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Egyptian and Israeli officials yesterday said that Hizbullah terrorists were plotting to attack Israeli tourists at resorts in Sinai, prompting Egyptian President Hozni Mubarak to tell Lebanon’s prime minister in a phone call that Egypt “will not allow anyone to violate its borders or destabilize the country.”
Meanwhile, Israeli Transportation Minister Yisrael Katz said that “whoever knows what to do” will make sure that Hizbullah leader Hassan Nasrallah “is put in the right place.”
Updates (Israel time; most recent at top)
9:05PM:
Israel’s hawkish Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu spoke with Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas, seen here on April 7, 2009. Netanyahu vowed on Sunday to hold talks with the Palestinians, in his first remarks on the troubled Middle East peace process since taking office. (AFP/File/Alexander Nemenov)
I dunno. The use of the adjective “hawkish” to describe the Israeli Prime Minister, along with a picture of a very meditative/peaceful looking Mahmoud Abbas, has activated my media bias detectors.
4:46PM: According to Ynet, the stabbing was criminally motivated and not a terrorist attack.
A police examination revealed that the man and his family were at the beach south of Taba when the worker, who apparently tried to rob them of their belongings, was caught by surprise by the Israeli and stabbed him in the face and neck.
4:32PM: I just got back from an enjoyable hike at Ma’arat Hateumim (Twins Cave).
The main news I missed while I was gone was that an Israeli tourist was stabbed in the face by a Libyan worker at a resort in Sinai.
1:22PM: It’s official: this morning’s boat incident was an attempted terror attack.
IDF Chief of General Staff Lt.-Gen. Gabi Ashkenazi on Monday commended naval forces for meticulously following procedures, hours after a booby-trapped Palestinian fishing boat exploded off the Gaza coast as it headed north toward Israeli territory.
Ashkenazi said hundreds of kilograms of explosives were found on board the boat and that it appeared the vessel was meant to be used in an attack against the Navy.
The Navy spotted the boat, which it said was unmanned, and followed it for about an hour in the Monday morning incident.
When it was some 300 meters off the Gaza coast and making its way north, the boat blew up, the army said. No one was wounded.
The IDF speculated that terrorists had detonated explosives on board the boat from afar and, because of a thick fog, had failed to correctly calculate its position, missing their target, Army Radio reported.
Meanwhile:
Palestinians accused the Navy of firing a shell at the boat.
Not that I was expecting an apology.
12:00PM: Egyptian police are searching for 10 Hizbullah terrorists believed to be hiding out with Bedouin in the Sinai peninsula.
11:45AM: The Idiot of the Day award goes to frequent Idiot of the Day Larry “Sam the Eagle” Derfner, who writes, inter alia, about Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman:
Lieberman is more dangerous than Ahmadinejad because we have the military power to deter Iran’s threat to destroy us physically.
Meanwhile, I would like to remind Derfner as to what the Syrian Ambassador to the US said yesterday about Lieberman.
9:57AM: An unmanned, booby-trapped palestinian boat has exploded off the coast of Gaza.
According to Ha’aretz, the IDF destroyed it as it approached an Israel Navy vessel, while Ynet and JPost report the boat as exploding on its own. While Ha’aretz is reporting it as an attempted terror attack, JPost reports that “the Navy said it was examining whether the incident was an attempted terror attack or an accidental explosion.”
Whatever it was, the palestinians and their supporters will no doubt claim it was an unprovoked Israeli attack on a palestinian fishing vessel.
6:50AM: Hamas has proudly reported the death of “the Zionist” Shimon Shiran, one of the victims of the Haifa restaurant suicide bombing in 2002, who remained hospitalized since the attack.
So, Mr Adams, are you sure they want peace?
