The same day last month that PA President Mahmoud Abbas’s Fatah faction signed onto a joint platform with Hamas, Fatah’s Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, the faction’s so-called military wing, fired five Qassam rockets toward Israeli towns in the western Negev.

The terror group said the five rockets were aimed at Ashkelon, Sderot, and the resettled community of Elei Sinai, whose residents were expelled by the Israeli government from northern Gaza in the summer of 2005.

The same day, Egyptian police announced they had captured a would-be Palestinian suicide bomber in the Sinai Peninsula. The would-be bomber, Gaza resident Hamid Al-Nadur, had a suicide explosive belt with him and admitted he planned to attack Israelis.

It was not clear whether Mr. Al-Nadur’s attacks were to be against Israelis vacationing in Egypt or if he intended to infiltrate into Israel and attack there.

The police also arrested an Egyptian man suspected of assisting Mr. Al-Nadur. Nine Egyptian residents of Rafiah suspected of membership in an armed terrorist cell were arrested as well.

To their dismay, Israeli analysts were forced to admit that while the rockets and planned suicide bombing were violations of the ceasefire and the Roadmap, the plan advanced by the US, the European Union, the UN, and Russia, the violence does not violate the new Palestinian coalition government’s platform, which commits Hamas and Fatah to respect the right to use terrorism against Israel.

In fact, many Israeli military analysts believe Hamas is preparing for war against Israel and will use the platform to explain its actions.

"In Gaza, there are between 80,000 and 100,000 automatic rifles and machine guns. This is the most armed people in the Middle East, except for Somalia. In 2006, 30 tons of TNT was brought into Gaza. If the Arabs succeed in bringing in the latest anti-aircraft and anti-tank rockets, they will shoot not only at the Israeli army, but at Israeli civilian targets as well, such as buses, because these rockets have a longer range," said Brig-Gen (res) Shalom Harari, a senior research scholar with the Institute for Counter-Terrorism at the Interdisciplinary Center in Herzliya. He served in Judea, Samaria, and Gaza for 20 years as a senior advisor on Palestinian affairs for Israel’s Defense Ministry.

According to Maj-Gen Yoav Galant, head of the Israeli southern command, Hamas currently has 5,500 "soldiers" and is aiming to increase the number to 8,000.

Mr. Galant dismissed the possibility that Hamas was arming itself for battle against Fatah in a continuation of the bloody conflict that the new coalition government was founded to end.

"This is not something to use against Fatah. This is something to use to create a different equation with Israel, because they think we will be deterred by their capabilities," said Mr. Galant.

The international community had hoped that the new PA unity government would adopt a platform committing Hamas to eschew terror. In part, those hopes were based on promises made by Mr. Abbas to Israel as well as to the Bush administration.

In the end, it was Mr. Abbas’s Fatah that unconditionally accepted terrorism.

"Our people have the right to defend themselves before any Israeli aggression," says the platform, adding that attacks will be launched until Israel meets the Palestinians’ terms of surrender.

These include Israeli acceptance of the so-called Palestinian "right of return," a code-word which means Israel’s allowing millions of Palestinians who fled Israel in 1948 and 1967 and their descendents to return to their former homes in the Jewish state. The expected flood of Arabs is generally seen as a way to end the Jewish state demographically.

The new coalition’s platform emphasizes no fewer than five times the government’s demand for "the right of return.

Other conditions Israel would have to accept include ending "all forms of occupation in the Palestinian territories, including removing the racist wall [Israel’s security fence] and settlements, and stopping the Judaization of Jerusalem."

The coalition platform gives the Palestinians the right to engage in "armed resistance" if Israel does not relinquish all of Judea and Samaria, including eastern Jerusalem and the Temple Mount.

The platform also mentions the "ceasefire" between the PA and Israel in Gaza, a supposed cessation of violence that has been violated more than 160 times by Arab terrorists since it was announced in late November 2006.

Since Israel "disengaged" from Gaza in the summer of 2005, expelling almost 10,000 Jews from their homes, communities, schools, and synagogues, almost 2100 Qassams have been launched against Israel from Gaza, 296 explosive charges have been detonated, 143 attacks were carried out against tanks that were outside the security fence—not inside Gaza—and 260 incidents of gunfire at IDF forces outside the fence.

Thus far, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has insisted on respecting the ceasefire, forbidding Israeli troops from responding to the attacks and leaving Israeli citizens in the affected communities, such as Sderot and Ashkelon, at the mercy of the Qassams.

According to the new Palestinian government’s platform, the ceasefire will be maintained only "in return for Israel’s cessation of its occupation measures, such as assassinations, arrests, incursions, house demolitions, clearing of lands, excavation in Jerusalem, and lifting of checkpoints and reopening of crossing points, the ending of travel restrictions, and the release of all Palestinian prisoners."

Israel’s Minister of Strategic Affairs Avigdor Lieberman (Yisrael Beiteinu) called the PA’s new political platform "a declaration of war."

He said the goal of the new PA leadership was clearly the destruction of Israel and that the Jewish state should consider itself obliged to cut off ties with Mr. Abbas.

"The PA is now clearly run by Hamas, and Abbas is trying to get international approval for Hamas terrorism," said Mr. Lieberman.

He called for a national emergency government consisting of all Zionist parties.

There was widespread agreement with Mr. Lieberman. "The new government reflects unity in the Palestinian goal of continued terrorism and implementation of the Hamas platform of destroying Israel," said National Religious Party MK Zevulun Orlev.

A growing number of Israelis in military circles believe the time is quickly approaching for Israel to do something.

"Israel has been sitting on the fence for the last four months, biting its nails, counting Qassam rockets and looking impatiently as Gaza arms itself to the teeth and prepares for a confrontation. If we don’t get off the grandstands and take some kind of action—on the security or diplomatic front—we shall invariably find ourselves on the court with thousands of troops, tanks, and armored vehicles," said YNET columnist Alex Fishman, adding that the most important consideration for Israel would be what happens "the day after" the confrontation.

"No one is really interested in seeing the PA collapse, thus forcing Israel to reestablish the Civil Administration," said Mr. Fishman.

Nevertheless, he said, it seems clear that "even the political echelons have already come to terms with the inevitability of a military operation."

That seemed to be the message from Israel on March 20 and 21, as the IDF Home Front Command held the largest civil defense drill in Israel’s history. The wail of sirens was heard in most of Israel, from Hadera to the Negev, including Tel Aviv, Jerusalem, Be’er Sheva, Ra’anana, Ashkelon, and Dimona. In case of a real emergency, the public was told, it would be notified through the mass media.

Simulating a combined attack on Israel on all fronts, the drill was suspended for over an hour because there were intelligence warnings of a genuine attack. The Coastal highway was closed to traffic until a taxi carrying two suspects—as well as several innocent passengers—was located and stopped.

On the second day of exercises, Magen David Adom simulated a mega-terror attack with 400 casualties in two locations—the community of Neurim and the coastal city of Netanya. The police and Home Front Command simulated a Syrian rocket attack on Tel Aviv as well as a chase after a suicide terrorist in central Israel and a mass terror attack on a school.

Thousands of Israelis participated in the drill. The Prisons Service rehearsed mass rioting by Arab terror prisoners, hostage taking, and attempted escapes.

"The aim of the exercise is to prepare the different services and bodies operating in the civilian environment for various emergency scenarios, while implementing the lessons learned during the conflict in Lebanon in the summer of 2006," a Home Front Command statement said.

According to Deputy Defense Minister Ephraim Sneh, the main purpose of the drill was to prepare Israel for a possible Iranian missile attack, which would include an Iranian proxy attack from Hamas.

"We will do everything to defend the Israeli people against all kinds of attack, wherever it comes from. The main threat is Iran and the terror organizations that Iran supports and sponsors," said Mr. Sneh.

Many Western media outlets made it seem as though the new unity PA coalition government between the Hamas and Fatah factions was being formed as a way to get the peace process back on track and to convince the international community to call an end to the aid boycott that had been in place since January 2006, when Hamas trounced Mr. Abbas’s Fatah and took over the government.

There was also the hope that the new government would prompt Israel to resume sending the PA government funds from customs duties, collected on the Palestinians’ behalf by Israel. When Hamas took over the government, Israel stopped turning over the money to the PA, because there were concerns that Hamas could use the funds for terrorism. The sudden stoppage of funds sent the Palestinian economy into freefall.

For the Palestinians, however, the peace process had nothing to do with the coalition agreement. They were desperate to find a way to stop the bloodshed between Hamas and Fatah operatives, bordering on civil war, and they wanted to end the economic boycott, which the Palestinians have taken to call "the siege."

The United States and the European Union have made clear that the Palestinian government will receive no financial aid until it recognizes Israel, renounces terrorism, and agrees to abide by previously signed treaties.

While the Palestinians clearly hoped the US and the EU would agree to be taken in by the hype of a power-sharing coalition between Mr. Abbas’s Fatah (whom the Western powers decided represents the moderate potential peace partner for Israel) and Hamas (which is still seen as a recalcitrant terrorist organization), it did not work.

The US, the EU, and the Quartet (the four authors of the Roadmap Plan, the US, the EU, Russia, and the UN) all agreed that there would be no economic aid for the PA until the government formally accepted the pre-conditions: recognizing Israel, renouncing terrorism, and agreeing to accept past signed treaties with Israel.

The PA platform’s one concession in this regard is that it commits Hamas to "respecting"—not fulfilling—past agreements with Israel.

This is not to say that the members of the Quartet were equally strict in their statements. Although US State Department spokesmen did not waiver in their reiteration of the requirements, they made clear that the US would withhold judgment on the new Hamas-Fatah unity government "until its policies become clearer," according to State Department spokesman Sean McCormick.

He said the US would continue to work with Mr. Abbas, regardless of the decision to fund the PA.

A few minutes later, however, White House spokesman Tony Snow reiterated that the Bush administration will recognize the new PA government only if it recognizes Israel, renounces violence, and accepts existing agreements.

The one European country to break ranks with the EU was Norway, which said it would renew all ties with the PA, including Hamas.

In a statement posted on the Norwegian Foreign Ministry’s Website, Norwegian Foreign Minister Jonas Gahr Støre said the new PA government "is taking important steps toward complying with the international community’s demands. Norway will thus, on this basis, re-establish political and economic relations with the Palestinian government."

Mr. Støre said Norway, which is not a member of the EU, "expects the PA to respect basic international standards as regards compliance with previously concluded agreements, renunciation of violence, and recognition of Israel’s right to exist. It is now important that the new government in practice continues reconciliation efforts among the Palestinians and implements political and economic reforms."

In light of Norway’s action, the Israeli Foreign Ministry in Jerusalem cancelled a scheduled meeting with Norway’s Deputy Foreign Minister Raymond Johansen, after the latter met with the Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh in Gaza.

"There was a Cabinet ruling last year. International dignitaries who meet with Hamas officials will not receive meetings with Israeli officials," said Foreign Ministry spokesman Mark Regev.

In a rare display of tongue-in-cheek diplomacy, Yisrael Beiteinu MK Israel Hason sent a personal letter to Norwegian Ambassador to Israel Jakken Biorn Lian, suggesting that now that Norway has recognized Hamas, Norwegian officials should be allowed to visit the kidnapped Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit.

"On June 25, 2006, the soldier Gilad Shalit was kidnapped in a terrorist assault carried out by Hamas. Since that time not a single international organization has been allowed to visit him. The first step the new Palestinian government should take is to transfer the kidnapped soldier into their custody and Norway's representatives, who now have full open relations with the Palestinian Authority, will of course be permitted to visit Gilad Shalit in captivity," wrote Mr. Hason.

The Norwegian embassy confirmed it had received the letter from Mr. Hason, but there evidently was no response.

As soon as the coalition was formed, Hamas officials publicly boasted that the new platform "supports continued fighting against Israel until the right of return is achieved."

In fact, the platform was based on a plan often called the Prisoners Document, which was drawn up under the leadership of Marwan Barghouti, a Fatah terrorist currently serving a life sentence in an Israeli prison for murder. Mr. Barghouti has been recognized as one of the masterminds of the September 2000 Palestinian uprising, referred to either as the second Intifada or the Oslo War.

While the Prisoners Document does not explicitly recognize Israel, it advocates the creation of a Palestinian state in Gaza and all of Judea and Samaria, including eastern Jerusalem, the areas won by Israel during the 1967 Six-Day War. The document calls for an end to terrorism inside Green Line Israel, but promotes murdering Jews in areas the Palestinians want for their state.

While few Israelis saw the Prisoners Document as an acceptable blueprint, the debate in the Jewish state revolved around whether the Prisoners Document, like the 2002 "Saudi Peace Initiative," which offered Israel recognition in exchange for relinquishing all land won in the 1967 War and accepting the "right of return," is a "take-it-or-leave-it" proposition, as the Arabs have said, or if these positions represent the opening of give-and-take negotiations.

The Arabs’ position has been that there is no room for compromise in these initiatives. Israel must either accept them, or face the consequences.

When the Saudi Initiative was first presented in 2002, it was dismissed out of hand. Last month, however, Mr. Olmert made statements indicating guarded support for the Saudi plan. At a Cabinet meeting in early March, he said that the plan has "some positive elements."

"The Saudi initiative is a plan that we are willing to relate to seriously. It has elements that we can talk about," he said.

Just ten days earlier, Israel’s Foreign Minister Tzipi Livny, also a member of Mr. Olmert’s Kadima Party, told the PA’s Al Ayyam newspaper that Israel could not accept the Saudi Initiative "in its current format."

For Hamas, the implied recognition in both the Prisoners Document and the Saudi Peace Initiative, of Israel’s right to exist, made both plans unacceptable.

In meetings with Israeli officials held before the coalition government agreement was signed, Mr. Abbas explicitly promised that he would not support the Prisoners Document. But when the final platform was revealed, not only was it, for the most part, a restatement of the Prisoners Document, it appeared Mr. Abbas had made great efforts to convince Hamas to support it as well.

During those meetings with Israeli officials, Mr. Abbas had promised he would not form a unity government with Hamas unless the platform included the international community’s requirements. He also promised there would be no unity government unless Cpl Gilad Shalit, an Israeli soldier who was kidnapped by Palestinians in June 2006, was released.

Mr. Abbas, who had been viewed as a moderate by the Olmert government and, therefore, an acceptable peace partner, is still seen as such by the Bush administration and the European Union. Mr. Abbas’s former supporters in the Olmert government, however, are now having second thoughts.

Several days before the coalition agreement between Hamas and Fatah was signed, Ma’ariv ran an article documenting that tax monies that the Olmert government had given to Mr. Abbas, based on a clear understanding that the funds would not reach the Hamas government, had, in fact, made their way to Hamas.

"It is impossible to ignore the fact that PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas has grossly violated a series of commitments that he has given to Israel, especially the commitment that a Palestinian unity government would not be established before Gilad Shalit was released," said Mr. Olmert, adding that the platform of the Palestinian unity government "legitimizes the continuation of violent opposition, which is also a violation of the chairman’s commitments."

"There is no doubt that completely different conduct by the PA is required in order to create the correct equation for encouraging a fruitful negotiating process," said Mr. Olmert.

Right after the coalition agreement was signed, Mr. Olmert said his government would deal with Mr. Abbas on "humanitarian issues," but would not enter into peace negotiations with him until the PA government met the Quartet’s preconditions.

But as he has done so often, a few days later, Mr. Olmert flip-flopped, probably at the behest of American Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.

On Monday, March 26, Mr. Olmert said he was ready to resume open-ended, face-to-face talks with Mr. Abbas as a possible step toward restarting substantive peace talks.

According to a report in Ha’aretz, a US official told the paper Messrs Olmert and Abbas will initially hold "low-key confidence-building sessions."

The talks between the Palestinians and Israeli leaders will be open to all issues, said the US official, who asked to remain anonymous.

The step by Mr. Olmert was considered small because he had held such sessions with Mr. Abbas before the latter signed a deal with Hamas.

PA supporters who hoped the formation of a new government would prompt the donor countries to allow the aid to flow again, had another setback when the PA’s incoming Finance Minister, Salam Fayed, admitted that hundreds of millions of dollars transferred to the PA have "disappeared."

Mr. Fayed, a member of Fatah who formerly worked for the World Bank and the US Federal Reserve, told the British daily Telegraph that he has no idea where more than $700 million granted to the PA since the Hamas terror group rose to power, has gone.

"PA spending is out of control, salaries are being paid to workers who never turn up, and nobody can track where the money is going," he said, pleading with the reporter to tell readers, "No one can give donors assurance that their money is not going to finance Hamas terrorism. Why? Because the system is in a state of total disrepair."

He made clear that the supposed international aid boycott is actually quite porous. According to Mr. Fayed, the PA has experienced an increase in foreign aid since the Islamist victory.

"Ironically, foreign aid to Palestinians increased, either carried across the border into Gaza in cash-stuffed briefcases by Hamas officials, or through a special financial channel to the office of President Abbas," he said.

A World Bank report last month showed that the number of PA jobs rose by a whopping 11 percent. Under Hamas, government jobs include the establishment of several semi-official armed groups made up of terrorists from the faction.

Mr. Fayed was not optimistic about his potential to reform the system. Noting that his house has been surrounded by armed Fatah men assigned to protect him from Hamas factions demanding funds and perks, he said, "It’s virtually impossible."

In 2002, then PA-leader Yasir Arafat turned to Mr. Fayed to create order out of Palestinian finances. Now, Mr. Fayed told the Telegraph, he is confronting the fact that his accounting reforms have all unraveled..

"Where is the control? It’s gone. Where is all the transparency? It’s gone," said Mr. Fayed.

Israeli analyst Michael Freund said Mr. Fayed’s admission proved what many Israelis have hoped the international community would understand.

"Sending aid to the PA is a recipe for disaster. Instead of benefiting those it is intended to help, much of the money, as Mr. Fayed pretty much admits, ends up lining the pockets of corrupt Palestinian officials. Just another reason for Israel and the West to stop aiding the PA now. There is no reason to continue propping up the corrupt Palestinian regime," he said.

But that corrupt regime is exactly what the mullahs in Iran need to expand their influence in the ranks of Arab terror organizations targeting Israel.

According to General Security Service chief Yuval Diskin, the PA has been stockpiling massive amounts of weapons, especially in Gaza. The weapons, he said, are purchased and supplied by Iran and smuggled in through the Gaza-Egyptian border.

In addition, he said, dozens of Hamas terrorists have been in Iran for advanced weapons and tactics training. Hundreds more are expected to arrive Iran in the near future, he said.

The Iranian involvement in Hamas training is a development that Mr. Diskin characterized as a greater strategic threat to Israel than the thousands of weapons smuggled into Gaza across the Egyptian border.

"Israel will have to do something about it," if the process of Iranian involvement continues, he said.

After Hamas was elected in 2006, when it became clear that Western assistance to the PA was to be cut off, Iran pledged the Palestinian government $50 million. This was in addition to the millions of dollars in support Iran had given to Hamas offices in Damascus.

The Islamic Republic also supports the Shiite Hezbollah in Lebanon, and Hezbollah, in turn, funnels funds to the Sunni Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ).

PIJ has been responsible for hundreds of Qassam rockets launched from Gaza against Israel.

At the beginning of March, PIJ boasted that it now possesses longer-range rockets, which, the group said, can reach further north than Ashkelon.

According to Abu Muhammad, spokesman for the Al Quds Brigades of the PIJ, the new rockets will place hundreds of thousands more Israelis within PIJ’s firing range.

Abu Muhammad told the Israeli news service YNET that PIJ terrorists "will continue to respond to all the enemy’s crimes, even if it [the response] happens in the West Bank."

Israeli security officials said the improved rocket capabilities came about only with the aid of Iran, which provided technology and training to the terror groups.

Until now, Palestinian terrorists in Gaza have fired mostly Qassam rockets from northern Gaza. Qassams are improvised steel rockets, about four feet long, filled with explosives and fuel. They can travel only between one and four miles.

But last summer, PIJ fired a Katyusha rocket at Israel with a large payload and a range of about 12 miles.

The Qassams have become a sickening part of daily life in Sderot, a city of 25,000 some three miles from the Gaza border, and increasingly Ashkelon, a port city that is home to important strategic industrial plans and one of Israel’s largest electricity generators.

About half of Sderot’s residents are immigrants from the former Soviet Union. In the past six years, the community has suffered attacks from 1,500 rockets, 300 in November 2006 alone.

Although the primitive Qassam have done little damage, residents have only 20 seconds to respond to alerts and head for shelters.

According to Avi Silamani, the director of the local community center, the constant tension is evident, especially among children, who show signs of fear and emotional stress.

If the PIJ claim is truthful, a dozen more Israeli cities would come within range of the rockets, bringing about 250,000 Israelis under rocket threat from Gaza.

"In the coming period, the strategy of Islamic Jihad and other organizations is to turn Ashkelon into the next Sderot and keep bombarding towns regularly until reaching deeper and deeper," Abu Muhammad told Aaron Klein of WorldNetDaily.

He added that Israel would be "very surprised and astonished soon by our rocket capabilities."

"We will not abide by any ceasefire," he told Mr. Klein.

When asked if Iran had assisted his group in developing the new purported rocket capabilities, Abu Muhammad refused to answer. "It is not the business of anyone where we receive rockets or training," he said.

Nevertheless, the Olmert government persists it calling it a ceasefire.

"At present, we are giving the ceasefire a chance, but, at the same time, we are preparing for a military offensive in Gaza," said Mr. Galant, the IDF Southern Command Chief.

The Israeli offensive will be needed, he said, because "the terror organizations are making a great effort to infiltrate into Israel and carry out suicide attacks—currently without success."

"It’s not just a few terrorists or a small terrorist group, but an entire [army] network, with four brigades, each of which has divisions, companies, and battalions," said Mr. Galant, adding that Hamas now has platoons, special forces for surveillance, snipers, and explosive experts.

Mr. Galant noted that the terrorists’ support comes not only from Iran, but also from Syria and Hezbollah.

"The goal is to establish a military force in Gaza, with delegations going for training in Iran and Iranians coming to train the fighters in Gaza. The Palestinians have the motivation—hatred for Israel—while the knowledge and military experience come from the outside," he said.

He declined to elaborate on the issue of whether Iranian agents have actually visited Gaza.

"The Iranians don’t have to come by themselves in order to see what the situation is," he said. "If there is a Palestinian who is connected to Hezbollah and working for Iran and is moving to the Iranian side, learning methods, getting orders, and moving them to the Palestinian side, that is good enough for me to explain the situation."

He maintained that Hamas had taken advantage of Israel’s withdrawal from Gaza to enhance its own military capabilities, growing from a ragtag militia into a well-organized group resembling an army.

"Boosted by their newfound ability to travel abroad, Hamas militants have been going back and forth to hostile countries for training," he said, adding that most of Hamas has managed to arm itself by smuggling goods through tunnels across the border with Egypt.

If Egypt is honest, he said, the country will eventually have to build a fence on its side of the border to halt the smugglers.

Israel’s method of curtailing smuggling is to close the Rafah Crossing, something the US opposes because it prevents Palestinians from moving their goods out of Gaza. The Europeans have a team in place there to monitor Palestinian activities, but too often terrorists have managed to circumvent the monitors.

There is evidence that Hamas believes this is a good time to strike Israel, because, it is felt, the Olmert government is incapable of defending the Jewish state.

Last month, Hamas leader-in-exile Khaled Mashaal said time is working in favor of the "Palestinian dream" because Mr. Olmert is not popular and his government is weak. "Weak leaders cannot make peace," said Mr. Mashaal, who is based in Damascus but made his remarks in Yemen, where he was meeting with Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh.

Mr. Mashaal called the present generation in Israel "defeatist" and "tainted by corruption," epithets which struck many of Israel’s supporters as true.

That message was broadcast to millions of Palestinian supporters on Hamas’s new Al Aqsa Satellite TV last month. According to Palestinian Media Watch, numerous times last month, the station broadcast a statement made by Ahmad Yassin, founder and former head of Hamas, who was killed by Israel in a target assassination in March 2004.

Mr. Yassin’s message was that Palestinians had found the key to destroying Israel. "Since terror was forcing Israel to leave its towns in the Gaza Strip, the Palestinians would now only have to keep up the terror in Israel’s other cities, and Israel would run from those as well," said Itamar Marcus, director of PMW.

Mr. Marcus pointed out that Fatah and Hamas have been competing for years, each trying to take credit for the terror that they say forced the government of Ariel Sharon to decide to evacuate and raze Israeli communities in Gaza.

"The frequency that this has been playing on Hamas TV—for example, seven times on March 12 alone—indicates how important this political message is to Hamas," said Mr. Marcus.

In the broadcast, Mr. Yassin says, referring to a major Israeli community in Gaza: "Sharon said yesterday that ‘Nezarim is [like] Tel Aviv.’ Today, he says: ‘The day is near when we will leave Gaza.’ That’s it, it’s lost, Tel Aviv is gone. They are defeated, they have no words left. When this process will end, they will become a state with no ability, helpless. They established a state to protect the Jews from death and murder. If death and murder chase them in Tel Aviv, Jerusalem, Netanya, and everywhere among them, then they will say: ‘What am I doing here? I founded a state to protect me from death, and if death chases me, I want to flee and go back to Europe and America."

Sderot’s Mayor Eli Moyal, had a response for him. Although the daily rocket attacks on his town have killed seven and injured hundreds, "nobody wants to leave," he said.

"We are staying here forever. That is the best answer we can give. We can’t give the Palestinians the joy of seeing us running away. If they see that, it means that the most primitive weapon on earth, the Qassam, can beat the best army on earth," he said.

But residents of Sderot give a different story. Many are furious with the Olmert government, which they see as having betrayed and abandoned them. Some reports indicate that hundreds of people have moved out in recent months and more would leave, too, if they could afford it.

"The real estate market has gone down," explained Mr. Silamani, noting that homeowners face up to 40 percent losses if they sell now. "We are a captive city," he said.

Like Mr. Galant, many members of Israel’s military maintain that the growing strategic alliance between Iran and radical Palestinian forces is a development that must be watched and eventually answered.

When the West cut off the PA’s funding, Hamas spokesmen said they were confident that they could build the PA’s society, economy, and army with the help of the Islamic world, mainly Iran, instead.

"Hamas thinks it can build a new southern Lebanon in Gaza, and this is what it is busy doing. Hamas is seeking to build anti-tank and anti-aircraft systems that will neutralize Israel’s current ability to easily penetrate Gaza, by using new kinds of missiles that were used in Lebanon," said Brig-Gen (res) Harari.

In a paper published by the Institute for Contemporary Affairs in Jerusalem , Mr. Harari said Hamas is trying to fortify the cities in Gaza in which it has its main rocket and weapons factories.

"If Israel again attacks deep into Gaza, Hamas hopes to confront it with something like what was seen in southern Lebanon: reserves of Hezbollah dug in deep under the earth," he said.

In 2006, Israel waged a months-long operation in Gaza after Mr. Shalit was seized. The Israeli operation wreaked havoc on the PA’s infrastructure. When Israel pulled back from Gaza, 400 Palestinians and three Israeli soldiers had been killed.

Nevertheless, Mr. Harari said, he believes the IDF will have to enter Gaza "in a very wide-scale operation" within six months to a year.

"The IDF prefers not to enter Gaza because of the high cost in Israeli casualties, but Israel has to defend its citizens. The big question is whether to do it now or wait, like Israel did in Lebanon—and look at the results," he said.

Mayor Moyal of Sderot, while not enthusiastic about the possibility of war with Gaza, sees it as inevitable. He wants to see the rockets which keep striking his city destroyed.

"We can’t neglect it," he said while visiting New York last month. "And the army has said we can’t stand there and do nothing."

Mr. Moyal said he hopes Israeli forces will remain in Gaza even after all Palestinian weapons are destroyed, to prevent further weapons smuggling.

The question that weighs on many Israelis is what Hezbollah will do if Israel attacks Gaza. Some, like Mr. Moyal, believe the IDF attack on Gaza will provide Hezbollah with an excuse to attack northern Israel again. But others believe Hezbollah, despite its crowing, is not ready to fight another war.

A Lebanese newspaper reported last month that Hezbollah fighters are "preparing for another major battle with Israel by regrouping and amassing some 33,000 missiles."

Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah announced recently on television that "we openly declare that we have weapons, that we are completing our preparedness for a greater and more dangerous stage."

Neighboring Syria, through which Iranian weapons reach Hezbollah, is also reportedly beefing up its military capability. Despite economic difficulties, and the fact that previous debts have not been repaid, President Bashir Assad managed to procure sophisticated weapons from Russia, including anti-tank, anti-aircraft, and anti-ship missiles, according to Martin van Creveld, a professor of military history at Hebrew University.

Mr. Creveld believes Syria still needs another 18 months to prepare for war, and, he said, he doubted Hezbollah would launch another major attack on Israel without Damascus.

According to DEBKAfile, a private Jerusalem-based intelligence service, in the more than eight months since the end of the Second Lebanon war, the IDF has not carried out a single pro-active operation against any of these developments.

"To restore Israel’s deterrent strength, not only in Iranian and Arab eyes, but for the ordinary Israeli citizen, the IDF will have to prove it is still capable of the daring operations behind enemy lines which kept it at bay. Its chief of staff must also urgently rejuvenate and re-energize the top echelons with fresh talent," said DEBKAfile.

The terrorists in Gaza do not deny that they are preparing for war. Three weeks after the November truce was forged, Palestinian terror leaders, including militants from Mr. Abbas’s Fatah organization, explained to Aaron Klein of WorldNetDaily that they would use the ceasefire to create Hezbollah-like armies in Gaza.

"We learned from Hezbollah’s victory that Israel can be defeated if we know how to hit them and if we are well prepared," said Abu Ahmed, the leader of the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades in northern Gaza. "We are importing rockets and the knowledge to launch them, and we are also making many plans for battle."

In December 2006, Abu Abdullah, a leader of Hamas’s so-called military wing, the Izzedine al-Qassam Martyrs Brigades, told WND his group, too, is preparing for war against Israel.

"In the last 15 months, even though the fighters of Hamas kept the ceasefire, we did not stop making important advancements and professional training on the military level. In the future, after Hamas is obliged to stop the ceasefire, the world shall see our new military capabilities," he said.

Abu Ahmed said his group is receiving help from Hezbollah to import long-range rockets and train in guerrilla warfare tactics.

"We have warm relations with Hezbollah, which helps with some of the training programs. We don't have anything to be ashamed of—that we are dealing with Hezbollah and that we are receiving training and information from them," he said, adding that Hezbollah maintains cells in the Sinai.

He called the Sinai "an excellent ground for training…on how to turn every piece of land into usable territory for a confrontation with Israel."

But the Sinai is not the terrorists’ only training ground. According to WND’s Mr. Klein, the former Jewish communities of Eli Sinai and Dagit in Gaza have been turned into training zones, which include areas for physical exercises; weapons training; practice lands for ambushes of Israeli forces; courses on how to read maps, how to produce explosives, and military techniques necessary to fighting in open fields in urban and other populated areas.

Abu Abdullah called the utilization by Hamas of the former Jewish communities for anti-Israel activity "a big sign from Allah that the settlements that were the strongest symbol and proof of the Zionist injustice are now turned into tools at the service of the Palestinian resistance against the enemy plans and are proof that the resistance works."

Like Israel’s military circles, Hamas believes the confrontation is "coming."

"We think that the confrontation with Israel is not a question of ‘if’ but a question of ‘when.’ We have no doubt that the Israelis are not ready for a full withdrawal from the Palestinian territories and that they will try to escape from this withdrawal by trying to invade Gaza and cities in the West Bank," said Abu Abdullah.

According to Mr. Klein, the use of Eli Sinai and Dagit as Hamas training zones is the latest in a series of reports indicating that Gaza’s former Jewish communities are being utilized for terror.

Earlier in the month, a Hamas-affiliated university with a history of involvement in terrorist activity opened a branch in Nitzarim, another former Gush Katif community. The university is building on the foundations of evacuated Jewish structures.

In Gush Katif’s former Jewish capital city, Neve Dekalim, two synagogues were earlier transformed into a military base used by Palestinian groups to fire rockets at Israeli cities and train for attacks against the Jewish state.

On Monday, March 26, Hamas terrorists set up an explosives testing zone in Neve Dekalim. The terrorists said that among the explosives they tested were what they called new "Yassin" rockets, which they said were improved versions of Russian-made rocket propelled grenades.

The rockets were named for the late Hamas spiritual leader who predicted that the Israeli withdrawal from Gaza would spell the end of the Jewish state.

Abu Ahmed told WND the most important "tool" in the Palestinian "resistance arsenal" was rockets. He said his group had learned from Hezbollah that Israel can be defeated with missiles.

"We saw that with the capacity to bombard the Israeli population with hundreds of rockets every day we can change the strategic balance with Israel," he said.