ISSUED BY: GCIS Communications Command Center
SOURCE: The Voice Of Russia
08April2011 8:00amEST
GCIS INTELLIGENCE UPDATE: Hamas has declared a ceasefire, which came into effect on Thursday night.
The offer came as fighting flared in Gaza over the past two weeks.
On Thursday a Palestinian anti-tank missile hit an Israeli school bus, wounding two, and Israeli forces retaliated with planes and artillery, killing four Palestinians and injuring more than 30. (read full report)
ISSUED BY: GCIS Communications Command Center
SOURCE: DEBKAfile
02April2011 1:00pmEST
GCIS INTELLIGENCE UPDATE: Saturday, after nearly two months of heightened Palestinian terrorist activity and low-key Israeli reprisals, both sides dropped their long pretense of seeking calm.
Ever since the massacre of five members of an Israeli family at Itamar on Feb. 11, Israeli government leaders have tried to sell the line that Hamas was not really seeking to raise the level of violence.
They continued to play down Hamas' motives through a 50-round mortar barrage in a single day (March 19) on Israeli civilian locations abutting the Gaza Strip, several Grad missiles fired at the towns Ashkelon, Ashdod, Beersheba and Netivot and a bombing attack in Jerusalem on March 23, which killed a tourist and injured 65 after two relatively terror-free years.
In between major attacks, the Palestinians have maintained up until the present a steady trickle of Qassam and mortar fire against Israeli civilians.
While intensifying its attacks, Hamas picked up the convenient Israeli mantra which claimed that the terrorist-rulers of Gaza wanted nothing but a ceasefire which would also embrace all the smaller terrorist organizations taking part on the shooting as well.
The Israeli army statement after the pre-dawn air strike over Gaza Saturday abruptly broke that pose by exposing Hamas's true intentions for the first time. He admitted that the Palestinian radicals had set up a major murder-cum-kidnap campaign for striking terror across the Green Line and favorite Israeli vacationing spots in Sinai, to be launched during the eight-day Passover holiday April 18-28…(read full report)
ISSUED BY: GCIS Communications Command Center
SOURCE: Israelly Cool
30March2011 11:25amEST
GCIS INTELLIGENCE UPDATE: "Dear Mr. Waters,
I was deeply disappointed to learn that you have decided to build a wall between yourself and your Israeli fans. We love you here in Israel. Surely, you must know that from the warm reception you received when you performed here five years ago at the Jewish-Arab village of Neve Shalom.
What you may not realize is that most Israelis believe in a two-state solution. But this vision is not as easy to turn into a reality as you may think. Instead of recognizing the situation’s complexity, you have joined the campaign to boycott Israel, appointing yourself as a judge in a conflict between Middle Eastern tribes. (How British of you!)…" (read full report)
ISSUED BY: GCIS Communications Command Center
SOURCE: IntelNews
30March2011 9:48amEST
GCIS INTELLIGENCE UPDATE: A new law passed by the Israeli parliament, the Knesset, allows courts for the first time in Israel’s history to revoke the Israeli citizenship of those convicted of espionage, treason, or aiding “enemy organizations”. The new law, which the Knesset enacted on Monday night by a vote of 37 to 11, amends the country’s revered Citizenship Law, which was first enacted in 1952. Along with citizenship rights, judges will be allowed to revoke the permanent residency permits of individuals found guilty of assisting organizations designated as terrorist by the Israeli government. (read full report)
ISSUED BY: GCIS Communications Command Center
SOURCE: Homeland Security News Wire
29March2011 4:02amEST
GCIS INTELLIGENCE UPDATE: Israel on Sunday stationed the first batteries of its Iron Dome short-range missile defense system in the south of the country;
The military stressed the initial deployment was experimental; after being deployed in the south, the system will then be deployed along the Lebanese border, from where Hezbollah militants fired some 4,000 rockets into northern Israel during a 2006 war;
The most obvious and immediate benefit of the defensive system would be the de-fanging of the two more radical groups in the region, Hezbollah and Hamas;
The system, though, is more significant in what it will allow Israel to do vis-à-vis the Palestinians: if the same rockets Hamas is firing at Israel from the Gaza Strip were to be fired from the West Bank, all of Israel's population and economic centers will be under threat;
If Iron Dome proved effective, it would make it easier for Israel to consider deep withdrawals from the West Bank, thus allowing the establishment of a viable Palestinian state without compromising Israeli security. (read full report)
ISSUED BY: GCIS Communications Command Center
SOURCE: Jerusalem Post
22March2011 8:00amEST
GCIS INTELLIGENCE UPDATE: Facing a possible new conflict against Hamas, concern is growing within the IDF regarding increased efforts by Palestinian terrorist groups to dig tunnels under the border that could be used to infiltrate into Israel and perpetrate attacks.
According to IDF sources, the number of tunnels has grown in recent years. Hamas is under orders to dig “terror tunnels” along the border.
Hamas has split into five different regional brigades – north, Gaza City, central Gaza, Khan Younis and Rafah.
The exact number of tunnels is unknown to the IDF.
Tunnels have been used in the past by Hamas and other terrorist groups to infiltrate into Israel. The terrorists who abducted Gilad Schalit from his military post near Kerem Shalom, in June 2006, crossed into Israel through an underground tunnel.
Palestinian terror groups in Gaza have made some major improvements to their military capabilities since Operation Cast Lead over two years ago, it is understood. One of these improvements has been in missile capability, with the addition of new long-range rockets, like the Iranian-made Fajr-5 that has reportedly been smuggled into Gaza and can reach Tel Aviv.
Hamas and Islamic Jihad are also believed to have obtained new guided anti-tank missiles like the Kornet, Fagot and Sagger, one of which was fired at an IDF patrol on Friday.
The IDF believes that Hamas is also working to improve its communication capabilities. (read full report)
ISSUED BY: GCIS Communications Command Center
SOURCE: Federal News Radio
22March2011 5:00amEST
GCIS INTELLIGENCE UPDATE: JERUSALEM (AP) – The Israeli military says its aircraft struck two militant tunnels, two weapons manufacturing and storage facilities and two other militant sites across the Gaza Strip.
Palestinian health official Adham Abu Salmia reported that 18 civilians and Hamas security forces were slightly wounded. Facilities near the targets were also reported damaged.
The military said Tuesday that the sites were targeted overnight in response to 56 mortar shells and rockets fired from Gaza into Israel over the past week.
The military also said the tunnels were dug so militants could infiltrate Israeli territory to attack civilians and soldiers. (read full report)
ISSUED BY: GCIS Communications Command Center
SOURCE: Debkafile
21March2011 6:00amEST
GCIS/MSS INTELLIGENCE UPDATE: Israeli civilians living around the Gaza border woke up Saturday, March 19, to the most massive mortar attack in years – 50 rounds fired in 15 minutes. Two civilians 
were injured and substantial damage caused to property. Hamas unusually claimed responsibility, emboldened by the support it has won from a new ally, the new rulers of Cairo, which have now lined up with Syria and Iran.
The Netanyahu government has not informed the Israeli public about the ominous new winds blowing in fromCairo although they are already in motion: Cairo has given Hamas rule of the Gaza Strip de facto recognition, is about to lift the blockade on the Gaza Strip and is forging new understandings with Damascus and the Palestinian Hamas and Islamic Jihad radicals based there.
The Egyptian military which has taken over in Cairo also turned a blind eye to at least two or three Iranian arms ships which, prior to the capture of the A.S. Victoria last week, made it through the Israeli sea blockade and delivered weapons, including C-704 shore-to-sea missiles at El Arish.
Hamas will be free to go out and collect them through the reopened Rafah crossing.
It is now obvious that Cairo's permission for two Iranian warships to transit the Suez Canal on Feb. 22, knowing that at least one was laden with weapons for extremists, was in line with the new Egyptian policy. (read full report)
ISSUED BY: GCIS Communications Command Center
SOURCE: The Economist
05March2011 6:00amEST
GCIS INTELLIGENCE UPDATE: Video cameras are popping up everywhere. On a typical day out in a big city a person could be filmed by hundreds of closed-circuit television (CCTV) cameras. The combined output of all these systems is far greater than the capacity of security staff to watch all the images. So various ways are used to automate the process.
Now an image-processing technology developed by BriefCam, an Israeli company, makes looking through CCTV footage a breeze. In some cases, twenty-four hours of video from a security camera can be searched in under a minute. The process works by showing only the bits that move. It essentially creates a summary of all moving events and plays that back as a synopsis superimposed over the static background image.
So, a camera watching over a gate though which only a dozen people a day pass would appear to be a much busier gate, with a dozen people using it in only a few seconds. As the video is not speeded up, each person moves at their actual pace. And at any time during the review an operator can switch to see the original video footage. (read full report)
ISSUED BY: GCIS Communications Command Center
SOURCE: DEBKAfile
04March2011 9:40pmEST
GCIS/MSS INTELLIGENCE UPDATE: The prospects of Egypt resuming its gas supplies to Israel dropped to zero Thursday, March 3 when Egypt's state security prosecutor Abdel Magid Mahmud announced that deposed president Hosni Mubarak would be summoned for questioning next week about allegedly corrupt deals for selling Israel Egyptian gas at knock-down prices, DEBKAfile's Cairo sources report. Mahmud claimed he had documentary evidence that Egypt lost more than half a billion dollars on its gas sales to Israel and sought to follow up suspicions that the difference was shared out between the Mubarak family and the Israeli and American partners in the transaction.
In response to a statement by the Merhav company, the Israeli partners of the joint company EMG, that supplies would be resumed Friday, March 4, word came from Cairo that there is no such intention (as DEBKAfile predicted immediately after the explosion.)
The damage to Israel's power supply is substantial. Egyptian gas fueled 40 percent of Israel's electricity requirements. In the meantime, world fuel prices have shot up and Israel has been forced to convert its power stations from gas to heavy fuel, incurring extra outlay running into hundreds of millions of dollars a month. (read full report)
ISSUED BY: GCIS Communications Command Center
SOURCE: Federal News Radio
01March2011 7:58pmEST
GCIS/MSS INTELLIGENCE UPDATE: JERUSALEM (AP) – A new Israeli weapons system knocked down a Palestinian anti-tank rocket in its first combat test Tuesday, the military said, showing off technology that could protect the heavy vehicles that have been the mainstay of the world's ground forces for decades.
Palestinian militants said they fired a rocket-propelled grenade at an Israeli tank as it patrolled near the Gaza-Israel border, a frequent occurrence. This time, the "Trophy" system sensed the incoming rocket and fired its own projectile, blowing it up away from the tank, the military said.
Trophy is thought to be the only active defense system of its kind in the world. Up till now, tanks have relied on heavier and thicker armor plating to protect against more powerful anti-tank weapons.
Experts say the active defense concept, if it works consistently, could allow the construction of smaller, lighter and more efficient tanks.
The Israeli military did not make pictures or video of the Tuesday encounter available to the media, instead issuing a short statement. It said a tank came under fire while on routine patrol, and "for the first time during operational activity, the Trophy system, … designed to actively protect against anti-tank missiles, identified, alerted and intercepted the (anti-tank rocket)."
ISSUED BY: GCIS Communications Command Center
SOURCE: Israel National News
25February2011 5:00pmEST
GCIS INTELLIGENCE UPDATE: Coverage of the tumultuous events in the Middle East in the official Chinese press has gone through a few iterations. At first, the policy was no coverage or at best 
laconic coverage. Lately, due to internet postings and official nervousness the tone has changed to ' why it can't happen here' and 'why it must not happen here'.
Anonymous groups have posted comments on Chinese dissident websites outside of China calling for a Jasmine Revolution in China. China's web censors, or what is unlovingly referred to as the "Great Chinese firewall," have managed to keep the site off-limits to most of the population, but where there are geeks there is a way. The wannabe Chinese revolutionaries have denounced the trampling of constitutional rights, the corruption and the cronyism endemic in China.
China's leaders were so alarmed that Chinese President Hu Jintao told party leaders that it was necessary to exert greater control over "virtual society" and provide guidance in "healthy directions". (read full report)
ISSUED BY: GCIS Communications Command Center
SOURCE: G2 Bulletin via World Net Daily
24February2011 4:30pmEST
GCIS INTELLIGENCE UPDATE: Iran helped orchestrate the fall of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak through its close Muslim Brotherhood ties because Egypt had strayed from a hard-line 
Islamic position – and a change of power would expand Iran's influence across northern Africa including the strategic Suez Canal, according to informed sources who talked with Joseph Farah's G2 Bulletin.
According to those sources, Iran, which already wields significant influence in central Asia and the Middle East, has as its goal to exert its influence into the Arab countries, especially those with majority or increasing Shi'ite populations.
At the same time, Tehran wants to isolate Israel, because the leaders of the Islamic republic believe officials there greatly have mistreated Palestinians.
It's not the first conflict between Tehran and Cairo. In fact, the bad blood goes back to the time of the 1979 Iranian Revolution. (read full report)
ISSUED BY: GCIS Communications Command Center
SOURCE: World Tribune
24February2011 4:00pmEST
GCIS INTELLIGENCE UPDATE: In a region noted for miracles — Israel’s prosperous if beleaguered survival, despite attempts to mobilize 360-million Arab enemies, is a recent example — prayer could 
be a way to make U.S. policy. Although she now contributes only by inheritance, former Sec. of State Condoleezza Rice voiced that possibility, woefully, recently: “…We have only one choice: to trust that in the long arc of history those shared beliefs will matter more than the immediate disruptions that lie ahead and that, ultimately, our interests and ideals will be well served.“
To quote John Maynard Milord Keynes, in the long run we will all be dead.
Reality is the Obama Administration cannot continue to abdicate America’s responsibility, leaving a worldwide vacuum to be filled by every would-be amateur Metternich. Obviously, policy is made with many unanswered questions. But leadership requires sorting possibilities, and decision-making, usually accepting the best of poor alternatives.
In all the uncertainties facing Egypt’s future, and indeed, the whole Arab world, by encroaching poverty poised against rising expectations, none is so mysterious as current U.S. policy. (read full report)
ISSUED BY: GCIS Communications Command Center
SOURCE: Right Side News
24February2011 12:48pmEST
GCIS/MSS INTELLIGENCE UPDATE: Does this all sound hauntingly familiar?
Jews throughout Europe are scrambling to escape the insidious rise of anti-semitism in virtually every country in the continent. No, the average citizen hasn’t heard much about it on CNN, MSNBC or
FOX, or in the NY Times and the Miami Herald. Why?
Reason: PC. To avoid any accusations of offending Islam, or even suggest that Muslims are to blame.
But, according to witnesses and scholars that follow the trends around the world, the Muslims are very much gaining political footholds in Europe, and that bodes bad news for Jews. (And for western culture)
One EU commissioner from the Netherlands was quoted as saying that there was no future for Jews (especially Orthodox) in that country because of growing anti-Semitism among citizens of Moroccan descent. (Muslims) This is where Theo Van Gogh was murdered in the streets for producing a motion picture about the plight of women in fundamentalist Muslim countries.
Harassment of Jewish citizens by Muslims in Malmo Sweden has caused the Simon Wiesenthal Center to warn traveling Jews to exercise extreme caution. In 2009, Muslims went to the streets in Malmo to prevent Jewish tennis players from participating in a tournament. (read full report)
ISSUED BY: GCIS Communications Command Center
SOURCE: DEBKAfile
24February2011 10:32amEST
GCIS/MSS INTELLIGENCE UPDATE: Israel's security leaders ought not to have been surprised when Hamas fired two long-range Iranian-made Grad missiles Wednesday night, Feb. 23 at the Negev cities of Beersheba and Netivot. The attack occurred exactly when Iranian Navy commander Adm. Habibollah Sayyari was due in Syria's Latakia port to attend the welcoming party for the two Iranian warships which made it through the Suez Canal without US or Israeli interference. It also marked a fresh, redoubled Hamas offensive against Israel.
The occupants of the Beersheba home, hit by the first long-range Grad surface missile to reach the Negev city from the Gaza Strip (30 km away) since Israel's Cast Led campaign of 2009, saved themselves by using the seconds between the warning siren and the explosion to take shelter in a bomb-proof room. That was the only part of their home to survive the blast. Eleven shock victims were hospitalized along the battered street.
The town of Netivot was spared by the Grad falling outside the built-up area.
Earlier that day, a shoot-out flared at the Karni crossing when a Palestinian gang laid explosives at the border fence and followed up with mortar fire. IDF border patrols and tanks crews returned the fire, injuring 11 Palestinians. A second round of Palestinian mortar fire followed against a Shaar Hanegev kibbutz.
No Israelis were hurt in this round of incidents.
Wednesday night, Israel put the communities within range of the Gaza Strip, including the cities of Beersheba, Netivot, Ofakim, Sderot, Ashkelon and Ashdod, on heightened alert status for further Palestinian attacks. That night, Israeli air strikes hit a Jihad Islami missile team and then spread out to bomb Hamas command centers, which had meanwhile been hurriedly evacuated in expectation of Israel's routine aerial reprisal. (read full report)
ISSUED BY: GCIS Communications Command Center
SOURCE: Defense News
23February2011 7:15pmEST
GCIS/MSS INTELLIGENCE UPDATE: TEL AVIV – The U.S.-Israel Arrow program passed another milestone Feb. 22 with the spectacular, nighttime, head-on intercept of a sea-based, long-range target off the California coast.
Part of the ongoing, jointly funded Arrow System Improvement Program (ASIP), the test validated new Block 4 versions designed to improve discriminating capabilities of the Arrow 2 interceptor, the Green Pine search-and-track radar and the Citron Tree battle management control system.
"To see that explosion off the shores of California was truly gratifying. It was a body-to-body impact that completely destroyed the target," Arieh Herzog, director of the Israel Missile Defense Organization told reporters via teleconference shortly after the nighttime launch at the U.S. Navy's Point Mugu Sea Range.
Herzog said validation of the Block 4 software would provide the Israel Air Force "with a better system than they have now." The software upgrades, he said, improve detection capabilities and lethality needed to defend against "new and different threats." (read full report)
GCIS/MSS INTELLIGENCE BRIEFING:
ISSUED BY: GCIS Communications Command Center
SOURCE: YNet News
23February2011 12:04pmEST
GCIS/MSS INTELLIGENCE UPDATE: Two Iranian naval ships arrived Wednesday afternoon at the Port of Lattakia in Syria, after crossing the Suez Canal Tuesday, Iranian news agency IRNA reported.
An Iranian senior official told IRNA that Iranian Navy Commander Admiral Habibula Siari is slated to arrive to Damascus later on Wednesday, accompanied by a delegation of military officials.
The source noted that the ships' arrival will be marked by a special ceremony at the port, which will be attended by officials from both countries.
The delegation is scheduled to stay in Syria for "a short time", and will then continue sailing in the Mediterranean Sea, the source noted. (read full report)
ISSUED BY: GCIS Communications Command Center
SOURCE: Philly
23February2011 4:30amEST
GCIS/MSS INTELLIGENCE UPDATE: JERUSALEM – Two Iranian warships sailed Tuesday from the Suez Canal into the Mediterranean, the first such trip in at least three decades, eliciting Israeli allegations that Tehran is seeking to dominate the Middle East.
The vessels headed toward Syria but were expected to remain in international waters as they passed the Israeli coast.
The voyage took the frigate Alvand and the supply ship Kharq close to NATO's southern flank and could further destabilize the Middle East, a region reeling from an unprecedented wave of antigovernment rebellions.
In Tehran, the deputy commander of the Iranian navy said that Iran had "surprised the Zionist regime" with the journey to the Mediterranean.
"The world arrogance [United States] should know that the army of the Islamic Republic is fully prepared to defend the holy ideals of the Islamic Republic, and this readiness grows day by day," Brig. Gen. Abdolrahim Mousavi told the official Iranian news agency IRNA.
In Washington, State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley declined to say whether the transit in and of itself, or the Egyptian decision to allow it, was a provocation.
"We will be watching carefully to see where these ships go and the implications of that," he said.
Egypt is the gatekeeper of the strategic canal that links the Red Sea and the Mediterranean.
Egypt's military rulers, who took power from ousted President Hosni Mubarak on Feb. 11, appeared to have no choice but to allow the passage. An international convention says the canal must be open "to every vessel of commerce or of war."
Iranian warships have not passed through the Suez Canal since 1979.
In sending warships to the Mediterranean now, Iran was asserting itself as a regional power and testing whether Egypt's new rulers will stick to the pro-Western line of the Mubarak government. Some said the voyage also signals that Iran is ready to come to the aid of regional allies, including Syria and Iranian proxies Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu denounced Iran late Tuesday, but he did not refer directly to the two warships.
"Iran seeks to exploit the earthquake" now shaking the region, he said. "It is seeking to bring down democratic reform. It is seeking to prevent it. It is seeking to shut down the lights and create another era of darkness like the one we have in Tehran." (read full report)
ISSUED BY: GCIS Communications Command Center
SOURCE: The Washington Post
23February2011 3:47amEST
GCIS/MSS INTELLIGENCE UPDATE: CAIRO – Iranian officials on Tuesday hailed the passage of two warships through Egypt's Suez Canal as a milestone in Iran's effort to play a greater role in maritime affairs.
Israeli officials called it a worrisome provocation at a time of upheaval and deepening tension in the Middle East.
The Alvand frigate, one of the oldest vessels in the Iranian navy's five-ship fleet, became the first Iranian warship to sail into the Mediterranean since the 1979 Islamic revolution. The frigate, built in 1968 and in dire need of repairs, is en route to the Syrian port of Latakia for a training mission and is accompanied by a supply ship.
The Iranian navy last year deployed its newest destroyer, the Jamaran, to fight Somali pirates operating in the Arabian Sea. Another recent mission took the destroyer to Sri Lanka.
Brig. Gen. Abdolrahim Mousavi, the deputy commander of Iran's military, was quoted by the country's official Islamic Republic News Agency as saying that the Suez transit had succeeded "by the grace of God" and describing Israeli officials' concerns as "negative propaganda."
Israel's vice prime minister, Silvan Shalom, said the timing of the crossing was an unmistakable message from Iran that it is attempting to expand its influence in the region.
"The objective is to signal to the leaders of the Arab world who the new leader is in the Middle East," Shalom said.
Shalom's remarks were the latest in a string of condemnations by Israeli officials, who have been monitoring the ships' movements. (read full report)
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