ISRAEL TRUTH TIMES: have you heard THIS??: Another Jerusalem yeshiva was saved from Palestinian attack four days before Mercaz Harav murders... SO WHO DID IT? GOOD OLD SMOM?

Monday, March 10, 2008

have you heard THIS??: Another Jerusalem yeshiva was saved from Palestinian attack four days before Mercaz Harav murders... SO WHO DID IT? GOOD OLD SMOM?

Exclusive: Another Jerusalem yeshiva was saved from Palestinian attack four days before Mercaz Harav murders
March 8, 2008, 11:43 AM (GMT+02:00)

DEBKAfile's counter-terror sources reveal that just four days before a single Palestinian killer murdered 8 Mercaz Harav students in Jerusalem on March 6, two Palestinians were frightened away from another Jerusalem yeshiva, Porath Yosef, on March 2. The pair were challenged March 2 by armed security guards on the door <iand they are still at large.i>
The Jerusalem police failed to sound the alarm after the guards reported the incident. The guards described two Palestinians who appeared at Porath Yosef demanding entry with a large carton like the one in which Ala Abu Dhaim carried his assault rifle, guns and ammo four days later. They claimed they had been commissioned to do some work in the institution and quoted the names of people associated with the yeshiva. But when asked by the guards to open the box, the two Palestinians backed off saying they were going to pick up tools from their vehicle. They were not seen again.
Responding to the guards' call, the police dismissed the incident as a misunderstanding. No alerts were circulated and Mercaz Harav did not post security guards. It was only after the massacre Thursday that the police recalled the Porath Yosef incident and realized they had missed a danger signal.
They were also forced to conclude that one or more Palestinian terror cells are on the loose in Jerusalem and could be targeting any of the hundreds of Jewish religious institutions in the city.
The security services declared an immediate general alert across the country, focusing on Jerusalem, which remains in force. The West Bank was sealed.
The investigation has so far not pinned down the organization or organizations behind the yeshiva murders. The police commissioner Dudi Cohen's insistence that it was a one-off operation and not the opening shot of a third Palestinian uprising (intifada), as some security circles are suggesting, is not taken seriously, given the spate of violence which has erupted across the country, Jerusalem and the West Bank in the last ten days.
The Shin Bet is awaiting the results of an inquiry into Jerusalem police procedures and their failure to sound the alarm after the Porath Yosef incident.
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DEBKAfile reports that the line of investigation developing the day after a Palestinian terrorist murdered 8 Israeli yeshiva students in Jerusalem is that the Hamas command in Damascus, or Hizballah in Beirut activated the killer, Ala Abu Dhaim 25, a Palestinian with Israeli citizenship from Jebal Mukaber in S. Jerusalem.
Hamas-Gaza first took responsibility for the massacre, then backtracked.
The gunman sprayed automatic Kalashnikov fire on group after group of students studying Thursday night, March 6, in the library of the Mercaz Harav Yeshiva in Jerusalem. Their deaths were mourned by many thousands Friday morning.
After the killer's family raised Hamas and Hizballah flags on their mourning tent, Jerusalem police arrested more than 10 of his relatives and friends. Hamas celebrated the attack in Gaza as "heroic."
DEBKAfile's political sources report that an explicit Hamas admission would present the Israeli government with a dilemma. It has already drawn up a detailed plan of action to fight Hamas in Gaza over its rocket blitz against Israeli civilians. Trying to play down the issue of responsibility, the police commissioner Dudi Cohen said the attack may have been an isolated incident. At the same time, the security preparedness across the country was extended to the whole of next week and the West Bank sealed. The government is faced with insistent calls for more proactive measures against Hamas.
Our counter-terror sources point to the Hizballah television broadcast from Beirut after the attack naming a group called "Phalange of free Men of Galilee – Groups of the Martyr Imad Mughniyeh and Martyrs of Gaza."
The Phalange of Free Men of Galilee, established by the Lebanese Hizballah, has been responsible for a number of murders and shooting attacks on Israeli soldiers and policemen in the northern Israel region of Galilee during the last five years. The Beirut statement suggests collaboration between Hamas and Hizballah, both backed by Iran, in planning the Jerusalem outrage. Investigators, working under blackout, are also considering the Hizb al Tahrir, a fanatical Islamic organization with a substantial presence in Jerusalem, as a possible collaborator in setting up the attack or as a connecting link between Hizballah and Hamas.
Hizb al Tahrir has lately spread its wings among Jerusalem Arabs and is attracting some of Hamas' cells in the city to its ranks. This group was behind the violent riots staged in the streets of Jerusalem this week in solidarity with Hamas in Gaza.