Another Preventable Attack

This week, in coordinated attacks, as many as 20 terrorists infiltrated from Gaza into Egypt and then into southern Israel, killing eight Israelis. Israeli authorities believe the terrorists exited Gaza via underground tunnels and slipped into Israel through a "tattered wire fence" along the Israel-Egypt border. Predictably, only now, after a tragedy, does Israel plan to complete construction of the remaining three-quarters of the 200km fence.

Buses targeted by the terrorists had some soldiers as passengers, some of whom returned fire while others administered first aid to victims. But passengers in cars also targeted were sitting ducks. In one case, terrorists reportedly shot two sisters and their husbands at point-blank range and then confirmed the deaths. Had the travelers been armed, perhaps they could have repelled the attack. Perhaps they should have been carrying the same weapons often seen being carried by "radical Israeli settlers" in their self-defense.

Recently, militants were arrested and weapons seized in Egypt's Sinai peninsula, in the latest indication that militants there are re-emerging after the fall of Egyptian President Mubarak. A group calling itself "Al Qaeda in the Sinai Peninsula" is said to have formed. Given such news and the sophistication of this week's attacks, we're probably seeing the beginnings of an escalation of Arab terrorism emanating from a destabilized Egypt and terror-controlled Gaza. One question that remains to be seen is whether the command-and-control structure of this renewed effort against Israel rests more in Gaza or in Egypt. Gaza's Hamas leadership will insist it has no role and Israel is picking a fight.