The Wheels are coming off the Deportation Train

According to DEBKAfile in its report Sharon Now Wants to Delay Gaza Pullout

[...]In the last week of March, the Knesset’s enacted the 2005 state budget including the IS.7-9bn (app $2 bn). That left a scant four months for the monumental tasks of preparing the relocation of thousands of evacuees – some unwilling - in homes, jobs, businesses and schools. In the last week, meanwhile, the partial lull in terrorist operations dating from February is crumbling fast. Monday, April 18, 4 Israeli soldiers were injured in two separate Palestinian attacks: a gunman opened fire at A-Ram checkpoint north of Jerusalem injuring two soldiers seriously, one a girl. Two more soldiers were wounded, one seriously, by sniper fire on Philadelphi border with Egypt.

According to a communiqué from Israel’s high military command covering the last few days, Palestinians in the Gaza Strip fired eight mortar rounds at Israeli targets, injured three Israeli troops in nine sniper attacks and planted 7 explosive devices that were dismantled. The Palestinian force that Abbas “deployed” in the Gaza Strip when he took over melted away when the first mortar and missile firings were heard.

Furthermore, the post-disengagement arrangements charted with Egypt to secure the Philadelphi border strip and control the massive arms smuggling traffic from Sinai have fallen apart. Then, too, coordination with the Palestinians is a fading prospect. Mahmoud Abba poses hefty prior stipulations and the radical jihadists Hamas’ will not play along as they expect to oust his Fatah from government and overpower both the Gaza Strip and the West Bank. MORE

Posted by Ted Belman at April 19, 2005 08:01 PM