge the problems (other than the problem of facing accusations from the unloved government of Israel) and in particular that their internal checks are lacking. At the UNDP, they are now saying they have zero tolerance for wrongdoing in all of its programmes and projects [The Guardian, August 9, 2016]

so look elsewhere for solutions, they seem to say.This is bold and brave of them considering that two years ago, an internal UN audit report found serious short-comings including

·                Their Gaza operation should have been using an electronic funds transfer system with local banks that would have allowed the UNDP program to “be notified electronically when any bank transactions take place,”  including, as the report delicately puts it, “transactions not made by UNDP.” But it didn't use it. Why? Good question.

·                Core procurement  processes for ordering up “significant” civil construction activities that were supposed to be handled strictly by staffers - were not. Outsiders somehow got into the process. Why? Anyone's guess. The auditors called this a “critical” lapse and demanded “prompt action... to ensure that UNDP is not exposed to high risks. Failure to take action could result in major negative consequences for UNDP.” We will watch to see whether this fault gets mentioned in future media reports. 

·                "The office’s internal financial tracking system — a UNDP-wide system known as Atlas — was improperly recording at least $8 million worth of civil construction spending at far less than its full value, a practice that UNDP auditors noted could keep the activity under the radar of higher-level U.N. officials who must approve purchase orders above defined cost threshold levels."

·                Expenditures and receipts were not adequately tracked in the financial system. For instance, a sampling of 41 payment vouchers showed 12 purchase orders had no receipts recorded. “This practice,” the report noted, “increases the risk of paying for goods that are not delivered.” [Fox News, August 11, 2014]

Aid workers privately admit to feeling pressure from Hamas, with the powerful group seeking to influence how projects are organized. In a few rare cases NGOs have seen their offices temporary closed by Hamas... ["Foreign aid workers fear the impact of Hamas allegations", AFP/Saudi Gazette, August 11, 2016]

Israel's concern for the well-being of the Gazans, suffering for years already under the jackboot of a kelptocratic Fatah regime and then, for the past nine years, under the ruthless Islamists of Hamas, may not be top of its list of concerns. But it's undoubtedly a concern. "

Hamas under pressure, Israel makes progress on tunnels

 As Israeli technology advances in tunnel detection solutions, it is only natural that Hamas sees its key advantage over the Israeli army being wiped out. Thus we see Hamas trying to disrupt the activities of the army in their detection operations.

http://www.jpost.com/Arab-Israeli-Conflict/Analysis-Hamas-under-pressure-as-Israel-makes-progress-on-tunnels-453113

Yaakov Lippin  Jeruslaem Post 5^th April 2014

For the first time since the August 2014 cease-fire came into effect ending Operation Protective Edge, Hamas launched cross-border mortar attacks throughout Wednesday.

Hamas is targeting IDF units engaged in hi-tech tunnel detection work on the border between Israel and northern Gaza. It is escalating the situation due its fear that it is about to lose its trump card.

Hamas has invested much treasure and blood in its cross-border tunnel network, and its military wing is alarmed by what it perceives as one Israeli breakthrough after another in tunnel detection.

Although Hamas is keen on honing its rocket, drone and sea-based attack capabilities, its tunnel construction program remain its crown jewel.

During the two-month conflict in 2014, those tunnels terrorized civilians in southern Israel.Hamas fighters popped up from seemingly nowhere to attack and kidnap soldiers.

The IDF responded to Wednesday’s stream of mortar shells with pinpoint tank fire at Hamas positions. Yet the cease-fire is now facing its first real challenge, and an escalation could easily occur in the near future. This is also a test of previous claims by defense officials of a zero-tolerance policy to Hamas breaches of the truce.

As noted in previous coverage last month, the discovery in April of a tunnel going from southern Gaza into Israel, and subsequent progress in detection in other areas, means Israel has obtained what it hasn’t had before: a precise ability to know where Hamas’s tunnels snake their way underground.

Hamas knows its rockets have launched their punch due to the ever-growing effectiveness of the Iron Dome air defense batteries, which have grown in both number and ability since 2014.

Since the end of Operation Protective Edge, Israel has invested more than NIS 600 million in tunnel detection technology, and those hi-tech efforts are now bearing fruit.

The defense establishment is not about to stop its work for fear of an escalation. The tunnels violate Israel’s sovereignty, and Hamas stands far more to lose from an escalation than Israel.

The tunnels are supposed to enable Hamas to insert its highly trained and heavily armed Nuhba Force members into Israel in a future war. These terrorist units would then act as death squads, murdering and maiming Israelis, or kidnapping them.

The fact that Gaza’s economy is, once again, on the brink of imploding – due to Hamas’s insistence of using its enclave as a bastion of jihad against Israel, rather than investing in its people’s welfare – is another factor that could hasten another war.