New Offensive Brewing In Gaza

The London Telegraph reports that Palestinian militants have acquired tons of explosives and perhaps even advanced missiles, preparing for a showdown with the IDF they expect to come if Gilad Shalit is not freed soon. The terrorists want to emulate Hezbollah’s attack against the Israelis and have upgraded their weapons systems with that in mind:

Palestinian militants in the Gaza Strip are rearming and retraining for an imminent military showdown with the Israeli army, intelligence sources disclosed yesterday.
Yuval Diskin, the head of Israel’s intelligence service Shin Bet, said 19 tons of explosives had been smuggled into Gaza in the past year. Other senior Israeli officials indicated that Palestinian fighters were acquiring more effective weapons. …
Brigadier General Shalom Harari, a military intelligence officer, said yesterday that Israeli forces might “go into Gaza in a big way” unless Cpl Shalit is freed. Accusing Iran of being behind the new weapons drive, he said Teheran had found willing partners in Palestinian fighters. …
While Palestinian groups have boasted of a home-grown anti-tank missile known as the Batar, intelligence officials in Israel dismissed it. But they revealed that militants have replaced the RPG7, the standard rocket propelled grenade, with upgraded versions that can pierce Merkava tanks. “They want to bring in weapons that ‘break the equation’ of our military superiority,” said one intelligence official. “They want to be able to attack symbols of our power like the Merkava tank, the Apache helicopter, offshore missile boats and armoured bulldozers.”
In particular, the officials said, Palestinian militants have a “real appetite” to adopt Hizbollah tactics from the war in Lebanon, when Russian-built Kornet missiles proved deadly against tanks on the battlefield while longer-range Katyushas were directed at towns inside Israel.

Well, it’s no secret that the Palestinians have been itching for this fight for some time. They got one when they kidnapped Shalit and killed two other soldiers in their tunneling incursion earlier this summer, then sat back as the IDF dismantled Gaza searching for Shalit. Now they want another round against the IDF after believing the hype from the Hezbollah War that pre-empted their own.
Best of luck, fellas. The quaint notion that Hassan Nasrallah won anything in that war was belied by the hiding places from which he issued his triumphal announcements. Nasrallah couldn’t even attend his own victory party without the Israelis commenting with some amusement that they probably wouldn’t shoot him with a number of innocent bystanders attending the rally.
Those kind of victories Israel can abide.
However, if the Palestinians do not return Shalit, they will get the war they want. The IDF learned a few things in the sub-Litani region as well, and hopefully so did Ehud Olmert. If Gaza starts launching sophisticated new missiles at Ashkelon, the Israelis will have plenty of reason and opportunity to roll right back into Gaza to have their little war. They’re going to find out that 19 tons of explosives don’t go nearly as far in war as it does in terrorist attacks.