WarSclerotic

Residents of the city of Ashkelon on Israel’s southern coast are outraged at the latest flare-up in violence, which has thus far killed one resident and left some 100 wounded, including one man in critical condition following a rocket hit on a local factory.

“This was a really hard Shabbat,” says Devorah Harush, who lives on the same street as the late Moshe Agadi, a 58-year-old father of four, who was killed early Sunday morning.

“We can’t remember it ever being this bad, both in terms of the intensity and the number of rockets being fired at us. I’m not ashamed to say, I voted for [Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu, and I’m really disappointed that we’ve lost our military deterrence against Hamas and the rest of the terrorist organizations,” Harush said.

“I’m aware of the fact that we have the Eurovision coming up and it’s just before Remembrance Day and Independence Day, and at a time like this, it’s better for the Israeli people to mourn quietly and celebrate the country’s independence. But there’s a limit to what we can endure in the name of the days that are just about here,” she said.

“Enough – we’re sick of this terrorism, all these sirens and booms. We’re sick of the fear and the explosions and the children experiencing one trauma after another. If they need to, they should start a military operation and deal them a fatal blow,” Harush said.

On Sunday, the third day of heavy rocket fire, Ashkelon residents seemed mostly stunned. The streets were virtually empty, and anyone who had to be out conducted their business quickly so as not be caught exposed if there was another rocket barrage.

“I’m not ashamed to admit it – I’m scared,” said Zion Dabush, 71.

“On a day like today, I wouldn’t leave the house. It’s better to stay someplace safe, but I had to go to the doctor. So I’m getting it done as quickly as possible, and going back home.

“True, Agadi was killed when he was at home, but you need to be really careful on a day like today. You really need to follow the instructions of the IDF Homefront Command, and not play Russian roulette with your life. The murderers from Gaza are godless. They’ll murder children and old people, and as I said, I’d rather be at home, near my safe room. That’s where I feel safest,” Dabush said.

Katya, a 17-year-old high school student, said, “What a sad day for Ashkelon. Look how sad everyone is. It’s not easy to lose someone from the city, someone we knew and only did good in the world. He’s the one who had to die because of a rocket? I work as a waitress in a café in town, and I know that it will be empty today because no one is in the mood to go out and enjoy themselves.”

Were this not a particularly sensitive time, with the country set to mark Memorial Day and Independence Day this week and host the Eurovision song contest next week, Israel would have changed the rules of the game on Saturday, in relative terms when it comes to Hamas and entirely in relation to Palestinian Islamic Jihad, which is also responsible for this current round of fighting. Less than one week after the attempt to fire a rocket at the southern city of Ashdod, and despite an explicit warning from Jerusalem, PIJ once again decided to go wild. The organization was responsible for Friday’s sniper fire that wounded an IDF officer and a female soldier on the border with Gaza.

Israeli officials contemplated responding directly against PIJ, but ultimately, the decision was made to attack Gaza’s rulers: Hamas. One of the terrorist organization’s posts was attacked, but unlike in the past, this time, the position was manned. Three Hamas members were killed and Hamas decided to retaliate by wildly firing at the entire western Negev region while coordinating its activities with PIJ.

For a moment, the intensive rocket fire recalled that day last November when over 500 rockets were launched at Israel from Gaza. At the time, Israel responded in a controlled manner, avoiding an escalation for three main reasons: a desire to focus its efforts on the Hezbollah terror tunnels in the north, stormy weather that limited the Israeli Air Force’s activities and the fact that the escalation followed a failed operation by special IDF forces in the southern Gaza town of Khan Younis.

This current round, however, comes in the absence of comparable circumstances. In security talks held on Saturday, Israeli officials were of the unanimous opinion that avoiding a sharp response this time would have the opposite effect: Instead of this being seen as an Israeli gesture, it would be seen as fear of taking action. The outcome would be that at any moment, Hamas and PIJ could renew fire and blackmail Israel anew, making the man responsible for scoring the participants at the Eurovision song contest Hamas military leader Yahya Sinwar.

A reluctant Hamas

Hamas, which was less eager to join the current round of fighting, sent a clear message through the Egyptians and U.N. Middle East envoy Nikolay Mladenov Saturday night that it was willing to bring the violence to an immediate halt. Israel has wavered between a desire to end this round in a similar way to previous rounds, and the understanding that a dangerous threshold has been breached. Yet, both Jerusalem and Gaza have avoided radically changing the rules of the game: Israel has taken care not to cause too many casualties in the coastal enclave, while Hamas – and PIJ for that matter – have not expanded the rocket fire to Beersheba and Tel Aviv, despite threats to do just that.

Past experience and logic teach us that this round of fighting will also likely come to an end quickly. The IDF’s decision not to call up a large number of reinforcements could be a sign that the officials at the Defense Ministry headquarters do not believe we are on the brink of another extended and violent round of fighting. To the list of factors that have limited the fighting thus far, we can add the monthlong fast set to commence with the Muslim holy month of Ramadan on Sunday night. It is doubtful Hamas wants to ruin the holiday for Gaza’s residents. If it accepts the promised Qatari funds, at a few days’ delay, Hamas will have every interest in calming the winds of war.

But PIJ will continue to keep both sides in a sensitive state. In recent months, it is clear the Iranian-backed organization has deviated from Hamas’ course of action. This stems from its new leadership in Damascus, headed by Ziad Nakhala, and clear Iranian pressure to act, along with the fact that its operatives are gunning for action. Israel has warned Hamas that a decision to avoid reining in PIJ will lead to a greater conflagration; while the message may have been received, it has yet to be implemented on the ground.

Israel then will likely demand to handle the job by itself. The only question that remains is when. Does Israel, due to the holidays and the Eurovision, hold off for now? Or does it change the rules of the game to deliver a strong blow, even at the price of a few days of fighting, in the hope it will restore calm for a little longer than just a few weeks.

No one in Israel is under any illusions: Even if Israel goes for the first option, it will soon come time for the second. The clock is ticking, and patience is running out on both sides. If a breakthrough is not quickly reached in talks for calm in Cairo, we may have reached a point in which, after extensive talks, missiles will take the place of words.

The Iranian-backed Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) terrorist organization – the second largest armed faction in Gaza – is responsible for the latest escalation in Gaza and Israel.

In recent weeks, PIJ, whose rocket arsenal is larger than that of Hamas, has conducted a string of attacks that it did not take responsibility for. The goal of these attacks appears to be the sabotage of Egyptian-led efforts to stabilize Gaza.

PIJ’s attacks include the launching of a rocket on April 29, which exploded in the Mediterranean Sea near a southern Israeli city. More recently, on May 3, the PIJ conducted a sniper attack on Israel Defense Forces soldiers on the Gaza border, during a Hamas-organized border riot. That shooting wounded an Israeli officer and a female soldier. It is that event that triggered the current flare-up. Starting on Saturday, hundreds of rockets and mortars have been fired from Gaza.

Israel accused the PIJ’s commander in northern Gaza, Bahaa Abu Al Ata, of being behind the April 29 rocket attack, which no group took responsibility for.

One possibility is that PIJ’s Syria-based radical secretary-general, Ziad Nakhala, who is extremely close to Iran and a frequent visitor to it, passed along orders to the faction’s commanders in Gaza to keep attacks on Israel going.

Egypt has worked hard to push Gaza away from the brink – efforts that the PIJ, Iran’s direct proxy, is apparently trying to undo.

Iran, for its part, is under growing economic distress and battling widening American sanctions. The Islamic republic has a network of proxy groups around the Middle East, which it can activate in response to developments such as the recent U.S. designation of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps as a terrorist organization.

Iran could also be seeking revenge for events in Syria. An airstrike attributed by international media reports to Israel destroyed Iranian targets near the northwestern Syrian city of Masyaf on April 12, reportedly resulting in Iranian casualties.

On March 27, an Iranian weapons warehouse near the northern Syrian city of Aleppo was destroyed in an airstrike, which also reportedly resulted in casualties.

Israel is committed to preventing Iran from building military bases in Syria.

Either way, according to Israeli intelligence assessments, Hamas has been dragged into this latest escalation after failing to call out PIJ or enforce its sovereignty in Gaza.

During a conference call with journalists, the head of the IDF’s International Media Branch, Lt.-Col. Jonathan Conricus, confirmed that PIJ has “over the last week been trying to destabilize the area, and execute different attacks below the threshold, without being accountable, while trying to outsmart or trick Hamas.”

He described “numerous covert attempts” by PIJ to do this, while the faction simultaneously attends mediation talks in Egypt together with Hamas, which it pretends to cooperate with.

“Hamas has been unable so far to really control PIJ,” Conricus said. “We see that Hamas is deterred by PIJ, and [that it has] not been implementing its sovereignty over it.”

Hamas, for its part, has stuck with the “on-off” tactic of border riots and sending arson and explosive balloons over the border into Israel, as part of its extortion campaign to convince Israel to agree to its economic and infrastructure demands for Gaza. But that “controlled escalation” approach may well have collapsed over the weekend.

Following the PIJ sniper attack on Friday, the IDF responded by striking a manned Hamas position nearby, killing three members of Hamas’s armed wing. Conricus described that response as an “immediate tactical response … Our troops came under fire and we responded in the nearest place where we saw enemy officers.”

What followed was a wave of heavy rocket and mortar fire on Israeli civilians, launched by both PIJ and Hamas. Hamas abandoned its more “cautious” approach in favor of the escalation that PIJ initiated. Hundreds of rocket attacks followed.

“This is a reckless, coordinated fire effort by PIJ and Hamas, who are firing from almost all parts of Gaza at different Israeli civilian communities,” Conricus stated. “We have been responding by hitting military targets.”

As Gazan terrorist cells launch projectiles from densely populated urban areas in Gaza, Israel’s Iron Dome air defense batteries have intercepted most of the threats headed for populated areas. Conricus described the interception rate as “good.”

Israeli airstrikes have killed some five to six Gazan terrorists thus far, according to the IDF. Israel targeted dozens of PIJ and Hamas sites – a combination of weapons production facilities and military posts.

Israel is expected to broaden its air campaign in the coming hours. The Israel Air Force also destroyed a cross-border PIJ attack tunnel, dug from the Rafah area of southern Gaza into Israel.

“They expedited the digging over the past weeks,” Conricus said, referring to PIJ, “in an attempt to have an operational infrastructure to conduct a terrorist attack. We monitored that digging for a long time. The tunnel did cross the fence into Israel. Now, we decided to attack and neutralize it.”

The Israeli military is preparing for what may come next if the flare-up does not die down. At this stage, at least, it appears as if Israel’s goal is to get Hamas to rein in PIJ and commit to keeping it in check before considering any further steps.

In the meantime, Israel is reinforcing its air defense systems, sharpening intelligence capabilities and deploying Homefront Command crews around the country to aid civilians in dealing with rocket attacks.

Israel has sealed all the border crossings with Gaza and closed the fishing zone off the coast.

Meanwhile, Israeli civilians are on high alert, and authorities have called on them to be attentive to rocket alerts. Compliance with safety procedures saved lives on Saturday, Conricus said.

Alluding to where the escalation may lead, he added: “If needed, we have the ability to mobilize ground forces.”

This article is reprinted with permission from JNS.org.