Death from "jihad-related task" in "live-breeding tube"

EOZ reports this martyrdom via an Al-Qassam Brigades Information Office site article whose vague wording would generally lead one to believe Radi accidentally blew himself to glorious bits. According to Iran's PressTV, however, "Palestinian medics said Radi died in a tunnel collapse." Perhaps this is viewed as an insufficiently glorious cause of death, hence the vague earlier reports?

A senior commander for the Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades, the armed wing of the Islamic Hamas movement, has died in the central Gaza Strip.

"Yasser Sabri Radi, 37, a field commander in the Qassam Brigades from Nuseirat Camp in central Gaza, was martyred on Wednesday morning while undertaking a jihad-related task," AFP quoted a statement released by the resistance group.

The statement did not specify the cause of the death, but Palestinian medics said Radi died in a tunnel collapse, the news agency added.

Israel's fighter jets regularly bombard cross-border tunnels in southern Gaza Strip, saying the Palestinian fighters use them to hide out, store weapons and launch attacks against the Israeli troops.

But Palestinians reject the allegations and describe the tunnels, mostly across the border with Egypt, as live-breeding tubes to push in food and other basic needs into the long-blockaded Gaza Strip.

In June 2006, fighters from Hamas and two other armed Palestinian groups launched a cross-border attack on an Israeli military post, killing two soldiers and captured a third Israeli soldier.

Gilad Shalit is still being held in Gaza, awaiting a prisoner swap between Israel and Hamas, who has demanded the release of 1,000 Palestinian prisoners in return.

Presumably the last two paragraphs mention Shalit because a tunnel was used in his capture. It is interesting to see PressTV undercutting a Hamas claim. PressTV also devotes a current article to PLO claims: "Israel seeking Al-Quds takeover through 10-month freeze":

A top PLO member says Israel's 10-month freeze in settlement activity in the West Bank is a cover for a dangerous plot to take over East Jerusalem Al-Quds.

Former Palestinian Authority prime minister Ahmed Qurei, who is a member of the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO), made the remarks on Wednesday during a meeting with Sheikh Raed Salah, head of Islamic movement in the occupied Palestine.

Qurei said that the Palestinians were not in favor of reviving the kind of peace talks that would be futile due to Tel Aviv's failure to comply with the conditions set for talks. Instead, the Palestinians prefer to restore their rights through resistance to Israeli occupation, he added.

"Plans devised by [Israeli President] Shimon Peres, [Knesset Member and former defense minister] Shaul Mofaz and [Defense Minister] Ehud Barak, have put East Jerusalem Al-Quds in grave danger. The trio seek to exclude East Jerusalem Al-Quds from an Israeli pledge to freeze settlement construction in the occupied lands," Qurei said. [...]

You may have seen an AP headline "Iran nuke plans largely bluster, experts say." As if in answer, an IRIB headline reads "President: Plan to build 10 sites, not a bluff":

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said on Tuesday that IRI decision to construct 10 new nuclear sites is not a political bluff. "There is no place for bluffing in this regard," the President noted.

"When we launched the initial nuclear cycle they said it was impossible," President Ahmadinejad said in an interview with IRIB adding, "But they saw that it was real."

The ten new nuclear sites have been designed before, and because it is a domestic industry we have not give any guarantee to the International Atomic Energy Agency to make them aware about planning and constructing new nuclear sites, the President said.

"But according to the (IAEA) law, we will inform them 6 months before injecting gas," he reiterated. [...]

How responsible of them.

Crossposted on Soccer Dad