A Gaza-based equipment dealer was indicted Sunday on charges of smuggling scuba diving equipment into the region and selling it to the Hamas terrorist organization.

The indictment came after a joint investigation by Israel Police and the Israel Security Agency, known as the Shin Bet.

Israel’s Southern District prosecutor filed an indictment in a Be’er Sheva court against 41-year-old Abd al-Rahman Sakallah.

The Gaza dealer faces seven charges that include security offenses, provision of service to an illicit organization, contact with a foreign agent, fraud under aggravated circumstances and carrying out illegal property transactions. He was also accused of selling sporting equipment and clothing to the terror organization.

Inspection agents always scrutinize goods as they enter the ports and the land crossings prior to delivery into Gaza due to the frequency of attempts to smuggle contraband to terrorist organizations. In this case, scuba diving equipment is used by Hamas terror commandos to retrieve smuggled weapons and other ordnance via illicit maritime deliveries, and infiltrate into Israel and carry out terror attacks.

Israeli Navy vessels allegedly fired at Gaza fishermen caught sailing outside the permitted zone off the coast of the al-Soudaniya area of central to southern Gaza. The incidents took place Saturday night and Sunday during the day, according to the Bethlehem-based Ma’an news agency.

But an IDF spokesperson declined to comment on the report.

Gazans who appear to be “fishing” are sometimes seeking things other than living creatures for food beneath the waves, and Israeli sailors are forced to be on constant alert as they patrol the coastline to defend against arms smugglers and terrorists.

Overnight a combined operation of the IDF Judea and Samaria Division, Shabak and Judea and Samaria Police thwarted a weapons manufacturing infrastructure and arrested weapons makers and merchants in Bethlehem and in Hebron, the Police Spokesperson’s office reported. It was largest such operation this year.

IDF, Shabak and police forces, as well as Border Gurad units, located and captured seven weapons workshops with 22 lathes. In addition the forces discovered dozens of firearms, including magazines and parts. The forces arrested two suspects believed to be involved in making and selling illegal weapons. One of the two, considered the most prominent illegal weapons merchant in the PA, was taken in for questioning by the Shabak.

The illegal items were confiscated.

Since the beginning of 2016, the IDF, Israel Police and the Shabak have located 29 illegal weapons workshops in Judea and Samaria, with 49 lathes and more than 300 firearms. Security forces have also arrested more than 140 Arabs suspected of involvement in making and selling illegal weapons.

Since the beginning of the year there have been more than 30 terrorist attacks using firearms.

#Thank You, Hamas!

Readers who believe the fabrication that residents of Gaza are poverty-stricken Arabs living in muddy shacks with nothing to eat should find this article comforting.

Hamas has released its latest online campaign video to bring new tourists to Gaza.

The hashtag in Arabic reads: #ShukranHamas — #ThankYouHamas.

The ceaseless barrage by Hamas of rocket and mortar fire aimed at Israel and the abduction and murder of three Israeli teenagers in Gush Etzion prompted a military response from the Israel Defense Forces in July and August 2014. But since then, Gaza has been a very busy place.

Countries from around the world have poured money into the region to help rehabilitate the infrastructure. Israeli forces silenced the rocket fire emanating from the residential buildings, hospitals and schools, aimed by Hamas and Islamic Jihad terrorists. The two terror organizations deliberately embedded their military operations among civilians in order to use them as human shields. They maximized the destruction of their own cities and the deaths of their own citizens in order to exploit the media coverage for future fundraising.

It worked, of course.

After the war, Israel was excoriated for taking out the rocket launchers and other weaponry in order to neutralize the threat to its own civilian population.

And money poured in to Gaza from all quarters, as did construction supplies. Israel was forced to allow dual use materials into the region. That doesn’t include the daily in-and-out movement of people and the humanitarian aid shipments, foodstuffs, dry goods, and fuel that still flow through the border crossings, along with repeated attempts to smuggle weapons, explosives and military parts among the goods as well.

As the infrastructure and residential buildings were rebuilt, so too was the subterranean military structure of the ruling terrorist authority, which has been caught repeatedly siphoning off money and supplies intended for civilian use. This month, bona fide employees of the United Nations have been caught working for Hamas. But it hasn’t stopped the process; in fact, the United Nations has done absolutely nothing about it. Probably, it can’t and likely it wouldn’t anyway. During the last war more than a few UNRWA schools were used as storage facilities for missiles. Nothing concrete was done about that either, other than a public slap on the wrist, probably for having been stupid enough to get caught on camera. Israel, naturally, was condemned in a formal inquiry after the war.

But should anyone believe the fiction that residents of Gaza are still suffering due to restrictions by Israel, please don’t hesitate to retain the link to this article on your desktop, and review it periodically. Or at least, retain the link to the YouTube video so thoughtfully provided by Hamas. That, at least, should reassure such readers that nothing could be further from the truth.

Any resident of Gaza who is suffering today, is suffering due to restrictions by the Hamas government. Make no mistake about it.

The Amaq media outlet of the Da’esh (ISIS) terrorist organization disseminated photos of American arms this past weekend showing the new military treasure it acquired when U.S. troops who were supporting government soldiers in Afghanistan retreated in the face of terrorist fire during a clash that took place in July.

Among the seized items were a rocket launcher, grenades, machine gun ammunition, an encrypted radio and military identification cards, the Washington Free Beacon reported Wednesday. One of the identity cards was that of an American soldier, but U.S. officials denied he was taken prisoner and said he was with his unit.

U.S. Brigadier-General Charles Cleveland, deputy chief of staff for the U.S.-led mission in Afghanistan confirmed the loss, saying the clash had taken place in the eastern province of Nangarhar as American forces were moving a “casualty collection” area. Cleveland said in his statement the soldiers came under “effective enemy fire” and were forced to retreat. “In the course of moving the [casualty collection point] to a safe location, some equipment was left behind. For understandable reasons, the lives of soldiers were not put at risk to recover the equipment,” he said. “The loss of equipment is regrettable but no equipment is worth undue risk to those involved,” Cleveland pointed out. “And we do not expect any measurable operational impact due to the loss.”

This is not the first time that American military hardware and weapons have ended up in hands other than those for whom they were intended.

Weapons that were sent to Syrian opposition forces via Jordan last year by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency and Saudi Arabia were reported stolen by Jordanian intelligence operatives, according to an investigative report by the New York Times.

Instead, they ended up in the hands of arms merchants who sold them to the highest bidders on the black market, American and Jordanian officials told the newspaper.

Those same weapons were used by a Jordanian officer to murder two U.S. government security contractors, a South African trainer and two Jordanians in an attack at a U.S.-funded police training facility for Jordanian intelligence in Amman last November, both NYT and Al Jazeera reported. The killer was later shot dead in a shootout.

The site was set up in 2003 as a center for the U.S. to train Iraqi police. It then was used to train Palestinian Authority security forces, who were ultimately equipped with new American military equipment. Although (USSC) U.S. Security Coordinator (2005-2010) Lt. Gen. Keith Dayton repeatedly stated, “We don’t give out any guns or bullets,” the forces received them from Jordan and Egypt with approval from Israel.

Numerous Palestinian Authority security forces have since used their vastly improved military skills to target Israelis in terror attacks.

In his report, The Implications of United States Military Training of Palestinian Security Forces, journalist David Bedein points out that in addition to the United States, the European Union also started training and equipping Palestinian Authority security forces in 2007. (see page six)

Under the European Union Coordinating Office for Palestinian Police Support (EU COPPS), about one thousand police officers were trained and at least a dozen police stations were opened in Judea and Samaria. By mid-2008, European donor states had already pledged $242 million to the Palestinian Authority, all this in addition to the USSC effort.

At present, a similar issue is taking place in Syria with American weapons once again going astray. Western-backed “moderate” opposition forces are fighting government troops defending the regime of President Bashar al-Assad together with Russian, Iranian and the Lebanese Hezbollah guerrilla terrorist fighters.

The Western-backed opposition forces, supplied in part by the United States, are not in any way linked to Al Qaeda or Da’esh (ISIS). But in the heat of battle and for the purposes of achieving their objectives, all opposition forces often band together as one in Syria — regardless of ideological affiliation.

Iran is making final preparations to send a large arms shipment intended for the Lebanese army, according to a report on the Hebrew-language NRG website.

The shipment is being sent by Iran to fill the vacuum created by Saudi Arabia, which pulled its economic aid to Beirut.

A senior official in Tehran said that Iran is waiting only for the approval of Beirut to finalize the shipment of the deadly supplies. Saudi Arabia announced its decision in February to reconsider a grant of $4 billion in military aid to the Lebanese Army and its security services.

The decision came after Beirut declined to condemn the assault by Shi’ite protesters against the Saudi Arabian embassy in Tehran. The demonstrators were protesting the execution of a Shi’ite cleric in Saudi Arabia. Lebanon is dominated by the Iranian-backed Hezbollah terrorist organization via cabinet ministers and parliamentarians who serve in a large percentage of the government.

Interestingly, the United States has also just announced the arrival of “an entire ship full of military equipment” at a port in Lebanon.

U.S. Ambassador to Lebanon Elizabeth H. Richard told reporters on Tuesday that Lebanon was the recipient of $50 million in military aid from Washington DC.

Among the items shipped to Beirut were 50 armored Humvees, 40 Howitzers and more than a thousand tons of ammunition.

Lebanon is the fifth largest recipient of U.S. foreign military financing in the world, Richard said.

The Israel Defense Forces have been preparing for the possibility of a new war with Hezbollah along Israel’s northern border.

The supply of new military hardware to an active Israeli enemy sworn to annihilate the Jewish State — one who is serving as a proxy for Iran — has raised red flags for the Jewish State, which is closely watching the border.

The Lebanese Army is closely entwined with Hezbollah and for all intents and purposes, a nation that once was called “the Riviera of the Middle East” has now become a satellite of jihadist Iran.

In an IDF operation inside the terror village of Dura, near Hebron, IDF forces made ten more arrests in connection to the terror attack near Otniel on Jul 1, 2016, according to the IDF.

In that terror attack on Road 60, Rabbi Miki Mark was murdered and 3 members of his family were wounded when terrorists opened fire on the car he and his family were driving in.

The ten who were arrested last night aided the terrorists who were recently arrested. Some of those arrested are family members. Among those arrested was the terror leader’s weapons supplier.

In addition, 3 secret weapons factories were discovered in a joint Shabak-Border Police operation in the town of Kalkilya.

Domestic and foreign humanitarian aid still continues to flow — flood, in fact — into the Hamas terrorist-ruled region of Gaza.

On Wednesday alone, 23,425 tons of goods in 745 trucks entered the region via the Kerem Shalom Crossing, according to the IDF Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT).

The day before, 22,437 tons of goods in 637 trucks entered Gaza via Kerem Shalom. On Monday, 22,788 tons of goods in 687 trucks entered the enclave via the crossing.

But it’s not just foodstuffs, dry goods and equipment that move across Israel’s southern border into Gaza.

There were eight crossings of ambulances between Gaza and Israel on Wednesday, the COGAT reported.

In addition, there were 1,088 crossings of foreigners, merchants and others between Israel and Gaza on Wednesday. One day earlier, there were 1,152 crossings in human traffic.

The shipments are very carefully inspected before passing through the crossings due to the frequent attempts to “import” weapons, ammunition and other ordnance and contraband by terrorist smugglers.

Inspectors have found electronics, components and other parts that are used to manufacture rockets and missiles as well as other instruments for waging war against Israel.