He made clear that he did not see Operation Protective Edge as having achieved its aims. “The government of Israel embarked on the Protective Edge campaign and defined the goal as bringing back security to the residents of the south. We need to look at the picture with honesty and say that the goal has not yet been achieved,” he said.
“I say to the residents of the south: as long as you cannot go home and live in security, we do not see the mission as having been accomplished.”
Turning to the nations of the world, he added: “The state of Israel is the front outpost of the free world against the dirty wave of radical Islam. Give us legitimacy – but know that we will press forward even if you do not.”
He spoke at the annual event held by Besheva Magazine, the leading weekly for the religious Zionist public.
The IDF pulled tanks out of Gaza before the ceasefire ended.
Photo Credit: Flash 90
The IDF gave Hamas to green light to resume rocket fire towards the end of the 72-hour ceasefire by sending home tens of thousands of soldiers and transporting hundreds of tanks and armored personnel carriers (APCs) to training bases in the north.
Convoys of trucks carrying tanks to the north were seen as early as Wednesday, and the Jewish Press has learned from several sources in the army that orders had been prepared as early as Tuesday to release thousands of Reservists on Thursday, even there were no assurances that the ceasefire would be extended. It wasn’t.
The IDF also sent back to advanced basic training camps combat soldiers who had been called to Gaza at the beginning of the war.
The large-scale redeployment was accompanied by premature boasts by IDF Chief of Staff Benny Gantz that residents of Israel could go back to their homes without any fear of rocket attacks.
By Friday, Ashkelon and the Western Negev again were under rocket fire, making Gantz, who had become one of other most popular figures in Israel during the war, look like a fool in the eyes of people who have repeatedly and accurately, accused the “government of Tel Aviv” of a policy of abandoning them.
Israel had two stated goals by calling up approximately 75,000 Reservists and transporting tanks and other equipment to the Gaza front from bases in the north and from near Eilat.
The IDF successfully bombed all of the terror tunnels known to exist. Massive aerial bombing of rocket launching sites, along with artillery fire from tanks and from the Navy, sharply reduced the number of missiles launched at Israel.
There was little to be gained from keeping troops in Gaza because many of the remaining underground missile launchers are being operated electronically from Qatar.
Striking Hamas’ de facto headquarters in Gaza is virtually impossible because their leaders are operating underground, beneath the Shifa Hospital in Gaza. The only to destroy the headquarters is to drop a bunker buster bomb on the hospital.
Moving troops deeper into Gaza would have cost the lives of many soldiers with questionable gains, but the rapid redeployment to the north was both an unofficial and premature declaration of victory and an announcement that Israel was not prepared to escalate the war.
As far back as last Saturday, media reported that Israel was pulling out troops. Netanyahu quickly reassured the nation that the ground operation had not ended and the war would continue until tunnels were destroyed. The military said troops were simply being re-deployed along the Gaza border, but that was true only to a limited extent and for a short period of time.
Negotiations for a ceasefire were taking place at the same minute Netanyahu was saying that the war would continue until its goals were accomplished.
Hamas tried and still is trying to exploit ceasefire talks to negotiate under fire. Dozens of rockets on Israel on Friday and on the Sabbath were met with sporadic aerial bombings, far less than the intense air raids than before the ceasefire.
The rapid retaliation made it clear to Hamas that it will have to compromise on its demands, but the massive withdrawal of tanks to the north and sending home or redeploying soldiers far from Gaza left the government in a far weaker position diplomatically.
Removing the threat of the IDF being able to immediately re-enter Gaza has given Hamas a big advantage because it has given Hamas an incentive to drag out the war. The longer it does so, the more it can count on President Barack Obama to try to undermine the strength of Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu.
he notion that truth is the first casualty of war has found expression in the ongoing fog of the current Israel-Hamas conflict – where truth is obscured or masked by oft-repeated clichés such as “cycle of violence,” false moral equivalences, or unconscionable allegations of Israeli “genocide.” If we want to prevent further tragedies in this conflict — let alone frame the basis for its resolution — then we have to go behind the daily headlines that cloud if not corrupt understanding, probe the real root causes of conflict, and finally travel the road not yet taken to its just resolution.
While the deliberate – and indiscriminate – bombardment of Israeli civilians, and the threat of abductions and mass killings from the terror tunnels, have been the trigger for this latest war, there is a longer and underlying proximate cause: the Hamas Terrorist War of Attrition against Israel since 2000.
Simply put, from 2000 to 2004, Hamas suicide bombers murdered over 1,000 Israelis – wounding some 3,000 – in a horrific and sustained terrorist assault that was defeated in part by the Israeli “Operation Defensive Shield” in 2002, and in part by the building of a security barrier, which dramatically reduced penetration by Hamas suicide bombers. In 2005, with the Hamas terrorist onslaught defeated, Israel moved to unilaterally disengage from Gaza. Accordingly, Israel withdrew all its soldiers and citizens, uprooted all its settlements and synagogues, but left behind 3,000 operating greenhouses and related agricultural assets, the whole as the basis for industrial and agricultural growth and development in Gaza.
How did Hamas respond? They destroyed the greenhouses, brutalized the Fatah opposition, effectively instituted a theocratic dictatorship in 2007, repressed its own people, and began the launching of more than 14,000 rockets and missiles targeting Israeli population centers. In effect, then, Hamas squandered the opportunity offered by Israel to live in peace, to utilize the industrial and agricultural assets, to engage in state-building; rather, Hamas preferred to divert resources for the building of a terrorist infrastructure that would punish its own people while threatening Israel.
In effect, then, this is the third Israel-Hamas war since the 2005 disengagement, with each prior truce or ceasefire only providing a basis and incipient trigger for the next war. In this latest conflagration, Hamas has repeatedly repudiated, yet again, a series of ceasefires arrangements and “humanitarian” pauses – while launching more than 3,000 rockets and missiles in the last month alone.
But while these unceasing terror attacks – and ongoing threats – have once again forced Israel to take action in self-defense and to target the terrorist infrastructure in Gaza, this ongoing proximate trigger does not tell the whole story. Rather, it is a symptom, or proxy, for the root cause – the unwillingness of Hamas to recognize Israel’s existence within any boundaries. And more: the public call in the Hamas Charter – and in its declarations – for the destruction of Israel and the killing of Jews wherever they may be.
Let there be no mistake about it, Hamas is a unique – and evil – manifestation of genocidal anti-Semitism. These are not words that I use lightly or easily, but there are no other words to describe the toxic convergence of the advocacy by Hamas of the most horrific of crimes – namely genocide – anchored in the most enduring of hatreds – namely antisemitism – with state-orchestrated terrorism as the instrumentality to pursue these goals.
UN Secretary General Ban ki-Moon said that one must seek the “root cause” of the Israel-Hamas conflict so as to enable us to resolve it. However politically incorrect it may be to say so, this culture of hatred – this genocidal anti-Semitism – is the root cause and has fueled the ongoing Hamas terrorist war of attrition.
Accordingly, what is so necessary now is not another ceasefire or humanitarian pause, but a ceasefire that is enduring and comprehensive, that will put an end to the Hamas Terrorist War of Attrition that has targeted Israel’s population and engulfed its own, and that will be protective of both Israeli and Palestinian civilians, as President Obama and other leaders have called for. Such a ceasefire will hopefully be the basis for an Israeli-Palestinian peace, anchored in two states for two peoples living side by side in peace and security. This will require traveling on the road not yet taken – an agreed upon, and guaranteed, set of international, legal, diplomatic, political, security, economic, and humanitarian undertakings and initiatives as follows:
A comprehensive — and enduring — ceasefire framework not only to halt but to end hostilities must be put in place. For such a ceasefire to endure, the casus belli that triggered these latest hostilities – that has underpinned the Hamas War of Attrition – must be addressed and redressed. Simply put, Hamas must cease and desist from its policy and practice of targeting Israeli civilians and terrorizing Israeli civilian populations.
The ceasefire must be accompanied by massive humanitarian and medical relief, the delivery of some of which has thus far been hindered by Hamas itself, as with Hamas’ refusal to allow Gazans to avail themselves of an Israeli field hospital. Clearly, after the tragic death and destruction, there must be mandated and comprehensive international humanitarian assistance.
Hamas, Islamic Jihad, and other terrorist militias must be disarmed, as called for by EU Foreign Ministers, as a sine qua non for the cessation of hostilities.
The Hamas military infrastructure – and related military and terrorist assets – rockets, missiles, launchers, mortars, munitions, and the like must be dismantled.
There must be a complete closure – and destruction – of the Hamas terror tunnels – the standing instrument of terror and incipient mass murder. Indeed, captured Hamas battle plans reveal that Hamas was planning a mass terror attack during the Jewish New Year that would have threatened the lives of thousands. Even during the latest ceasefire, Hamas continued to threaten to deploy these terror tunnels.
An end must be put to the Hamas capacity to manufacture rockets and other military assets. Simply put, there must be a supervised monitoring of the importation of building materials – like cement and steel – that have been used for the manufacture of weapons and tunnels, rather than the building of hospitals, schools, and mosques for which they were intended.
The prohibition of the transfer or smuggling of weapons, like those advanced missiles from Iran, which both Hamas and Iran have boasted about, and with which Iran has threatened to re-supply Hamas in recent days. As senior Iranian official Mohsen Rezaei said this week “Palestinian resistance missiles are the blessing of Iran’s transfer of technology.”
A robust international stabilization and protection force – with the necessary mandate, mission, and numbers – should be deployed to ensure that the ceasefire is respected; that Hamas and other terrorist militias are disarmed; that the military terrorist infrastructure is dismantled; that the terror tunnels are closed and destroyed – the whole to protect against the targeting of Israeli civilians and the use of Palestinian civilians as human shields. Indeed, while Israel has been forced to use weapons to protect civilians, Hamas has been using its captive civilian population to protect its weapons.
This international protection force must also be empowered to secure a total interdiction of the transfer, import, or smuggling of weapons into Gaza – which is what triggered the blockade of Gaza in the first place after Hamas assumed power in 2007.
An international framework – one of the most important initiatives of the road not yet travelled – will be necessary to secure and maintain the demilitarization of Gaza, while supervising the entry of people and goods into Gaza.
The deployment of this international protection force – and the demilitarization of Gaza – can provide a basis for the reciprocal opening of border-crossings, the commensurate easing of the blockades, and the development of a Gaza sea port. Indeed, the movement of people, goods, commerce, trade, development, and evolving economic prosperity were precisely what was contemplated – and was clearly possible – when Israel withdrew from Gaza in 2005. There was then no occupation, no blockade, no Israeli presence – only the potential for Gaza to freely develop and help usher in a nascent peace with Israel and self-determination for its people.
In particular, the dismantling of Hamas’ extensive military and terrorist infrastructure – which is embedded amongst Gaza’s civilian population – and the demilitarization of Gaza – can ultimately lead to a “Marshall Plan” for Gaza with the ultimate goal of securing economic growth, development, and a sustainable peace.
With order restored, an international governing authority – possibly led by the PA, but including European, American, Canadian, and Egyptian representation – should be the mandated trusteeship authority for Gaza. This can serve as a state-building authority that can be the basis for the emergence of a peaceful, rights-protecting, Rule of Law Gaza that can ultimately travel the road not yet taken to a peaceful and democratic Palestinian State.
The direct financing of Hamas which was put to military and terrorist purposes must end. The internationally mandated authority should ensure that banks in China, Turkey, and Qatar do not continue to finance Hamas, and that governments such as Qatar and Iran do not finance Hamas’ war crimes.
A crucial point oft ignored: Palestinian society in Gaza must be freed from the cynical and oppressive culture of hate and incitement. This not only constitutes a standing threat to Israel, but undermines the development of authentic Palestinian self-determination, as in the cruel deployment of Palestinian child labour in the terror tunnels. No peaceful solution will be possible if massive resources continue to be poured into state-controlled media, mosques, refugee camps, training camps, and educational systems that serve the sole purpose of demonizing Israel and the Jewish people, and inciting to war against them.
Indeed, Hamas’ militant rejectionism of Israel’s right to exist –its public call for Israel’s destruction and the killing of Jews wherever they may be – have threatened the safety and security not only of Israelis but of Palestinians too. Regrettably, the Gazan people’s desire – and right – to live in peace and security cannot be realized so long as Hamas continues to hold its own people hostage, and to pursue a strategy of terror and incitement. Indeed, this war in Gaza is not only one of self-defense for the Israeli people, but should lead to the securing of the legitimate aspirations of the Palestinian people, who deserve better than to be held hostage by a terrorist regime.
Admittedly, these initiatives, undertakings, and objectives may be difficult to secure. But the time has come – indeed it is long past time – to realize that if we want to protect the lives of both Israelis and Palestinians, this is the road we must travel now.
Speaking to a British television network last week, U.K. Prime Minister David Cameron bemoaned that “facts on the ground” were on the verge of wrecking the prospects for a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Cameron, it should be said, has consistently supported Israel’s right to defend itself from the stream of rocket attacks launched from Hamas-ruled Gaza. At the same time, he believes that there is no substitute for a robust, lasting political solution.
That is why his anxiety about the two-state solution is likely shared by other world leaders. What’s so frustrating, the international community reasons, is that everyone knows what a final settlement will look like, yet no one is willing to take the steps necessary to get us there.
Insofar as a negotiated two-state solution is essentially a pipe dream at the present time, I think Cameron is correct to be worried. One of the reasons it’s a pipe dream is because, especially on the Palestinian side, the consensus behind it isn’t nearly as strong as Cameron and others would like us to think. Hamas rejects it outright, of course, as its goal – as CBS’s Charlie Rose confirmed when he recently interviewed Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal – is the elimination of the Jewish state.
The Fatah movement of Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas is formally committed to a two-state solution, but its continued backing of the “right of return” for the descendants of Palestinian refugees, as well as its pursuit of unilateral recognition in international bodies, has left Israelis skeptical.
As for the Israeli government, it’s no secret that any willingness there may have been to make territorial concessions to the PA has been badly eroded by both the kidnapping and murder of three Israeli teenagers in the West Bank and the renewed missile attacks from Gaza – after, remember, Fatah and Hamas formed a unity government of sorts.
In this grim context, appeals for an immediate, unconditional cease-fire in Gaza –a stance shared by the Obama administration, the UN, and the Europeans – seem rather fanciful. Examined from the Israeli perspective, this demand is actually counter-productive. For if world leaders seriously think Israel will return, when it comes to Gaza, to the status quo ante, then they either don’t understand or don’t care about Israel’s strategic calculus.
There are two big decisions facing Israel right now. The first one concerns the end goals of Operation Protective Edge in Gaza. The second one concerns its future relations with the U.S. Both are closely related, but all indications suggest that Jerusalem regards the first as more pressing than the second.
A growing chorus of influential voices in Israel, from right-wing Jewish Home party leader Minister Naftali Bennett to the respected historian Benny Morris, is arguing that Israel needs to finish the job in Gaza. What that means, ultimately, is the defeat of Hamas militarily and politically. The Israel Defense Forces is reported to have made good progress in destroying the network of attack tunnels constructed by Hamas beneath the ground in Gaza (at the same time, as much of the Hebrew press has recently noted, as the general realization dawned that successive Israeli governments had misread the strategic threat posed by these below-the-surface corridors).
Egypt, too, has joined the Israeli efforts to choke Hamas, destroying tunnels connecting the Sinai and Gaza. In these circumstances, it is hardly sensible to allow Hamas the breathing space a cease-fire would afford. Instead of permitting Hamas to regroup and rebuild, the logic goes, strike the killer blow in the coming days.
This is not a conclusion the Obama administration wants Israel to reach – and that, ironically, provides another reason Israel to bring Hamas rule in Gaza to an end. Given that this administration has over two years left in office, Israel wants to avoid another Gazan firestorm, say six months from now, that would lead to yet more demands from Washington for an immediate cease-fire and more opprobrium against the IDF’s field operations.
With Hamas out of the picture, Israel is in a much better position to talk about peace and Palestinian statehood. Moreover, there will be an understandable desire among the battered Gazan population for a new authority to fill the vacuum left by Hamas, and that outcome can’t be secured without Israel’s consent.
I don’t believe much diplomatic progress will be made while Barack Obama remains in the White House. Trust between the Israeli and American governments has declined sharply, to the point where questions are being raised about Secretary of State John Kerry’s personal commitment to the alliance with Israel. There is reason to doubt Kerry’s commitment: he hasn’t taken Israeli concerns over Iran sanctions at all seriously, he has warned apocalyptically that Israel faces boycotts and isolation, and he was amiably cooking up a cease-fire proposal with the Turkish foreign minister just days after Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan declared that Israel was worse than Hitler.
Three to five years from now, the twin absences of the Hamas military threat and Obama’s bungling diplomacy may propel genuinely meaningful negotiations. In large part that will depend on who is in the White House. For now, though, Israel’s first priority is its national security. That is how it should be.
Hamas threat to renew rocket fire amounts to ‘extortion,’ Liberman tells Kerry
By JPOST.COM STAFF08/07/2014 10:37
Liberman tells his American counterpart that Israel is prepared for all possibilities; the foreign minister also thanks Kerry for Washington’s “unflinching support” for Israel during Wednesday’s UN session.
Kerry meets with Liberman in France June 26, 2014. Photo: EREZ LICHTFELD
oreign Minister Avigdor Liberman told US Secretary of State John Kerry on Thursday that the threat by the factions in Gaza to resume rocket fire at Israel and refuse to extend the cease-fire amounts to “extortion.”
Liberman told his American counterpart that Israel is prepared for all possibilities. The foreign minister also thanked Kerry for Washington’s “unflinching support” for Israel during Wednesday’s UN session.
The foreign minister also told Kerry that Israel has no wish to see a further deterioration in ties with Turkey.
“The government has shown restraint in the face of provocations and harsh statements by Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan against Israel,” Liberman told Kerry. “We hope that until Sunday’s presidential elections in Turkey, the series of attacks will cease. If this doesn’t happen, Israel will respond.”
Liberman responded Wednesday night to the UN condemning Israeli attacks on UNRWA facilities as “outrageous, unacceptable, and unjustifiable.”
UN officials should ensure their facilities are not being used to store weapons and launch rocket attacks, the foreign minister said, adding that institutions such as the UN Human Rights Council must not become a platform to embolden and encourage terrorism.
Had the UN been fulfilling its duties, in accordance with the principles on which it was founded, the organization would form an international force to rid Gaza of Hamas’ terror regime rather than wait for Israel to do it.
Army is close to completing destruction of tunnels and ground forces “will be free from any restraint and will be able to focus on attacks, as well as continuing the operation,” IDF source says.
A Hamas terror cell attacked a Givati unit on Friday in Rafah and kidnapped an officer after the Israeli soldiers discovered a large cross-border terrorism tunnel, stretching from Rafah deep into Israel, a senior army source said Saturday.
The tunnel surfaced some two kilometers into Israeli territory, the source added. A tunnel shaft on the Gazan side surfaced in an open area surrounded by homes. Terrorists emerged from the shaft, and a suicide bomber detonated himself near the soldiers, before the officer was kidnapped, the source said. In the hours following the kidnapping, the IDF launched an intensive search in Rafah, accompanied by large-scale firepower.
The IDF has so far killed some 800 terrorists in its offensive in Gaza, the source said.
Late Friday night and early Saturday morning, the IDF attacked 200 Hamas targets, most of them command and control centers. Some 4,500 Hamas and Islamic Jihad targets have been destroyed in Gaza since the start of the Gaza war.
“We have seen far less friction on the ground overnight,” the source said. One Palestinian attack on the IDF in Gaza came in the form of an anti-tank missile fired at the Armored Corps in Shejaia, northeast Gaza. Additionally, seven soldiers were lightly injured in a mortar attack in northern Gaza.
The IDF has destroyed four tunnels in recent hours, and is “very close to completing the process of destroying the tunnels,” the source said. The process should be complete soon, he said.
Once this goal is achieved, Ground Forces “will be free from any restraint and will be able to focus on attacks, as well as continuing the operation,” he added.
During recent air strikes, the IDF targeted five mosques in Gaza used as rocket storage centers and command posts. A target in the Islamic University complex used for military activity was also hit, the source said.
The IDF has drafted 82,000 of the 87,000 reserves it is authorized to call up.
On Friday, a Hamas attack on IDF soldiers in southern Gaza, which occurred an hour and a half after the start of a humanitarian truce, ended with the killing of two IDF soldiers, and the kidnapping of a soldier in Rafah, southern Gaza, the IDF said Friday.
Terrorists emerged from a tunnel shaft, and suicide bomber detonated himself in the vicinity of soldiers. Heavy exchanges of fire ensued, before one of the IDF soldiers was kidnapped, a senior army source said.
The IDF named the abducted soldier as Sec.-Lt Hadar Goldin, a 23-year-old Givati officer from Kfar Saba. The two soldiers killed in the attack have been named as Maj. Benaya Sarel, 26, a Givati officer from Kiryat Arbba, and St.-Sgt. Liel Gidoni, 20, a Givati soldier from Jerusalem.
“The incident is ongoing, and the IDF is in the midst of operational and intelligence efforts to track down the soldier,” the army added on Friday. The statement came after Palestinians reported heavy exchanges of fire in southern Gaza, in which several lHamas attackers were reportedly killed in IDF return fire.
Five soldiers from the IDF’s Barak Formation were killed Thursday when a mortar fired from Gaza landed in Israel, near the border. They were named late on Thursday as Capt. Liran Adir, 31, from Azuz, Sgt.-Maj.
Daniel Marash, 22 from Rishon Lezion, Capt. Omri Tal, 22, from Yehud, St.-Sgt. Shay Kushnir, 20 Kiryat Motzkin, and St.-Sgt. Noam Rosenthal, 20, Meitar.
The IDF attacked 50 Hamas targets across Gaza overnight between Thursday and Friday, including rocket launch zones, and targets that were hit by the navy and infantry in a combined attack. Two terrorists seen near a tunnel were killed by Paratroopers. The Israel Air Force struck an Islamic Jihad control room, killing two terrorists.
Meanwhile, Givati infantry units uncovered two tunnel shafts and destroyed them. Secondary explosions were seen in the blast.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (left) greets US Ambassador Dan Shapiro, April 2013. (photo credit: Flash90)
ASHINGTON (AP) — In a phone call with US Ambassador to Israel Dan Shapiro about the breakdown of the short-lived UN- and US-brokered ceasefire between Israel and Hamas, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vented his anger, according to people familiar with the call.
Netanyahu told Shapiro the Obama administration was “not to ever second-guess me again” and that Washington should trust his judgment on how to deal with Hamas, according to people familiar with the conversation. Netanyahu added that he now “expected” the US and other countries to fully support Israel’s offensive in Gaza, according to those familiar with the call. They spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the matter by name.
They said Netanyahu made similar points to US Secretary of State John Kerry, who himself denounced the attack as “outrageous,” saying it was an affront to assurances to respect the ceasefire given to the United States and United Nations, which brokered the truce.
On Friday, the Obama administration condemned “outrageous” violations of an internationally brokered Gaza cease-fire by Palestinian militants and called the apparent abduction of an Israeli soldier a “barbaric” action.
The strong reaction from Washington came as Israeli officials questioned the effort to forge the truce, accusing the US and the United Nations of being naive in assuming the radical Hamas movement would adhere with its terms. The officials also blamed the Gulf state of Qatar for not forcing the militants to comply.
With the ceasefire in tatters fewer than two hours after it took effect with the attack that killed two Israeli troops and left a third missing, President Barack Obama demanded that those responsible release the soldier immediately.
Obama and other US officials did not directly blame Hamas for the abduction. But they made clear they hold Hamas responsible for, or having influence over, the actions of all factions in the Gaza Strip. The language was a distinct change from Thursday when Washington was focused on the deaths of Palestinian civilians.
“If they are serious about trying to resolve this situation, that soldier needs to be unconditionally released as soon as possible,” Obama told reporters. He added that it would be difficult to revive the ceasefire without his release.
“It’s going to be very hard to put a cease-fire back together again if Israelis and the international community can’t feel confident that Hamas can follow through on a cease-fire commitment,” he said. His comment reflected uncertainty in the US and elsewhere that Hamas was actually responsible for the incident or if some other militant group was to blame.
At the same time, Obama called the situation in Gaza “heartbreaking” and repeated calls for Israel to do more to prevent Palestinian civilian casualties. “Innocent civilians caught in the crossfire have to weigh on our conscience, and we have to do more,” he said.
Despite the collapse of the truce, Obama credited Kerry for his work with the United Nations to forge one. He lamented criticism and “nitpicking” of Kerry’s attempts and said the effort would continue despite the latest setback.
Kerry negotiated the truce with UN chief Ban Ki-moon in a marathon session of phone calls over several days while he was in India on an official visit. Kerry had spent much of the past two weeks in Egypt, Israel, the West Bank and France trying to mediate a cease-fire with Qatar and Turkey playing a major role because of their close ties with Hamas.
Those efforts failed with Israel saying it could not trust Hamas and some Israelis and American pro-Israel groups complaining that the US was treating the group — a foreign terrorist organization as designated by the State Department — as a friend.
Late Thursday, however, Israel accepted Kerry and Ban’s latest proposal, despite its reservations. Once the truce was violated, though, Israeli officials hit out at not only Hamas, but the United States and Qatar for its failure.
The IDF said that it will serve mainly women and children and will include a delivery room.
Meanwhile. dozens of wounded IDF soldiers were brought from the fighting in Gaza to a number of hospitals across Israel on Sunday morning.
Fifteen soldiers were brought to the Rabin Medical Center-Beilinson Campus in Petah Tikva. Four were in serious condition and eleven were in light to moderate condition.
Two lightly injured soldiers were brought to Hadassah University Medical Center in Jerusalem’s Ein Kerem.
Three soldiers were brought in moderate condition to Soroka Medical Center in Beersheba. Two others were brought to Soroka with light wounds. Since the ground operation in Gaza began, eleven wounded soldiers have been evacuated to Soroka.
Four wounded soldiers were brought to Sheba Medical Center, Tel Hashomer. Two of the evacuees were in serious condition, one was in serious to moderate condition and another was in moderate condition. Since the beginning of the ground operation twelve soldiers were evacuated to Sheba.
In total, fifty three wounded Israeli soldiers have been hospitalized from the fighting in Gaza, Israel Radio reported.
Op-ed: Gloating at the Israelis it is killing, blackening Israel’s name by operating among Gaza’s civilians, and with much of its leadership and terror capacity intact, Hamas is drawing Israel ever deeper into the Strip
An IDF soldier clad in an Israeli flag near the border with Gaza, July 19, 2014. (Photo credit: Nati Shohat/Flash90)
As the IDF grapples with Hamas’s underground infrastructure, terror tunnels and rocket attacks, Israelis are gradually internalizing the extent of the Gaza Islamist regime’s preparation for this conflict, and the cynicism of its strategy.
Two weeks into this conflict, and despite the immense scale of the Israeli Air Force’s strikes at Hamas targets, about 100 rockets a day are still being fired at Israel, and the ground offensive is proving anything but straightforward, with Hamas demonstrably capable of inflicting significant casualties and drawing the IDF ever-deeper into Gaza.
If this is increasingly dismaying for Israeli citizens, Hamas’s strategies come as no surprise to the Israeli army or political leadership. For months, military chiefs have been warning about both the expanded Hamas rocket threat, and the fortified “underground Gaza” that was being constructed. This writer wrote five months ago – and I certainly wasn’t among the first to know — about the Gaza workshops producing M-75 rockets that would be directed at Tel Aviv next time, about the cross-border tunnels, and about Hamas’s underground network inside the Strip which it would use to target Israeli land forces, to move its gunmen undetected from place to place during warfare, to house its command and communication facilities, and to protect its leadership.
Being forewarned, however, has not made the challenge any less complex. As the IDF casualty figures rise, and Hamas as of Sunday can both brag about killing Israelis and disseminate terrible footage and images of Palestinian civilian casualties in the Gaza residential areas from which it so cynically operates, that challenge to Israel’s strategists is acute.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s stated goal for this conflict was to attain sustained security and calm for the people of Israel — an essential goal, indeed. But Hamas has no interest in giving Israel any such thing. Its overall stated objective remains the destruction of the State of Israel. Its interim objective is ensuring that its rule in Gaza is maintained and flourishes, at maximal pain to Israel, and no matter what the cost to Gazans. As the deputy head of its political bureau Moussa Abu Marzouk told Mahmoud Abbas last week in Cairo, “What are 200 martyrs compared with lifting the siege?” — a reference to the Israeli-Egyptian security blockade that had so weakened the Gaza economy and thus so harmed Hamas’s standing in Gaza before this round of conflict erupted.
As Israel’s losses mount in Gaza, its disinclination to send troops into the death traps Hamas has prepared seems likely to result in more scenes such as those in Shejaiya on Sunday morning — with Gaza civilians terribly, fatally, caught between Israel’s imperative to tackle Hamas and Hamas’s cynical use of Gazans to protect it.
The notion that such deaths in Gaza might cause Hamas to seek a ceasefire seems extremely far-fetched. “What are 200 martyrs…?” asked Abu Marzouk.
Hence the significance of Tzipi Livni’s refusal, in a Friday night TV interview, to rule out the possibility of this conflict expanding to the point where Israel seeks to bring down Hamas altogether. Her Channel 2 interviewers almost fell off their chairs when the most dovish member of the Israeli security cabinet said she wasn’t ruling out that or any other option.
When Hamas is gloating at the deaths of soldiers, the challenge posed by its terror tunnels, and the disruption its rockets are causing, when it is drawing Israel ever-deeper into Gaza and blackening Israel’s image in the process, and when its will and capability to kill Israelis remains potent, she and the rest of the Israeli leadership can hardly dismiss the idea of Israel having to expand this operation into a full-scale invasion to oust the Hamas regime. Which is where we may now be headed.
The IDF announced on Saturday night that it is expanding its ground operation in Gaza.
“We are currently expanding our ground operation against Hamas in Gaza,” the IDF Spokesperson’s Unit tweeted.
“Our goal remains, to strike a significant blow to Hamas’ terror capabilities so that the citizens of Israel can live in safety and security,” read another tweet.
In a statement, the IDF said that ground forces in large numbers have joined the military activities which are focusing on the terrorist infrastructure in Gaza.
“The IDF operation was carried out pursuant to the decision of the political echelon and according to the IDF’s operational plans and will continue, depending on a security assessment by the IDF General Staff,” said the statement.
“The forces are at high readiness and are prepared for the mission after a period of increased training and planning and thorough preparation,” the statement emphasized.
The ground operation in Gaza started on Thursday night and was aimed at dismantling the many terrorist tunnels in the region.
As of Friday night, the IDF had discovered 22 tunnels, which are used for both smuggling of weapons as well as for combat purposes.
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