Director of Israeli homeland security intelligence Shin Bet cautioned Tuesday that Israel would be in "deep trouble" if radical group Hamas won the Palestinian parliamentary elections scheduled for Jan. 25.

"Israel will be in deep trouble if Hamas wins the elections for the Palestinian Legislative Council or if it scores a significant achievement," Yuval Diskin told Israeli Knesset (parliament) Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee.

Diskin said that following a victory or strong showing, Hamas would make every effort to install its activists in Palestinian security arms, thus assuring that there would be no efforts made to head off terrorism launched from Palestinian-controlled areas.

Chairman of the committee Yuval Steinitz believed that if Diskin's predictions hold, Israel will be facing an entirely new situation, in which a terrorist organization calling for the destruction of Israel will be an equal partner in controlling the Palestinian parliament.

A committee led by Israeli Prime Minister's advisor, Dov Weisglass, began discussing the possible election results on Monday, focusing on the implications of Hamas gains.

The committee assumed that Hamas will not be victorious, according to a senior government official. "We don't know what the results will be. The polls indicate that Hamas will receive 30 percent of the vote," said the source.

Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas' ruling Fatah party is facing a strong challenge from Hamas in the first general elections in ten years.

Fatah opened its election campaign at the late Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat's tomb in Ramallah in the West Bank on Tuesday while Hamas, which boycotted the first and only election in 1996, launched its campaign in Gaza City outside the home of one of its dead leaders, Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, who was assassinated by Israel nearly two years ago.

Source: Xinhua