Escalation in the Gaza Strip: the view from Israel

By Peter Lukimson, exclusively to VK

On March 10, 2012 an Israeli Air Force strike in Gaza killed the secretary-general of the Popular Resistance Committees, Zuhir al-Qaisi. His car was targeted by two missiles. Zuhir al-Qaisi and his closest ally, Mohammed Khaniani were killed on site. Mohammed Khaniani became the first killed terrorist of the group that was freed by Israel in return for Gilad Shalit.

The decision to terminate one of the leaders of Palestinian terrorists (he was the third one to be killed since 2006) was taken on the highest level. The security services understood how the militants were going to react to that but they still decided to take еры step. This decision can be explained by the information obtained by the Israeli General Security Service (Shin Bet) in august of 2011 about the preparations of a terrorist act on Israeli-Egyptian boarder by the Committees. Back than Israeli leadership decided not to implement pre-emptive elimination not to increase the tensions or at least to prevent Israel from being accused in increasing the tension in the region by the international community. The special services hoped to prevent the terrorist attack. The deplorable result is well-known: terrorist attack on 12th road near Eilat cased 8 casualties among Israeli citizens and dozens of wounded. It also caused rapid deterioration in the relations with Egypt. After that almost all leaders of the Committees were killed by Israeli Air Force strikes. Terrorists answered in shelling Israeli territories.

As the result of this incident, there appeared a certain tension between Shin Bet on one side and the Israeli Army Headquarters and the Defense Ministry. It remained unclear whether a preliminary termination of terrorist leaders would have prevented the bombing, but Israel decided not to miss such a chance in the future. After that an Air Force strike destroyed militants of the ‘Islam Jihad’ who were preparing to launch a long-range missile against Israel.

The Israeli Defense Forces followed the same pattern when they learned that al-Qaisi is preparing a major bombing in South Israel. By the way, despite the fact that al-Qaisi is killed, the threat of such a bombing still exists.

The response of the Committees and the ‘Islam Jihad’ was as swift as expected. The arsenal of the latter is regularly filled by Iran so it is considerable, and it is ‘Islam Jihad’ that took up the task of shelling Israeli territory with 20 and 40-killometer range missiles. Unlike the two abovementioned organizations, the Hamas which is much stronger than both of them abstained from the ongoing confrontation.

This aspect of the situation, even though it is not at all new, should be treated with special attention. Hamas has spoilt its relations with Teheran and practically severed all connections to Syria and now the organization is most interested in keeping its truce with Israel even at the cost of its popularity. The movements leaders are interested in keeping the local population’s living standards on an acceptable level to keep the power in Gaza Strip. All this will be seriously threatened if Israeli Defense Forces would conduct a large-scale military operation in the region. The Popular Resistance Committees and the ‘Islam Jihad’, in their turn, don’t have to worry about any of these considerations. The only pillar of their ideology is armed fight against Israel. Israel, in its turn, is also interested in maintaining the tension on a high level, and that also contributes to the extremist organizations’ readiness for escalation. So it is by no accident that, unlike the Hamas leaders, the leader of the ‘Islam Jihad’ , Ramadan Shalah is still in his headquarters in Damask. Moreover, shelling of Israeli territory is a good occasion for the both extremist organizations to gain popular support to the prejudice of Hamas. Becoming the only ‘true fighters’ they automatically win the allegiance of those who believe that the best way to deal with Israel is the military one. And it is by no accident that more and more Palestinians start comparing the power of Hamas in the Gaza Strip with that of the Palestinian Autonomy authorities.

This stage of the conflict is the most heated since the Operation Cast Lead. Not only near-border Israeli settlements are shelled, the daily lives of more than a million of Israeli citizens are interrupted even despite the fact that the anti-missile shield is operating properly: the system intercepted 56 of more than 200 missiles in the 3 days (the system is capable to calculate the missile’s trajectory and if it is going o hit unpopulated regions it doesn’t bother to intercept it). According to the Israeli Defense Forces, 56 missiles are some 80% of the total number due for interception.

It is quite a success, and the failures I Bayer-Shevi and Ashdod shouldn’t mislead anyone. The complaints about the high price of the interception missiles are also irrelevant: apart from the great number of lives saved they prevented damage to the property, which would certainly cause greater expenses than that to purchase the missiles.

It is the near-border settlements, unprotected by the shield where the terrorists managed to achieve considerable success: three workers from Thailand were injured, one of them quite gravely.

In their turn Israeli Air Force attacked a number of targets in the Gaza Strip preventing missile launches and hitting missile depots (it can be clearly seen on one of the videos)/ As a result, 26 Palestinians died, 22 of them were members of terrorist groups.

By Monday Israel and Hamas both displayed their desire to cease fire, and the truce was introduced since Tuesday 01:00 with the mediatory help of Egypt. According to the terrorists, one of the conditions of this truce was Israel’s promise to stop targeting Palestinian leaders, but Israeli officials disprove this claim.

It would seem that the damage to Israel in this stage of the conflict was minimal while the terrorists were delivered quite a serious blow. However, Israeli military experts don’t hurry with such conclusions. Ever since it was founded the Israeli Defense Forces organization considered attack the best king of defense and it always tried to act on this doctrine. Attempts to sit back in protected territories create just an elusion of safety, and that is what happened in 1973 in the war with Egypt. After that the Israeli Defense Forces gradually turned to the ‘sitting back’ strategy thus giving the initiative to the terrorist forces. According to the experts, despite the efficiency of the anti-missile system, the very situation is inacceptable. Israel’s daily life was virtually paralyzed by two minor terrorist groups, which didn’t even use their full military potential. According to the Israeli intelligence, they possess Iranian missile capable of reaching the inner territories of Israel. The organizations’ potential is expected to grow and their leaders are not concerned with loosing couple of dozens of fighters.

It seems that the terrorists are not going to observe the cease-fire regime: the shelling of the near-border settlements continued on Tuesday and Wednesday, while Israel abstained from response. Only miracle saved people from being hurt in the recent missile hit in Netivot.

The experts call to a radical solution to the terrorist problem in Gaza: that is a full-scale operation in the sector. At the very least Israel should act more decisively in order to scare the terrorists out of shelling Israeli towns. It seems that the majority of Israeli citizens shares this opinion.