By WILLIAM J. BROAD
The puzzling site in Syria that Israeli jets bombed in September grew more curious on Friday with the release of a satellite photograph showing new construction there that resembles the site’s former main building.
Israel’s air attack was directed against what Israeli and American intelligence analysts had judged to be a partly constructed nuclear reactor. The Syrians vigorously denied the atomic claim.
Before the attack, satellite imagery showed a tall, square building there measuring about 150 feet long per side.
After the attack, the Syrians wiped the area clean, with some analysis calling the speed of the cleanup a tacit admission of guilt. The barren site is on the eastern bank of the Euphrates, 90 miles north of the Iraqi border.
The image released Friday came from a private company, DigitalGlobe, in Longmont, Colo. It shows a tall, square building under construction that appears to closely resemble the original structure, with the exception that the roof is vaulted instead of flat. The photo was taken from space on Wednesday.
Given the international uproar that unfolded after the bombing, “we can assume it’s not a reactor,” said David Albright, president of the Institute for Science and International ...   more »

President George W. Bush gave Israel the nod for its long-delayed military operation against Hamas in the Gaza before he ended his 50-hour visit to Jerusalem and Ramallah on Friday, Jan. 11 – except that his provisos stop the Israeli military short of its objectives, namely stamping out the Palestinian missile campaign, halting smuggling and eradicating Hamas military stockpiles, as reported here by DEBKAfile’s military sources:
1. Israeli forces must limit their invasion to two or three strips abutting the Gaza-Israeli border of the 365 sq. km square Hamas-ruled territory on Israel’s southwestern border. Those sources identify those strips as the northern pocket of Beit Hanoun, Beit Lahiya and the fringes of the Jebalya camp; the southern areas east of Khan Younes up to the Sufa and Kerem Shalom crossings; and sections of the Philadelphi border strip with Egypt, up to and excluding the Mediterranean coast.
Operationally, this means the Israeli army may push back the Qassam missile launching sites from the border and distance this harassment from the Israeli population, but may not destroy terrorist arms and missile caches and their means of production.
Israel is also enabled to deal only partially with the smuggling system for the weapons, ...   more »

Many answer Bush's call to end illegal settlements by expanding them
By Jonathan Finer
SHVUT AMI, West Bank - With a pellet gun in his jeans pocket and a hammer in his hand, Dani Landesberg and a crew of teenage Jewish settlers began adding a second story to what has become their new home. They stole occasional glances down the winding access road in case the police came by to evict them, again.
Last Sept. 30, a dozen settlers moved into the small stone house at the base of a gentle hill in the northern West Bank and turned what was once a barn for donkeys into a synagogue. Two weeks later, Israeli security forces banished them for the first of eight times from land that a Palestinian family says is its property, a claim backed by legal documents and an Israeli human rights group.
The settlers returned the next day, so police sealed the windows and doors with metal siding and plowed a berm across the driveway, all to no avail.
"They can drag us away a hundred times and we'll come back," said Landesberg, 18, who like many religious Jews wears a yarmulke and long, curled sideburns. "And ...   more »

By Dan Williams
JERUSALEM (Reuters) - The United States has agreed in principle to provide Israel with better "smart bombs" than those it plans to sell Saudi Arabia under a regional defense package, senior Israeli security sources said on Sunday.
Keen to bolster Middle East allies against an ascendant Iran, the Bush administration last year proposed supplying Gulf Arab states with some $20 billion in new weapons, including Joint Direct Attack Munition (JDAM) bomb kits for the Saudis.
The plan has angered Israel's backers in Washington, who say the JDAMs, which give satellite guidance for bombs, may one day be used against the Jewish state or at least blunt its power to deter potential foes. Israel has had JDAMs since 1990 and has used them extensively in a 2006 offensive in Lebanon.
Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's government dropped its objections to the proposed Saudi deal in July after securing U.S. military aid grants worth $30 billion over the next decade.
Two Israeli security sources said the United States further mollified the Olmert government with an "understanding in principle" that future JDAM sales to Israel would include advanced technologies not on offer to Saudi Arabia.
"We are checking which of ...   more »