Terror leader boasts as city official steps down in wake of massive rocket attack
By Aaron Klein
JERUSALEM – The resignation today of a battered Israeli city's mayor in the wake of a massive salvo of Palestinian rocket fire is a "huge victory for the Palestinian resistance" and "proof our attacks pay off," a top terror leader told WND in an interview.
Muhammad Abdel-Al, spokesman and a senior leader of the Gaza-based Popular Resistance Committees, warned if Israel pressed ahead with a threatened large-scale, anti-rocket operation in the Gaza Strip his terror group will "fire rockets until all the Zionists in Sderot run away thousands of yards from their homes."
Palestinians in Gaza today fired at least 18 rockets into Sderot, a town of nearly 23,000 residents located about three miles from the Gaza Strip. Five people were lightly injured by the attack, including one girl, who was hit by shrapnel.
Abdel-Al's Committees took responsibility for the rocket salvo along with the Iranian-backed Islamic Jihad terror group.
After the first eight rockets struck his town, Sderot's mayor Eli Moyal announced his resignation in protest of what he said was the Israeli government's "failure" to protect the city.
"I cannot take the responsibility to manage a city that is under attack for seven years," Moyal told reporters. "If 20 children are killed tomorrow from a rocket, I will be asked, 'why did you open the kindergarten?' I have been deliberating matters pertaining to human life for years now, and I cannot continue."
Said Moyal: "For seven years no one has taken responsibility for what is happening here. It is unreasonable to start the morning with eight Qassams. I am not willing to take this responsibility. I was chosen to manage a city and not this situation."
Since Israel evacuated the Gaza Strip in August 2005, Palestinian terror groups based there have fired more than 3,000 rockets aimed at nearby Jewish cities, including Sderot and Ashkelon, home to strategic power stations and fuel depots.
Speaking from Gaza, Abdel-Al told WND his terror group anticipated "further resignations from the inept leadership of the Israelis."
"This is exactly what happened after Israel lost the Lebanon war," said Abdel-Al, referring to Israel's war in the summer of 2006 against the Lebanese Hezbollah militia.
The Committees spokesman said the Palestinians' ability to fire rockets today while Israeli helicopters operated over Gaza was a "major military victory."
The Israeli army has made small-sized, isolated incursion into the Gaza Strip the past few days, including today, in an attempt to halt the rocket fire.
Israel Defense Forces Chief of Staff Gabi Ashkenazi said today a large-scale military operation in Gaza would soon be needed, telling Knesset members during a briefing that "we will come to the point where we will have to carry out the big operation."
But Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's security cabinet, which met today to debate Israel's response to the rocket barrage, failed to reach a decision on whether to embark on a large-scale invasion of Gaza.
Abdel-Al scoffed at the cabinet meeting.
"The Israelis are very good at threatening military operations, but so far they don't do anything," he said.
The terror spokesman boasted to WND his group and Hamas recently developed a more advanced rocket arsenal, but he declined to divulge specifics.
Senior defense officials told WND they have information indicating Hamas indeed enhanced its rocket capabilities, developing the ability to store rockets for a longer period of time, which now allows Palestinians to launch larger barrages of rocket at once.
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