Hamas chief Khaled Mashaal said Saturday that the Islamist group’s request for a ceasefire with Israel was “a tactic in conducting the struggle.” 

In an interview with Al-Jazeera, Mashaal explained that “it is normal for any resistance...to sometimes escalate, other times retreat a bit.”  Hamas has implemented ceasefires in the past and has later resumed attacks, he pointed out, citing 2003 as a specific example.

According to Israel Radio, Mashaal said that he views Israel's pursuit of a cease-fire as proof that Hamas has succeeded in warding off IDF operations in Gaza.

Hamas has been negotiating with Egyptian officials for a six-month ceasefire period during which Hamas would halt its terrorist attacks and Israel would stop all counterterrorism operations. Nothing would prevent Hamas from continuing to import and manufacture weapons and train terrorists.

Hamas has also offered the promise of a 10-year pause in their attacks, if Israel would agree to relinquish all of Judea, Samaria, and eastern Jerusalem, including the Old City, and to grant citizenship to millions of foreign Arabs. If Israel were to meet those conditions, Hamas leaders say, they would agree to a 10-year ceasefire, after which they would resume their efforts to destroy the Jewish state.

Hamas to Abbas: Declare Talks a Failure
Hamas officials are pressuring Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas to declare his negotiations with Israel a failure, PA sources said over the weekend.  The group argues that Israel will not give in to PA demands, and has called on Abbas to negotiate with Hamas instead.

Arab media reported that Abbas was disappointed with the results of a recent meeting with United States President George Bush regarding the negotiations.

PA Reports Olmert Offered Temple Mount Already
Palestinian Authority officials quoted Saturday in the Lebanese daily Al-Akhbar said that Prime Minister Ehud Olmert had agreed in principal to allow Arab or Muslim authorities to control the Temple Mount.  Olmert had asked to keep the Old City of Jerusalem along with the Mount of Olives and the neighborhood of the Shiloach Spring (Silwan), they said, but that he was willing to split control in a manner that would allow all religions freedom of worship.

The sources said negotiations between Olmert and Abbas had failed, as Olmert’s offers did not come close to meeting Abbas’s demands, which include only allowing Jews to remain in two percent of Judea and Samaria (presumably in the Jerusalem region) and allowing at least 100,000 Arabs to be granted Israeli citizenship over the next ten years.

IDF forces quickly located and captured two Palestinian Authority terrorists who slipped through the security barrier north of the Kissufim Crossing Saturday night.

The two infiltrators were armed and wearing bulletproof vests when they were spotted at around 8:00 p.m. by IDF soldiers.

Gaza Belt communities were immediately placed on high alert. Residents of Kissufim, Ein HaShlosha, Re'im, Nirim and Nir Oz were ordered to remain indoors as soldiers and security teams combed the area with air support from IAF helicopters.

The two terrorists were captured a short time later. Both were unarmed at the time of their arrest, and it is believed that the two may have stashed their weapons shortly after crossing the security barrier.

Infiltration attempts during terror attacks at the Gaza crossings have increased over the past month, prompting officials to order Gaza Belt communities to review emergency procedures to be carried out in case of terrorist infiltrations.

Infiltrator Shot Near Elkana
IDF soldiers fired at a Palestinian Authority Arab man Saturday night as he tried to infiltrate through the security barrier near the Samarian Jewish town of Elkana.

The man was shot after he failed to heed soldiers' repeated warnings to stop. He suffered a light wound. No one else was injured.

IDF Arrests Local Hamas Kingpin, Other Counterterrorism Ops
IDF soldiers captured a wanted local Hamas kingpin in the northern Gaza town of Beit Lahiye early Saturday. According to local sources, PA terrorists around the home of Hassan Marouf, opened fire at the troops when they came to arrest him.

PA Health Ministry officials in Gaza said Marouf's 14-year-old daughter was killed in the crossfire and nine others were wounded, including two family members. IDF soldiers withdrew after completing the arrest and evacuating Marouf's family to hospital, according to the source. Medical officials in Gaza said Saturday night that seven terrorists were wounded in the clash. Three were listed in critical condition.

The IDF Spokesperson's Unit had no comment.

Earlier in the morning, an IDF undercover force entered northern Gaza to begin counterterrorism operations, almost immediately engaging Hamas and Islamic Jihad terrorists.

The force was covered by an IDF tank corps unit and IAF aircraft. IAF pilots fired missiles in two separate air strikes against terrorists who fired mortars, homemade bombs and other weapons at IDF soldiers.

In the latest in a series of decisions making Jewish life in Judea and Samaria more difficult, the army is leaving 40 towns.

The IDF is transferring the responsibility for protecting 40 Jewish towns in Judea and Samaria (Yesha) to private firms, and withdrawing protection altogether from ten others.  The Yesha Council's Security Officer, Shlomo Vaknin, says, "The government is privatizing our security."

Recent decisions affecting the personal and communal safety in Yesha towns include the following:

• Cancellation of Mivtzar program, in which a local emergency response team is trained by the army, to be utilized in case of a terrorist infiltration or other such crisis. "Mivtzar was the ideal response to the threat on our towns," Vaknin explains. "The fighters know the area, are well-trained, and their presence here was permanent and binding.  The towns near Gaza and in the north want to copy this program - yet here the army is cancelling it..."
• Collection of weapons from the communities.  The army explains that weapons had been stolen from residents, and that any trained resident who wishes to obtain a gun can do so.
• Cancellation of subsidies for enforcing private cars' windows from rock attacks.
• Withdrawal of National Service girls from security headquarters in the towns.
• Cancellation of budgeted funding for protecting school buses for special-education and handicapped children against shooting attacks.  "We will not be able to open the school year next year if a solution is not found," Vaknin warns.
• Cancellation of budgeted funding for running security vehicles.  "Some towns simply cannot use their security vehicles anymore," Vaknin says.

In addition, many checkpoints at which Arabs are checked for - and often found to be carrying - weapons have been removed. Furthermore, permission has been granted for more Arab policemen to bear arms in PA-controlled cities, and some 20 armored vehicles will be transferred to PA control in the near future.

Eldad: The Policy is to Push Jews Out of Yesha
MK Aryeh Eldad (National Union) feels that the decisions are coordinated and purposeful.  "The non-official [government] policy," he told IsraelNationalRadio, "is to dry up the communities, to make the security situation deteriorate, and to push the settlers out of Judea and Samaria - either by trying to tempt them with compensation, or just by making the living there very difficult, in terms of education, transportation, development, and lack of permission to build or expand homes and neighborhoods."

The latest decision affects 40 towns categorized as "Special Security Situation Towns."  Though considered to be the most threatened communities in Yesha, the army plans to give security control there over to private security firms.  Among the affected towns are Kiryat Arba, Telem, Adura, and Mevo Dotan.   The army claims that the soldiers who have traditionally been posted there - generally in their first weeks of basic training - are not as well-trained as private companies' security guards.

In addition, ten towns currently on the "Israeli" side of the partition wall/fence - such as Shaked and Hinanit in the Shomron - will have their protection removed altogether.  The thinking is that the wall provides sufficient protection against terrorist infiltrations.

Vaknin totally disagrees: "The wall doesn't stop the terrorists, who get through either by dressing as day-workers or by infiltrating at night."

Former Sephardic Chief Rabbi of the State of Israel Rabbi Mordechai Eliyahu was rushed to Shaarei Tzedek hospital late Friday night with a heart attack. The Rabbi underwent a 6-hour surgery which began with a catheterization procedure, and then a bypass. Doctors say the surgery was successful.

After midnight Friday, the Rabbi was feeling pain in his chest and having difficulty breathing. His wife summoned a neighbor who is a nurse and an ambulance was called. An intensive care ambulance team administered initial treatment at the Rabbi's home in Jerusalem's Kiryat Moshe neighborhood, after which he was taken to the hospital at about 2 a.m.

Contrary to initial reports, Rabbi Eliyahu is not suffering from from fluid in his lungs.

Speaking on Arutz Sheva Hebrew radio Sunday, Rabbi Eliyahu's personal assistant, Rabbi Shmuel Zaafrani, said that Rabbi Eliyahu's condition is improving and he is communicating with those around him. The medical team is optimistic and intends to remove the Rabbi from the respirator.

Rabbi Eliyahu's family thanked the public for their prayers, and requested that the public read the entire book of Psalms in prayer for his complete and speedy recovery (Mordechai Tzemach ben Mazal Tov).

Throughout the Sabbath day, prayers were held in those synagogues which heard of his condition.

Before the incident, the Rabbi delivered his regular sermon during Friday night services in his synagogue and showed no signs of weakness.

Several months ago, Rabbi Mordechai Eliyahu underwent cataract surgery in both eyes and refrained from leaving his home until just recently, when he renewed his public appearances at his synagogue and various functions.

Rabbi Mordechai Eliyahu is considered one of the leading rabbinic leaders of the religious-Zionist public in Israel. His son Rabbi Shmuel Eliyahu is the Chief Rabbi of Tzfat.

The Globes business site informed the Bank of Israel on Friday that its site was reporting anti-Israel messages - and two days later, the site is still down. The extent of the damage is unclear.

Surfers visiting the Bank of Israel's website to check the rise/fall of the dollar or other information are greeted with the message, "The site is temporarily closed."  Hackers assumed to be from Algeria broke into the site as early as Thursday, replacing lists of foreign currency exchange rates and other numbers with threatening warnings against the Jews. 

Reporters from Globes said they were the first to inform Bank of Israel officials, who were away celebrating the Passover holiday.  The site was immediately closed down, and remains that way as of Sunday.  Bank of Israel spokesman Yossi Saadon said the site would reopen only after it verifies the source of the hacking and ensures that the attack is over.

The hackers warned that Israel would lose in war against the Muslims, that the "scenario of Chechnya will be repeated and we will drive you out. Millions of young Muslims are willing to die for al-Quds [Jerusalem], which belongs to us."

This is the first time that hackers have succeeded in planting their own message on an official Israeli website, Globes reports. It is not clear whether the hackers have managed to actually erase or corrupt Bank of Israel data.  Saadon said blankly, "The matter is being dealt with," adding that the bank's information and internal systems are kept separate and that its financial transactions systems were protected.

The hackers' message expressed support for "the armed resistance of the Palestinians, Iraqis and Lebanese against the US and Israel. I am serious about the liberation! By any means rendered necessary!"  A link to a YouTube video was also included, featuring Moslems waving Kalashnikov rifles.

Bank of Israel's website has seen an increase in traffic in recent months, given the dramatic changes in the dollar-shekel rate.  The dollar is currently trading at 3.49 shekels.

Previous Arab Hacking
Earlier this year, an Israeli-Arab youth from the Galilee was arrested for leading a group of hackers from several Arab countries, including Lebanon and Saudi Arabia, who broke into Israeli websites.  The Likud, Maccabi Tel Aviv basketball team, and Israeli businesses were among those whose websites were attacked. The 17-year-old Arab ran the hacking business from his home computer.

The Ramle Conference, the first of its kind, will deal with the relationship between the Jewish people and the non-Jewish minorities living in Israel.

Under the banner “Ramle Conference: Between Israel and the Nations” the Kommemiyut movement, together with the religious core group that has settled in the mixed Jewish-Arab city of Ramle will present the conference Sunday.

“Israel’s status as at once a Jewish state, which contains it member of other peoples and other national minorities, which also present labor pools, present Israeli society with difficult contradictions,” organizers stated. “The goal of the conference is to bring up to public discourse the extensive issues of this reality, to address the problems experienced on a day-to-day basis and to suggest both local and national solutions.”

Leaders in the relevant fields will address the conference, organizers say. “We see special importance in the involvement of educators and rabbis in the conference, be it in discerning the nation’s response to the problem of the Arab minority and the opening of the discussion from a viewpoint of Torah,” the added.

Rabbis taking part in the conference include Kommemiyut’s Rabbi Zalman Melamed, head of the Beit El Yeshiva and chief rabbi of the Binyamin-region town, who will talk about the Jewish legal aspects of the minorities’ residence in the Land of Israel. Prof. Aryeh Stav, who heads the Ariel Center for Policy Research in Israel and edits the Nativ journal, will address the living conditions of various minority groups living in Israel. Tzfat Chief Rabbi Shmuel Eliyahu will address the dilemma posed by the seemingly contradictory precepts of “Lo techanem” (“Don’t allow them a foothold”) and “Darchei Shalom” (“Ways of peace”).

Also addressing the conference are several members of religious core groups settled in mixed Jewish-Arab and Jewish-Druze towns, who will present their experiences and dilemmas. Rabbi Yisrael Samet, who heads the religious core-group settled in Lod; Aviv Ziegelman, who headed the core-group living in the Galilee village of Peki’in prior to riots several months ago in which the homes of the core-group members were burned and looted; and members of the core-group in Acco will all appear.

Rabbi Dov Lior, Chief Rabbi of Kiryat Arba and Hevron, will address Jewish legal questions raised by those living in mixed cities and MK Uri Ariel (National Union) will suggest ways to overcome problems Jews living in such areas are facing.

There is also a plenary session dedicated to the concept of Avoda Ivrit – Jewish Labor – an early Zionist ideal that has enjoyed a rebirth in the hilltop communities of Judea and Samaria, where residents eschew cheap PA Arab labor in favor of Jewish construction. Most recently, Rabbi Chaim Kanievsky, one of the leading sages of the Hareidi-religious world, ruled that hiring Arabs is a security-risk forbidden by Torah law.

The session is dedicated in memory of Ido Zoldan, a pioneer in the realm of Jewish labor who was murdered earlier this year by a Palestinian Authority police officer in a terrorist attack near his home in Kedumim. Dr. Yitzchak Klein of the Israel Policy Center will address the question of whether such a concept is viable in today’s global economy. The panel will discuss the ramifications of Jewish labor and whether it has a place in the modern world, practically as well as ethically. Also taking part in that discussion will be Ramat Gan Yeshiva Head Rabbi Yaakov Ariel and Rabbi David Dudkevitch, rabbi of Yitzhar, in Samaria.

Ramle’s Chief Rabbi Yechiel Abuchatzeira, as well as Nachman Zoldan, Ido’s father, who runs the Kedumim 3000 construction company, will offer words of blessing to open the conference. Prior to his hospitalization, former Sephardic Chief Rabbi Mordechai Eliyahu was scheduled to attend as well.

The conference is taking place from 10:30 AM to 6:30 PM at the Eshkol HaPayis community center on 6 HaZayit Street in Ramle Sunday, April 27.

Dozens of Palestinian Authority Arab residents of Hevron and extreme leftist Israelis marched down the main road of Hevron's Jewish neighborhood Friday afternoon just hours before the start of the Sabbath and final day of the Passover holiday. The demonstration was timed to create maximum antagonism with the city's Jewish small but tight-knit Jewish community.

The group blocked the road, preventing local Jews from entering or leaving their homes, making the last-minute preparations for the final day of the complex holiday celebration extremely difficult. Several of the marchers also attacked one local Jew, who required medical attention for the injuries he sustained as a result.

IDF soldiers informed the group, who waved Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) flags and signs praising the terrorist organization, that the event was illegal. Nevertheless the group refused to leave.

Leftists later expressed anger at local police after they arrested a demonstrator but did not arrest local Jews who threw eggshells at the demonstrators' bus.

Local Jews also expressed outrage, saying the police routinely allow extreme leftists and anarchists to disrupt Jewish life with demonstrations in Hevron.

Counterterrorism Operations Continue in Hevron Region
IDF soldiers arrested two armed PA Arab men in the Hevron region during routine counterterrorism operations and standard security measures on Saturday.

In the first incident, soldiers detained a man armed with a gun in a village northwest of Hevron. Later in the day, a PA Arab was arrested at a checkpoint in the city after he was found to be carrying a knife during a routine search.

Both men were transferred to security personnel for questioning.

Yossi Harel, who commanded four ships bringing Jews to Israel illegally, died at the age of 90 in Tel Aviv Saturday.

Harel assisted 24,000 Jews in reaching Israel aboard four ships, including the famed SS Exodus, between 1945 and 1948. Great Britain, which controlled the region at the time, banned Jewish immigration due to Arab pressure. The other three ships were called Knesset Yisrael (Gathering of Israel), Atzma'ut (Independence) and Kibbutz Galuyot (Ingathering of the Exiles).

The Exodus was made famous by a film of the same name.

Born in 1919, Harel was the sixth generation in his family born in Jerusalem. At the age of 15 he joined the pre-state Hagana defense force. By the age of 28 he oversaw the clandestine immigration operations bringing Jews, many of them survivors of the Holocaust, to the Holy Land.

Later on, Harel oversaw the IDF’s Unit 131, an intelligence unit that ran a spy ring in Egypt until the so-called Lavon Affair of 1954.

Harel will be buried at the Ceasaria-area kibbutz, Sdot Yam, at 5 PM Monday.