GAZA, (PIC)-- The Hamas Movement said that the former Mossad chief's remarks about the military failure of premier Benjamin Netanyahu in the Gaza Strip was an additional Israeli admission that the Palestinian resistance had soundly defeated the Israeli army. Spokesman for the Movement Sami Abu Zuhri stated on Friday that all the Israeli government's attempts to mitigate the impact of its defeat by the resistance in Gaza would be doomed to failure. Former head of the Mossad Meir Dagan had said that Netanyahu's attitude towards regional issues caused great strategic damage to Israel, admitting, in particular, that the last war on Gaza had failed miserably. Dagan stated in an interview conducted by Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper that the way Netanyahu always dealt with internal and external issues would not serve Israel's interests and would inflict, instead, strategic losses upon Israel. more

BETHLEHEM (Ma'an) -- Israeli Mossad agents detained a Palestinian in Egypt's Sinai in June, Israeli media reported Wednesday. An Israeli judge cleared news of the arrest for publication on Wednesday and said Wael Abu Rida, from Gaza. He was detained on suspicion of "offenses of national security," the Israeli daily Yedioth Ahronoth reported. A magistrates' court in Beersheba on Wednesday extended Abu Rida's remand by eight days, the report said. Judge Yuval Livadaro allowed the publication of some details in Israeli media, but extended the gag order of other details by 10 days. The detainee's wife, Amani Abu Rida, had told Ma'an on July 3 that her husband disappeared during a visit to Egypt for medical treatment. more

JERUSALEM, Aug. 13 (Xinhua) -- Former chief of Israel's Mossad intelligence agency Danny Yatom on Monday said that Israel could destroy parts of Lebanon and Gaza if it were attacked by rockets from there in case of a war with Iran. Speaking at an interview with Israel Radio, Yatom focused the main concerns of the attack's backlash on Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in Gaza. Yatom pointed out that their rocket arsenal could cover all of Israel. "We will have to stop the firing of missiles, both from the north and the south, as quickly as possible," Yatom said, adding that both Lebanon and Gaza would suffer greatly for such an attack. "It is possible that the price that Lebanon and Gaza will pay will be horrible. We are liable to destroy, or likely to destroy, parts of Lebanon, and parts of Gaza," he said. more

CAIRO (Reuters) -- Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood said Monday that the attack on a police station in Sinai in which 16 policemen were killed "can be attributed to Mossad," a claim swiftly dismissed by Israel. The Muslim Brotherhood said on its website that Mossad, the Israeli intelligence agency, was trying to abort the Egyptian uprising that toppled President Hosni Mubarak last year and that it was "imperative to review clauses" of the agreement between Egypt and Israel. "This crime can be attributed to the Mossad, which has been seeking to abort the revolution since its inception and the proof of this is that it gave instructions to its zionist citizens in Sinai to depart immediately a few days ago." "(It) also draws our attention to the fact that our forces in Sinai are not enough to protect it and our borders, which makes it imperative to review clauses in the signed agreement between us and the zionist entity," the group said. more

What is Israeli intelligence up to in Egypt? This kidnapping of a Gazan man follows claims by Israel that rocket bases are being set up on the peninsula, although no evidence of this has been provided and Egypt has denied the claims. GAZA CITY (Ma’an) -- A Gazan man was detained by Israeli forces in the Egyptian Sinai on Tuesday and taken to Israel for interrogation, a close friend of his family told Ma'an. The Palestinian Authority liaison department confirmed that a Gazan had been detained by Israeli forces, but could not provide further details. The family friend, who wished to remain anonymous, told Ma'an that Israel's secret service had telephoned the family to notify them of the incident. more

An Israeli court has given the go-ahead for the publication of ex-Mossad Chief Meir Dagan's testimony in a murder trial. The accused has claimed that he killed a British tourist in cold blood in part due to the psychological effects of his service in an elite Special Forces unit once commanded by Dagan. Sayeret Rimon unit operated on the southern front, including Gaza, and is held responsible for killing 290 Palestinians on a wanted list of 300. Dagan told the court that he didn't count the Palestinians who were killed and that for every one who was killed there were hundreds who were arrested. Reports in Israel claim that the Israeli Army's Southern Command is reviving the Sayeret Rimon unit to work undercover in the Gaza Strip. Recruits, it is said, must be fearless and experienced soldiers. Several dozen have been recruited for the unit, whose targets include the leaders of the Palestinian resistance in Gaza. It is alleged that the then General Ariel Sharon was pleased t...

From MEMO Media sources in Israel have claimed that "secret and sharp" diplomatic messages have been received by the government in Tel Aviv voicing protests about the Zionist state's use of fake passports for espionage purposes. According to Hebrew newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth, such messages have been sent by several countries from Asia, Africa and Europe complaining about the use of their passports for "operational activities overseas" by Israel's secret intelligence agency, Mossad. Some of the countries, said the newspaper, are "friends of Israel"; none are the countries whose passports were abused during the assassination of Hamas leader Mahmoud Al-Mabhouh in Dubai last year. That Mossad operation sparked a diplomatic crisis between Israel and Britain, Australia and Ireland, but France and Germany merely asked the Israelis for "clarification". Yedioth Ahronoth said that Mossad's use of fake passports for espionage purposes "caus...

From Ahram Online The High National Security Court has detained an Israeli Mossad officer for 15 days pending investigation, for spying on Egypt and threatening national security. According to the investigation, Egyptian security forces arrested the suspect, 41, in a famous hotel in downtown Cairo with a laptop and three cell phones containing top-secret information that would have harmed Egypt. more

There have been a number of deaths of resistance fighters as a result of unexplained explosions. This arrest is thought to be linked to these events, where weapons have been booby trapped to explode during training. From Iran's Press TV Palestinian resistance group Islamic Jihad says it has arrested a Palestinian man suspected of spying for Israel in the south of the Gaza Strip. The spy, who is linked to the murder of at least 16 Palestinian resistance forces by Israeli troops inside Gaza, was finally arrested on Friday after months of investigation and surveillance, Xinhua reported the Islamic Jihad saying in a statement. Hours later, the man was handed over to the democratically elected government of Hamas in the Gaza Strip. more

MOSCOW, ( PIC )-- Russia has confirmed that it expelled Israel's military attaché Vidal Leidermen after arresting him for trying to obtain information on Russia's military relations with Arab countries. A statement by the Russian federal security services (FSB) said Leiderman was assigned by the Israeli intelligence to get secret information from government officials about the range of bilateral relations between Russia and the Arab countries in military and technology, and the aid Russia was giving to those nations. The documents and evidence clearly demonstrate that Leiderman had taken hostile steps against Russia, the statement added. more

Ukraine still hasn't complained about Israel kidnapping a Palestinian engineer on its territory. Now Israel's courts have published their trumped up charges - he designed rockets. Basically, anyone with a scientific and engineering background could be part of the rocket-designing and manufacturing infrastructure. Only if Gaza is thrown back to some pre-industrial stone age will Israel be satisfied. Dirar Abu Sisi is being charged with attempted murder, being a member of a terrorist organisation and developing weaponry. A Palestinian engineer has been charged with hundreds of counts of attempted murder and accused of developing missiles that the Islamist group Hamas fired from Gaza against Israelis. Dirar Abu Sisi, a director of the Gaza Strip's sole power station, said he was kidnapped during a visit to Ukraine in February and transferred secretly to Israel. A court in the southern Israeli city of Beersheba handed down a 15-page indictment, revealing the allegations at the ...

See the full story by Fares Akram at the New York Times . GAZA — Relatives of an engineer from Gaza who disappeared last month in Ukraine said Thursday that he had been kidnapped by Mossad agents and transferred to an Israeli prison. The engineer, Derar Abu Sisi, is the operating manager of the only power plant in Gaza, the Palestinian enclave that is controlled by Hamas, the Islamic militant group. He is married to a Ukrainian woman and was in the country applying for citizenship, relatives said.

Excellent piece on Israel's response to the BDS campaign. Bill going through parliament will lead to punitive economic measures against the Pallestinian Authority because of its call for a Palestine and worldwide boycott of settlement goods. The law if passed would also criminalise Israeli activists who support the boycott. After noting the growing reach of the BDS campaign, a recent report to an Israeli security conference recommended that: 'Israeli Intelligence community "collect, analyze and disseminate information initiate "operations" in areas relevant to Israel's PR campaign, and direct the intelligence agencies towards thwarting anti-Israeli public relations.' [3 mins into video] Israel's defenders just don't get it. It's not a problem of presentation and PR but rather the plain fact of colonialism and oppression underpinning the state that is the problem. And that can't be wished away. The arrogance of being an imperial outpost for...

Omer Goldman, has had to confront the values of her own family. She is the daughter of the former deputy head of Mossad, the Israeli intelligence service and who is still considered one of the most powerful men in the Israeli security system. Omer, without her fathers permission visited a Palestinian town in the West Bank and at a check-point, alongside Palestinians, her supposed enemies, was fired upon by Israeli soldiers. (Thanks Nasser )

The Guardian newspaper said Wednesday that Israel’s persistence in defying the US call for halting settlement activities in occupied Jerusalem and its forging of British passports in order to murder a senior Hamas official in Dubai is a “mark of arrogance.” The Guardian highlighted, commenting about the issue of forged British passports and the last remarks made by Israeli premier Benjamin Netanyahu in Washington about occupied Jerusalem, that “both events in London and Washington are the marks of an arrogant nation that has overreached itself.” “The forging of British passports is the work of a country which believes it can act with impunity when planning the murder of its enemies, while simultaneously claiming to share the values of a law-based state,” the newspaper added. “Netanyahu's statements in Washington, made as he was preparing to meet Barack Obama, are the mark of a leader who thinks he can openly defy the will of Israel's closest military ally.” It also quoted US se...

The ambassador, Ron Prosor, will not be expelled according to diplomatic reports. Instead it's more likely to be a lower-ranking staff member. [update] Telegraph claims it is the Mossad station chief who has been expelled . The UK is to expel an Israeli diplomat over the use of twelve cloned British passports in a Dubai murder, the BBC has learned. Foreign Secretary David Miliband will make a statement to Parliament later. Israel has said there is no proof that its agents were behind the killing of Mahmoud al-Mabhouh in a Dubai hotel room in January. Diplomatic sources stressed the British government has stopped short of accusing Israel of the murder. more

al-Mabhouh was drugged and then suffocated. No mention of signs of torture refered to in earlier reports. A Hamas official who was killed in his hotel room here in January was first injected with a fast-acting muscle relaxant and then suffocated, Dubai police officials said Sunday. The disclosure was the latest in a near-daily drip of information about the killing, which has riveted people across the Middle East and provided a rare level of detail about a political assassination widely believed to have been carried out by Israel’s intelligence service, the Mossad. The drug, succinylcholine, is often used by doctors to administer a breathing tube, but it has also been used in killings and as a paralyzing agent before lethal injection. Investigators discovered the relaxant in the body of the Hamas operative, Mahmoud al-Mabhouh, after noticing an injection mark on his thigh, according to a forensic specialist who spoke at a news conference alongside Dubai’s deputy police chief, Khamis al-...

Dubai-based National newspaper reports Hamas claim that there were two attempts on Al-Mabhouh's life, one as recently as last year. He was admitted to hospital in May last year in semi-conscious state. DUBAI // Mahmoud al Mabhouh faced two previous assassination attempts in recent years, Hamas officials said yesterday. They said the Hamas operative was poisoned last year and, earlier, was the target of a shooting in Lebanon. Dubai Police released a hospital report yesterday showing that al Mabhouh was treated at Rashid Hospital in May last year. The report said al Mabhouh was suffering from dizziness and was half-conscious when he was admitted, but had no fever. X-rays showed a lung infection. He was treated with antibiotics and released on May 10. “We always lived with the possibility that al Mabhouh could be killed at any time due to the sensitivity of his job,” said Osama Hamdan, a senior Hamas official in Lebanon and a relative of al Mabhouh. Another senior Hamas official said ...

BBC has an interesting article on the Mossad assasination of Mabhouh: Excellent base for operations against Iran - two of the gang has travelled there; Mossad underestimated the thoroughness of the Dubai police; Mossad's entire station in Dubai is now under threat. Bruce Riedel, a former CIA officer who is now a senior fellow at the Washington-based Brookings Institution, says Wednesday's revelations did not change his opinion that Israel was behind the assassination in Dubai. "This most likely was a Mossad operation. All the signatures - European passports, the way the team moved quickly to leave the country - cumulatively paint a pretty convincing case," he told the BBC News website. Mr Riedel says it would have been highly unusual for the hit squad to have visited Dubai using the stolen identities last year just for reconnaissance, as the police claim, and that this may have been an attempt to eliminate the Hamas leader that had failed. He also doubted that all of ...

Two more UK passports now linked. The BBC helps to corroborate accusations at the time of the killing, but little reported in the West, that Mabhouh had been tortured to death. Another two British passports have been linked to the assassination of a Hamas militant in Dubai. Foreign Office Minister Chris Bryant insisted the government had had no prior knowledge of the killing or use of the passports. It was already known six fake UK passports were among those used by the alleged killers of Mahmoud al-Mabhouh. Earlier, Foreign Secretary David Miliband urged Israel to co-operate with a UK investigation. The Israeli secret service Mossad has been widely accused of carrying out last month's killing but Israel has repeatedly asserted there was no proof its agents were involved. Mr Mabhouh, one of the founders of Hamas's military wing, was found dead in a Dubai hotel room on 20 January and an autopsy report said he had been electrocuted and then suffocated . more