The military's Southern Command is gearing for riots on the Israel-Gaza Strip border this Friday, as Hamas has vowed to once again hold a mass protest near the security fence.
Senior defense officials told the Walla News website that intelligence suggested that Hamas, whose operatives have – under the cover of the past two weeks' protests – tried to carry out terrorist attacks near the border, are also practicing breaching the fence, rushing IDF posts and abducting Israeli soldiers and civilians.
In some places near the border, these drills are carried out in broad daylight, the official noted, adding that if Hamas has the opportunity to use the border riots to stage an abduction attack it will not hesitate to take it.
The IDF said that plainclothes Hamas operatives have been spotted during the border riots on March 30, adding that several of them were killed when they tried to breach the border.
Hamas' military wing, the Izzedine al-Qassam Brigades, routinely gathers intelligence on Israeli troop movements near the border, and its operatives are skilled in identifying topographical vulnerabilities and monitoring the troops' response times.
These concerns have prompted the Gaza Division to improve its defenses along the border, as well as bolster deployment, conduct stakeouts and pursue engineering work to make it harder for terrorists to breach the border.
Sources in the IDF Southern Command said that chatter on Palestinian social media indicates that, following last week's "tire-torching campaign" – during which demonstrators used mirrors and set fire to hundreds of tires with the aim of creating a smokescreen to hinder Israeli troops' counterterrorism efforts – this week, protesters plan a "Molotov campaign" and are likely to hurl large numbers of firebombs over the security fence.
The main concern here is that some of the firebombs could hit agricultural areas that are near the border, sparking potentially massive fires.
The Southern Command is preparing for this scenario and security forces have been instructed to ward off protesters to a certain distance from the fence, from which they would be unable to harm Israeli fields.
