A good news story (for a change) from Jerusalem Post Nov. 3, 2005 1:26 Updated Nov. 3, 2005 7:07 By ARIEH O'SULLIVAN ...
...Each night, security forces fan out across Judea and Samaria and detain suspected fugitives. Nearly 1,000 have been nabbed and brought in for questioning in the past few months. While many were eventually released, the arrest of key terrorists has decimated their ranks, particularly in Hamas, who are now suffering from a dearth of local leaders in the run-up to Palestinian elections.
But most of the pressure has been focused on Islamic Jihad, which has carried out three suicide attacks during the so-called truce (Netanya, Tel Aviv and Hadera). In the past week alone, the Israeli security forces have killed two Islamic Jihad commanders in Tulkarm, another seven in Gaza, and at least five in Kabatiya. The IAF also killed a top Fatah and Hamas terrorist in Gaza.
But the crackdown on the terrorist groups in the West Bank has been so vast and consistent that they are resigned to attempting to sneak in from the Gaza Strip not just know-how, but muscle as well.
....According to senior security officials, fewer and fewer people are involved in Palestinian terror. Hamas is refraining from openly staging attacks in order to present itself as a political movement in the lead-up to the elections. A poll conducted by the PCPO showed that three out of four Palestinians favor the continuation of the "calm" and indicates that the escalation in terror by the Islamic Jihad and Hamas was not supported.....
"They lack a political agenda other than causing attacks," a senior Shin Bet official said. "The Popular Resistance Committees are the closest to the ideology of global jihad because they don't have a political agenda other than the destruction of the West."
.... Israel never trusted the Palestinians and their various cease-fires, lulls and informal truces. And it is highly unlikely at this stage that Israel will accept any kind of agreement to halt its targeted killings so (that) Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas can declare he will start dismantling the terrorist infrastructure.
Even IDF Chief of General Staff Lt.-Gen. Dan Halutz said that as far as he was concerned it was possible to defeat terrorism through military means. "In contrast to the theory that the army cannot exterminate terrorism, I believe the army can reduce terrorism to the very lowest level," Halutz told The Jerusalem Post last month. While not promising to bring terrorism to an "absolute zero" level, Halutz said the IDF policy has proven that there was a military answer to terrorism, and we are watching this unfold daily.
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