ISRAEL READIES TO STRIKE

Israel has exploited the global fixation with the Libyan crisis to break a range of international laws while it secretly weighs the benefits of launching a second invasion of Gaza, or starting another war against Hezbollah in Lebanon.
The laws Israel has broken range from the planned construction of hundreds more Jewish settler homes on Palestinian land to the launching of a missile attack inside Sudan. The Sudan attack, which killed two men in a car near Sudan’s main port city, was carried out by Apache helicopters firing missiles of a type used only by Israel. The Sudanese government said it was an infringement of its territorial integrity and an attempt to drive a wedge between Sudan and Washington, following the normalizing of relations between the two countries. Before the attack, Israel blocked radar Sudan uses to track civilian aircraft in its own airspace. Some experts said the move could have led to a mid-air collision and exemplified Israel’s cynical use of military power. It was the second time in two years the Israeli military carried out attacks within Sudan. In 2009, it used missiles to target a convoy of cars it claimed were part of an arms smuggling operation.
Israel’s intelligence agency, Mossad, has also been busy running one of its familiar rendition operations, this time abducting a Palestinian engineer, Dirar Abu Sisi, in Ukraine and secretly transporting him to Israel. Sisi was responsible for redesigning Gaza’s only electrical power plant to run on diesel supplied by Egypt, making it less reliant on Israeli fuel supplies. His wife, who is Ukrainian, claims her husband was in her country applying for citizenship for him and his children because he thought Gaza was too dangerous for his family. On February 19, 2011, he vanished after being taken from a train by two men, claiming to be Ukrainian State Security agents. The Ukrainian government denied involvement in his disappearance and referred the matter to the U.N. On April 4, 2011, he reappeared in a court in Israel charged with being a Hamas rocket specialist. The Israelis alleged Hamas sent him to Ukraine to study Scud missile technology. The Palestinian Authority said his abduction was yet another classic example of Israel committing an “international crime.”
Meanwhile, there has been an increasing clamor in Israel for tougher action against Hamas and it has led to Israeli missile attacks on Gaza that have killed Hamas members and injured scores of civilians, including children. The excessive use of Israeli power, which a response to a recent Hamas rocket attack that injured an Israeli boy, signaled a growing desire by the Israeli government to launch another Gaza invasion. Such a move would draw the ire of surrounding Arab states and outright condemnation by Turkey and EU nations. Turkey has made it clear to Washington it will, under no circumstances, normalize relations with Israel while it acts like a bully.
Were Israel to launch an Operation Cast Lead II invasion of Gaza it knows it would likely face retaliation from Hezbollah, a Hamas ally. With that in mind, there are signs Israel is preparing to deal with Hezbollah, which gave the Israeli military a bloody nose in 2006. In a move, which smacks of Israel justifying military action before it begins, the Israeli military has circulated a map it says shows 1,000 Hezbollah underground sites in Lebanon. It claims the sites are for weapons storage and forward targeting and are in 270 villages beside civilian facilities, including schools and hospitals. In other words, if Israel bombs the sites in the near future, causing massive civilian casualties, it will say it warned Hezbollah it put the lives of ordinary Lebanese in harm’s way by locating its facilities near civilian structures.
Hezbollah’s leader, Sheik Hassan Nasrallah, has warned he will send forces into Israel if it attacks Lebanon. He also made it clear he possesses rockets capable of striking Tel Aviv. Hamas and Hezbollah both suspect Israel is gearing up for military action against them because it does not have Washington’s approval at this time to strike at Iran because of the tense political climate across swathes of the Middle East.