Cafe Hillel bomber promotes Global March to J'lem

Hamas operative promotes march; protesters from countries surrounding Israel plan to converge on borders.

By YAAKOV KATZ
Palestinian prisoners enter Gaza 311 (photo credit: REUTERS)
Palestinian prisoners enter Gaza 311
(photo credit: REUTERS)
A senior Hamas terrorist, released to the Gaza Strip in the Gilad Schalit prisoner swap, traveled to South Africa recently to advance the Global March to Jerusalem, scheduled for later this month.
Under the plan, protesters from Jordan, Egypt, the Gaza Strip, the West Bank, Syria and Lebanon will converge on Israel’s borders on March 30.
As reported last week in The Jerusalem Post, the IDF is preparing for the planned infiltrations and will distribute riot gear to units deployed along the borders.
According to a paper published on Friday by the Meir Amit Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center, a quasigovernment affiliated think tank based near Glilot, Dr. Abd al-Aziz Amru, a senior Hamas member who was serving seven life sentences for involvement in a suicide attack in 2003, was brought to South Africa as the guest of two organizations – Al Quds Foundation of South Africa and the Muslim Judicial Council.
The paper said Amru’s visit was meant to promote the Global March to Jerusalem and to raise awareness about the continued imprisonment of what he termed Palestinian “political prisoners” in Israeli prisons.
According to the center, the organizations that brought Amru to South Africa are known radical Islamic groups, one of which – the Muslim Judicial Council – is part of a larger group of Palestinian charities that was outlawed several years ago by Israel and the US.
Amru was sentenced to seven life sentences in prison for his involvement in dispatching the suicide bomber who blew up at Cafe Hillel in Jerusalem on September 9, 2003. Seven Israelis were killed and more than 50 others were wounded in the attack. Among the dead were Detroit-born Dr. David Applebaum, director of the Shaare Zedek Medical Center emergency room, and his daughter Nava, whose wedding was scheduled for the following day.
Earlier this week, the Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center published a report saying that Tehran was, directly and through its proxies, supporting the planned marches later this month.
“In our assessment, Iran has a number of objectives: to strengthen its regional influence by exploiting the sensitivity of the Arab-Muslim world to the issue of Jerusalem, to draw international attention away from itself, and to broaden and deepen the delegitimization campaign being waged against Israel by channeling it to Iran’s own political needs,” the report said.