Dozens of Gazans broke into a United Nations facility in Gaza on Wednesday and caused great damage to the building. The protesters jumped over the walls, smashed windows and burned tires. The Gazans were protesting the freeze in transfer of funds from the UN for rehabilitating their region. The UN Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process, Robert Serry said in a statement that he was “outraged” by the incident.

Gaza’s ruling Hamas terror organization reportedly knew in advance about the “protest” and warned Tuesday the enclave was on the brink of chaos.

“The Special Coordinator is outraged by the assault on the UNSCO (United Nations Special Coordinator) compound in Gaza this morning,” Serry said in his statement Wednesday afternoon, Jan 28, 2015. “During a pre-announced demonstration, of which Hamas was well aware, a number of protestors climbed the perimeter wall and entered the compound causing damage to United Nations premises and property.

“Due to precautionary measures taken, United Nations personnel working in the compound were fortunately unharmed. The Special Coordinator notes with deep concern that, despite repeated assurances, the security forces in Gaza did not take the necessary and timely measures to protect UNSCO’s compound.

“Pending a full transfer of security responsibilities to the legitimate Palestinian Authority, we continue to hold Hamas fully responsible for the security and safety of all United Nations personnel and operations in Gaza. As this serious incident took place in the context of increasing incitement against the United Nations in Gaza, the Special Coordinator is conducting an urgent review of operations in Gaza.

“As reported to the Security Council, the situation in Gaza has become extremely volatile again and will continue to deteriorate unless a number of critical underlying issues are addressed with both determination and a heightened sense of urgency. We also continue to urge donors to support humanitarian operations and fulfill the commitments they have made in Cairo for the reconstruction of Gaza,” the statement said.

The United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) had announced earlier in the week that it has nearly run out of funds to help in rebuilding Gaza due to a huge shortfall in pledged contributions from donor nations.

“Virtually none” of the record $5.4 billion pledged by the international community for the rehabilitation of post-war Gaza months ago has managed to reach grassroots people in the region, Gaza’s UNRWA director Robert Turner said. “This is distressing and unacceptable,” he added, without specifying which countries had defaulted on their pledges or precisely how much was outstanding.

Infrastructure in the enclave was significantly damaged during last summer’s Operation Protective Edge because Hamas and other allied terrorists attacked Israel while embedded within Gaza civilian neighborhoods, using the residents as human shields.

Only $135 million of the promised donations to the UNRWA cash assistance program for 96,000 refugee families made homeless by the war was received, Turner told media. The program is intended to pay for repairs of homes and rent subsidies as well as help rebuild homes that were destroyed in the war.

“While some funds remain available to begin reconstruction of totally destroyed homes,” he said, there is no more money left for repairs and rent subsidies.

In addition, hundreds of Hamas civil service workers have been rioting off and on for weeks as well. Few if any have been paid over the past six months. Nor has the terrorist group received any money from its partner in the Palestinian Authority unity government, the rival Fatah faction based in Ramallah, Samaria.

The Fatah-ruled PA government in Ramallah pays generous monthly salaries to convicted terrorists incarcerated in Israeli prisons, however, some of which are higher than salaries paid to its own government workers.

“At this moment, the IDF is responding to events in the north,” Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu told Israelis at a cornerstone-laying ceremony for new apartments in the southern city of Sderot.

“I suggest that all those who are challenging us on our northern border, look at what happened in Gaza, not far from the city of Sderot.

“Hamas suffered the most serious blow since it was founded this past summer, and the IDF is prepared to act on every front.”

Netanyahu’s response followed a multi-site attack by the Iranian-backed Hezbollah terror organization late Wednesday morning.

Two IDF vehicles were hit by rocket-propelled grenades and a home in the Druze village of Rajar caught fire after being struck by a rocket fired from Lebanon.

Hezbollah took responsibility for the attack, which military sources said may have been aimed at creating a distraction in order to attempt a cross-border abduction similar to that which launched the 2006 Second Lebanon War.

IDF troops are searching the area of Zarit for indications of a terrorist tunnel. There has been no information about an abduction thus far.

UNRWA said Tuesday it has suspended it program  rehabilitate Gaza, which may be good news for Israel since it says material shipped to Gaza are also being used to rehabilitate terror tunnels.

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon told President Reuven Rivlin in New York Monday night that the United Nations has sent a team to Gaza to investigate assertions by Israel that metal and cement shipped into Gaza are being used for tunnels as well as homes.

UNRWA spokesman Chris Gunness told The Jewish Press he is not aware of any money being used for the tunnels, some of which have been identified by the IDF as newly constructed.

The UNRWA program to help Gazans, whose homes were damaged or destroyed by Hamas rockets as well as Israeli fire in last summer’s war, is dependent on pledges of $5.4 billion, including $720 million for UNRWA, made by foreign donors at a conference in Cairo last October..

“The gap between expectations after the October Cairo conference and present reality is widening. There are genuine fears that if UNRWA halts this program, the consequences could be dramatic,” said Gunness.

He added, “All of the money that we can dispense has been spent. There is no more money.” He also stated that no money is missing.

There are two UNRWA aid plans, one for rental subsidies and the other for cash payments for Gazans to buy materials.

The Jewish Press has learned that most of the money that actually was turned over to UNRWA came from Saudi Arabia, followed by the European Union.

The constant threat of violence from Gaza is often fueled by great expectations, and the halt to work for homes in Gazans could stir up the locals again.

And what happened to all of the pledges?

Par for the course, most Arab countries have not lived up to their promises.

For example, Qatar pledged $1 billion.

With the price of oil having caved in since October, perhaps the richest country in the world, which has investments of more than $100 billion, cannot find the shekels for its poor brethren in Gaza.

Qatar’s Sheikh Hamad may need the small change for the maid to clean his home in London, for which he paid $62 million and then spent another $110 million to refurbish, complete with marble bathrooms.

It’s already becoming routine in the Israel Defense Forces. Missionaries sent by evangelical churches in the United States are given free rein over IDF bases, openly preaching Christianity and seeking to convert Jews out of their religion.

The most startling recent example that came to Yad L’Achim’s attention was an evening of appreciation that was organized for soldiers who fought in Operation Protective Edge this past summer in Gaza. The evening was arranged by the International Christian Embassy, which operates in Israel. What makes it particularly severe is that the soldiers were bused directly from their bases to the missionary event.

A more brief version of the above video can be seen here:

Some 300 soldiers from elite units, including the Paratroops’ 101 and Maglan, and officers, including a brigadier general, were subjected to a missionary pitch delivered by an American preacher, Robert Stearns. One of the translators was Doron Schneider, the head of the “Messianic Jews” congregation in Maaleh Adumim, outside of Jerusalem.

As in previous incidents involving missionary activity aimed at soldiers, Yad L’Achim immediately filed a complaint with the responsible parties in the IDF but has yet to receive a response.

Due to the severity of the incident, Yad L’Achim submitted the following urgent query to Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon:

Why is the IDF not enforcing a military ban on missionary preaching to soldiers? Who approved the busing of uniformed soldiers directly from their bases to an evening of forbidden missionary activity? Most importantly, who will ensure that it doesn’t happen again?

To make things crystal clear for our readers: Those who purport to be “Messianic Jews” are in fact practicing Christianity, plain and simple, and are intent upon reaching out to and converting Jews to Christianity disguised as a “new” form of Judaism — which it absolutely is not in any manner or form.

In a move that highlights the contrast between the Ramallah government of Fatah leader Mahmoud Abbas and Gaza, the ruling Hamas terror organization decided Sunday it would allow the entry of Israeli products into the enclave.

In Palestinian Authority-controlled areas of Judea and Samaria, where the government is positioned as a “moderate” Arab force, merchants are punished by Abbas if they are found to be carrying Israeli items for sale.

This is also the first time in five years, however, that Hamas has allowed Israeli goods to enter Gaza. The reason is simple survival, economically and politically.

Imad al-Bad, assistant deputy of the Hamas ministry of economy, told the Ma’an news agency that soft drinks, clothes, coffee and other items would be allowed in. “The last war led to the destruction of thousands of factories which affected the production power [in Gaza], and to fill that gap we decided to allow Zionist products in,” he said.

“The war damaged the production ability of factories and the nature and quality of the product because some raw materials are not allowed in” due to the blockade,” he continued. “We decided to allow [the] products to enter so that the market is not hindered and products are available,” al-Baz added.

Israel has resumed its cautious stance on which items can cross the border into Gaza after having discovered during last summer’s war hundreds of kilometers of terror tunnels honeycombing the enclave and leading under the border into Israeli territory.

Despite its concerns, Israel has nevertheless allowed concrete and other construction materials into the region, albeit under “supervision,” for reconstruction purposes. Those materials have already been commandeered, sold or voluntarily offered to Hamas terrorists for the purpose of rebuilding its terror tunnels, an inevitable result Israeli officials had predicted.

The Jewish State was heavily pressured by international leaders into allowing the construction materials into Gaza that were used to build the underground tunnel city network also the first time around. At that time too, it was claimed that Gaza residents “desperately” needed the materials for construction and repair of their homes, schools, hospitals and other essential infrastructure.

Instead, the materials were used to build millions of dollars’ worth of tunnels for carrying out terror attacks against Israelis and kidnapping other captives to hold as hostages in Gaza. The tunnels became part of the Hamas arsenal employed most recently during Operation Protective Edge, but also as far back as 2006, in its unending war against Israel.

IDF Chief of Staff Benny Gantz has canceled his planned trip to a NATO conference in Europe, only a few hours away.

Israel’s security on the northern border has also been tightened following what was feared to be a terrorist infiltration Wednesday evening (Jan 21.)

Kibbutz security teams from Metulla to Malkiya combed the Ramim mountain range around 6 pm local time after five suspects were thought to have been spotted. Residents of communities in the area remained inside. Roads were sealed and IDF troops were sent to the area as well.

But after searching the area thoroughly, the IDF Spokesperson announced that no infiltration had occurred. Nevertheless, he asked residents to remain in their homes.

Tensions are rising in the wake of an attack on a Hezbollah convoy in Syria that killed six terrorists – including three commanders – and six members of the elite Iranian Revolutionary Guards. Among the Iranian dead was a general.

The helicopter air strike, which fired two missiles, has been attributed to Israel although there has been no confirmation by the IDF.

South of Israel, the Hamas terrorist organization is working hard to figure out how to get in on the action and create another two-front war, as it did with Hezbollah in 2006.

Elusive Gaza-based Hamas military commander Mohammed Deif wrote a condolence letter to Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah commiserating over the recent attack.

“All of the forces of resistance must band together and unite against the Zionist enemy and its accomplices,” Deif reportedly wrote in the letter, Reuters reported. It was believed last summer that Deif had been eliminated by the IDF during its counter terror Operation Protective Edge, but despite conflicting reports Hamas has insisted since that day that Deif is still alive.

Likewise, Gaza’s de facto Hamas prime minister Ismail Haniyeh also sent a letter to Nasrallah expressing his “deepest condolences,” according to Hezbollah-linked Al Manar TV. Haniyeh’s sorrow was to be conveyed to the “families of martyrs.”

Iran, which generously funds and equips both terrorist groups, has meanwhile warned Israel that “ruinous thunderbolts” await in the future.

The U.S. State Department has not been unmindful of these developments: a travel warning has been issued barring American foreign service personnel from approaching the northern borders with Lebanon and Syria. Nor can American public servants use public transportation anywhere in Israel at this time.

The terror stabbing attack Wednesday (Jan. 20) by a Palestinian Authority Arab man on a public bus in Tel Aviv has only exacerbated American administration fears about what lies ahead.

“Because of concerns about security on Israel’s northern borders, U.S. Government personnel are currently required to obtain advance approval if they wish to travel within 1.5 miles (2.4 kilometers) of the Lebanon border, or travel on or east of Route 98 in the Golan Heights,” the U.S. Embassy alert reads. Visitors from the United States have also been advised not to use public transportation in Israel.

A rocket launched on Monday evening from Gaza landed in Gaza.

The explosion was heard in Kibbutz Be’eri, which is close to where the rocket fell short.

Iron Dome did not go off.