Sunday, 3 August 2008

Israel Up Date




Tehran hosts Assad to celebrate winning nuclear dispute with West and cooling of US-Israel ties
DEBKAfile Exclusive Analysis
August 2, 2008,

TOP STORIES
•Hamas shells Gaza-Israel crossing as 180 pro-Fatah loyalists flee to Israel
•German $157 m gas deal with Iran torpedoes sanctions
•Syrian, Iranian rulers in celebratory get-together
•Israeli-Syrian peace track breaks up amid shakeups in Jerusalem and Damascus
•Israeli minister concerned about direct US-Iran talks
•US X-Band radar for Israel anti-missile defense precludes role in Iran attack
•Hizballah seizes second strategic Lebanese peak
Hamas shells Gaza-Israel crossing as 180 pro-Fatah loyalists flee to Israel
DEBKAfile Special Report
August 3, 2008, 9:09 AM (GMT+02:00)

Funeral amid major Hamas-Fatah battles in Gaza
Hamas shelled the Nahal Oz crossing Saturday night, Aug. 2, as Israel allowed 180 pro-Fatah loyalists to flee the Gaza Strip and transit Israel to the West Bank. Thirty injured people were transferred to Israeli hospitals after a day of intense mortar, rocket and machine gun battles between Hamas and the pro-Fatah Hilles clan in the Gaza Strip’s Shijaiyeh district. Nine people were killed on both sides and more than 100 were injured.

Assad and Ahmadinejad congratulate each other
The Syrian president Bashar Assad was due to visit Tehran in a week’s time. The trip was brought forward to Saturday, Aug. 2 to coincide with the deadline the six powers gave Iran for an answer to its offer of benefits in return for its consent to suspend uranium enrichment – or face a fourth round of sanctions.
DEBKAfile’s Middle East sources report: Iranian and Syrian rulers are so pleased with their unforeseen success in outmaneuvering the West that they called an urgent summit for follow-up planning.
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Merkel’s green light for $157m gas deal with Iran torpedoes sanctions
DEBKAfile Special Report
August 2, 2008, 12:44 PM (GMT+02:00)
German Chancellor Angela Merkel
German chancellor Angela Merkel blunted - in advance - the big-power drive for sanctions to punish Iran for its nuclear defiance. When Iranian nuclear negotiator Saeed Jalili faced the US, European Union, the UK, France, Russia, Geneva and China in Geneva on July 19, he knew that their two-week ultimatum for Tehran’s answer to their incentives offer could be sidestepped with impunity.
The deal was approved a month before the German chancellor’s March stood up in the Knesset, promised to push for further sanctions against Iran and declared that Israel’s security was “nonnegotiable.”
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Israeli-Syrian peace track breaks up amid shakeups in Jerusalem and Damascus
DEBKAfile Exclusive Report
August 2, 2008, 10:16 AM (GMT+02:00)
Syrian FM Walid Mualem joins exodus of officials in Jerusalem, Damascus
DEBKAfile’s Exclusive Middle East sources reveal that not only has prime minister Ehud Olmert’s chief of staff and lead negotiator with Syria, Yoram Turbowicz, decided to resign, but Syrian foreign minister Walid Mualem, the leading proponent of talks with Israel in Damascus, is also on his way out.
Turkey, envisaging the breakdown of its initiative, has hared off in a new direction, a bid to mediate between Israel and the Palestinian Hamas.
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