Israel’s spy chief has given a warning that Palestinian militants in the Gaza Strip are garnering increasing numbers of weapons and tactical expertise from Hezbollah fighters since the war in southern Lebanon erupted earlier this summer. Yuval Diskin, the director of Shin Bet, Israel’s equivalent of MI5, said Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula was being used as a terrorist base and fast becoming a haven for arms smugglers preparing to shift their wares into the Gaza Strip. He added that within Gaza terrorists were building rocket hideouts, a bunker network and an anti-tank missile arsenal as they prepared for an escalated confrontation with Israel. advertisement ‘If we don’t move to counter this smuggling, it will continue and create a situation in Gaza similar to the one in southern Lebanon,’ he said at a private meeting with Israeli MPs last week. He told members of the Israeli parliament’s foreign affairs and defence committee that Hamas had set out to emulate Hezbollah’s tactics in Lebanon, building tunnels and bunkers to help to smuggle weapons and militants across the border from Egypt, since Israel withdrew from Gaza last year. The border is now controlled by the Palestinians and Egypt, with the […]