Hamas’s leader in the Gaza Strip Yahya Sinwar on Friday warned Israel “not to test us again,” saying the next rocket barrage from the territory would target Tel Aviv and other central cities with a potency that would “surprise” Israel.
He also warned that the next time Israeli soldiers entered the Strip, they would only return through a prisoner exchange for “thousands of prisoners.”
Speaking at a ceremony honoring the seven gunmen killed during a firefight on Sunday with Israeli undercover special forces, Sinwar pulled out a handgun with a silencer which he said belonged to one of the special forces troops.
He mocked Israel for assuming its decision to allow fuel and Qatari funds into Gaza before the latest flareup — as part of Egyptian-mediated efforts to achieve a long-term truce — would prevent his group from launching a large-scale attack against the Jewish state.
“What did the Israeli leadership think when it allowed in fuel and Qatari funds? …that we would sell out our blood for diesel and dollars? They’ve been disappointed, and their goals have failed,” he said.
He said he had spoken to the leader of Hamas’s military wing the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades, Muhammad Deif. “Deif asked me to say that Tel Aviv and Gush Dan [the greater Tel Aviv area] are next. The first barrage to hit Tel Aviv will surprise Israel.”
Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh cheered Liberman’s resignation Wednesday, saying it marked an “admission of defeat” by Israel. Haniyeh also boasted that Hamas “achieved a military victory against this odious occupier in less than a week.
In a final shot as defense minister, Avigdor Liberman on Friday lambasted his former colleagues in the security cabinet, saying they’d “effectively” given the leaders of the Hamas terror group “immunity” during this week’s intensive round of violence.
“It simply makes no sense that after Hamas launches some 500 rockets at Israeli communities outside Gaza, at the south of the country, the heads of Hamas effectively get immunity from the Israeli security cabinet,” he said during a farewell visit to the south.
Liberman, who tendered his resignation on Wednesday, also warned that Israel’s policies toward Gaza were threatening to allow the Hamas terror group — considered by the Israel Defense Forces to be a comparatively minor strategic threat in terms of raw military power — to become akin to Lebanon’s mighty Hezbollah terrorist army, which is seen as the Jewish state’s main rival in the region with an arsenal of over 100,000 mortar shells, rockets and missiles.
“We are currently feeding a monster, which if we don’t stop its rearmament and force-building — in a year we will get a twin to Hezbollah — with all that entails,” he said.
“For the past two and a half years, I have bit my tongue. I tried to change things from within, but the last two decisions — on the transfer of $90 million to Hamas over the next six months and the decision on the ceasefire — these were two decisions that went too far,” he said.
Liberman was referring to a decision to allow Qatar to send funds into Gaza, which was meant to pay salaries of Palestinian civil servants in the Strip — after the Palestinian Authority decided to withhold those funds in a bid to punish its rival Hamas.
On Friday Liberman said “the moment the money crosses the border with the Strip, there is no oversight of it.”
He added, “It is purely $15 million of terror funding.”
In the months prior to the flareup, Liberman had repeatedly and publicly called for a military operation against Hamas in the Gaza Strip, claiming it was the only way to return calm to the communities in southern Israel, which have periodically been pummeled by fusillades of rockets and mortar shells.
The defense minister reiterated this position on Friday, saying Israel should have launched a military campaign against Hamas this summer, with the end of the school-year.
“It’s not a secret, I thought that right after the tests, right after the school exams in July, we needed to deal a strong blow [to Hamas] — and we didn’t do that,” he said.
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