Israel Deputy Defense Minister Ze’ev Boim said Thursday Israel should consider military action against targets within Syria.
In response, Senior Hamas official Osama Hamdan Thursday warned Israel that Hamas ‘will not sit idly by’ if Israeli forces attempt to assassinate its leaders abroad.
Hamas has said in the past that such attacks would present a ‘green light’ to attack Israeli targets overseas.
‘I believe that it is possible to carry out these attacks by correct selection of targets, in the correct ‘dosage,’ placing the red lines that must be placed, without thinking in terms of massive conflagration, which is certainly not in our interest,’ Boim said in remarks broadcast on Israel Radio.
Government sources have fingered Moussa Abu Marzook and Khaled Mashal, both residing in Syria as standing behind the Be’er Sheva double bombing, which took the lives of 16 Israelis.
Israel has provided the U.S. with what was described as a ‘concrete evidence’ of Syrian involvement in the bombings, Israel Radio reported Thursday.
Israeli defense minister Shaul Mofaz pointed Wednesday at Hamas headquarters in Syria as being directly responsible for the Be’er Sheva double bombing.
Mofaz said that ‘a large portion of the “terrorism†in the territories comes from Hamas headquarters in Damascus and Hezbollah in Lebanon. You cannot separate what happened in Be’er Sheva from what is going on in Lebanon.’
At the same time, Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon also blamed the Be’er Sheva bombing on Hamas headquarters in Damascus.
Earlier, Israeli Army Chief of Staff Moshe Ya’alon warned that Israel would ‘take care of those who support terror,’ pointing at the Palestinian Authority, Syria and Hezbollah.
‘We will take care of those who support terror,’ Ya’alon told a meeting of the Knesset House Committee. ‘That is those in the Palestinian Authority, the Hezbollah organization in Lebanon, in the “terrorist†command in Damascus, which operate with Syrian approval and those who provide funding and weapons to “terrorist†organizations.’
Following October 2003 bombing attack in a Haifa restaurant, Israel Air Force warplanes struck targets close to Damascus. Israel at the time blamed Syria for supporting the organization that carried out the attack, namely Islamic Jihad.
A senior military official said Tuesday that Syria continue to provide logistics and financial backing to Palestinian militant groups.
‘It is not the PR departments of these organizations sitting in Damascus. It is their operational commands.’ a high military source told Haaretz.
As well, Israeli security sources accused Monday the Lebanese based Hezbollah party with relation to the bombing attempt that was foiled at the Gaza Strip Erez military check post.
