November 21, 2005:
The Israeli government currently knows of ten Palestinian terrorist attacks in the works, and intelligence information on additional attack plans. These include one from the Lebanese Hizbollah terrorist organization. This is a Shia group, backed by Iran, that has been operating in Gaza and southern Lebanon.
November 20, 2005: The security problems with the Palestinian territories have kept most Palestinian workers away from their jobs in Israel. This has led to a labor shortage, and attracted many foreigners to come in to take the jobs. Some of these workers enter illegally, which has become a security problem, since about a quarter of the illegal workers are Palestinians. If a Palestinian can get in to work illegally, terrorists can get their suicide bombers in as well. In a recent round up, fifteen Israelis were arrested for employing illegal immigrants, and about 1.6 percent of the thousand illegal workers arrested, were questioned further for possible terrorist or criminal connections.
November 19, 2005: Four suspected Hamas terrorists were arrested in the West Bank.
November 18, 2005: Civil disorder continues in Gaza, as the Palestinian Authority finds its police force confronted by heavily armed terrorist and clan militias. There has been a lot of posturing, some shooting and at a few deaths each week.
November 17, 2005: An Israeli raid in the West Bank left a Hamas leader dead and 11 Palestinians arrested. These raids try to shut down terrorist attack preparations. Israeli informer networks in the West Bank continue to provide much information on terrorist activities.
November 15, 2005: The U.S. brokered a deal that allows the Palestinians to control the border crossings in Gaza. This is likely to get more Israelis killed because of more terrorist weapons being smuggled into Gaza. As long as Israel controlled the Gaza borders, this smuggling was kept low, and kept advanced weapons out of Gaza. But with the Palestinians controlling the crossings, even with Palestinians promising to crack down on the smuggling, more weapons are likely to get in, and more attacks made on Israel. The Palestinian border guards will be susceptible to bribes, or threats against their families, by Palestinian terrorists. If more Israeli deaths do result from this smuggling, Israel will have more leverage on the United States, and the Palestinians, to get a crackdown on Palestinian terrorist groups. At the moment, the Palestinian government refuses to go after the Palestinian terror groups, as this could mean civil war, and there is fear that the terrorists would win, which would bring the Israeli army back in. But if the Palestinian terrorists are not shut down, more attacks on Israeli civilians will bring Israeli troops back to Gaza.