The crisis in Gaza. First week

Background

On Sunday, June 25, members of Hamas' military wing killed two Israeli soldiers and captured one during a cross-border raid in the Kerem Shalom base, in the south of Israel. On Tuesday 27, Israeli responded sending IDF units to the Gaza Strip with the official goal of rescuing Corporal Gilead Shilat. On the same day, however, Israeli forces arrested dozens of Hamas cabinet ministers and lawmakers, suggesting that the Israeli incursion could go beyond the incursion's stated purpose ,rescuing the kidnapped soldier, and involve a direct attack against members of the Hamas-led PA government.

IDF actions in the Strip

IDF sources indicate that, since Tuesday 27, Israel’s air force has carried out more than 40 attacks. Only during the week end, the artillery exploded 500 rounds of fire. The first Israeli strike in Gaza hit an electricity plant; bridges and roads in the south of Gaza were also targeted in order to prevent the possible movement of kidnappers.
The IDF also arrested more than 80 Hamas activists and leaders, imprisoning about one-third of the Palestinian Legislative Council. Arrests have been carried out also in the West Bank.
On Saturday night, Israeli forces stepped up the level of attacks, after IDF rockets hit the office of Palestinian Minister of Interior Said Siam and, most notably, the office of Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh. Reportedly, the IDF had begun targeting other Hamas Ministers in Gaza, who have gone underground.

Reactions in Israel and among Palestinians

Israelis In Israel, 'to kill or to kidnap an Israeli, regardless it is a soldier or a civilian, cannot stand'. During the first week after the adbuction,, any action, however harsh, in the Gaza Strip, has met with the approval of the overwhelming majority of the Israeli population, particularly following the contemporary abduction and killing of an 18 years old Jewish settler near Ramallah. On Saturday afternoon, however, members of the Israeli left staged a demonstration in front of the prime Minister’s house asking for restraint in the discharge of military operations.
In addition, most Israelis do not understand why, since Israel left Gaza, Qassam rockets keep on hitting the environs of Sderot. The incumbent action in Gaza also aims at tackling this problem: some think Israel should reoccupy Gaza, others believe Israel should seal off Gaza patrolling all the borders (and sending the EU mission home); a minority maintains that Israel should instead dismantle as many settlements as possible in the West Bank, withdraw to the ‘67 lines, and allow Palestinians free movement therein.

Palestinians Over 80% of the Palestinian public - IPCRI reports- has supported the kidnapping of the Israeli soldier with the hopes that it would lead to a prisoner release. Israel is holding in its prisons nearly 10,000 Palestinians, many of which are under 18. This represents a sensitive and common source of discontent to several Palestinian - extended - families.
All Palestinians relate the kidnapping, the IDF rescue-related attacks, the Quassams, the Israeli actions to quash them, the attacks on Hamas ministers etc… to the enduring state of occupation of Palestinian territories. This unanimity of opinion leads Palestinian to downplay the seriousness of the kidnapping of the Israeli soldier and, above all, of the Quassams shelling from Israel’s point of view.

Consequences on Israeli and Palestinian politics

The operation in Gaza is seen by the Israeli public as the first ‘leadership test’ of the duo ‘Olmert-Peretz’. The term of comparison is Olmert’s predecessor, Ariel Sharon, whom Israelis had seen as a command in chief in times of war and in times of 'peace'. In these difficult situations the public usually wants to see more Israeli strength and military might. Now Israelis want to see how Olmert, a lawyer, and above all, Peretz, the first ever Minister of defence with no IDF position in his curriculum, will perform. Israeli observers do not exclude that, if the crisis goes out of control, the government will shrink and fall. Meanwhile Mr. Effie Eitam, the right wing religious militant has called on the Government to implement a plan of wholesale executions of Hamas leaders. Mr. Benjamin Netanyahu has been calling for a massive ground operation.

On the Palestinian side, the Israeli incursion came at a time when the Hamas-led Palestinian government and the Fatah faction seemed close to strike a deal about the issue of the recognition of Israel, a pre-condition imposed by international donors for resuming the transfer of financial aid. Both Palestinian factions claimed in a first moment that a general agreement had been reached on the so-called ‘prisoners letter’, which recognises Israel's right to exist in its pre-1967 borders. But Hamas, whose charter pledges Israel's destruction, later denied any implicit recognition, Al-Jazeera reports.
According to Amos Harel and Avi Issacharoff, opinionists forHaaretz, the crisis is likely to widen an incumbent split which is affecting Hamas, notably after Haniyeh signed the Prisoners’ document. The signing highlighted Haniyeh‘s lack of influence over the Hamas military wing and on the hardliners, headed by Khaled Mashaal in Damascus. It is suggested that Hamas military wing kept Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh in the dark about Sunday’s attack, and then threw on him the burden to find a way out to the crisis. Conversely, the crisis could also provide Mr. Haniyeh with some kind of a ‘bargaining chip’ to be used in the confrontation between internal and external Hamas leaders, should he succeed in handling the situation.

What about Syria?

On Wednesday 28, the Israeli prime Minister ordered IDF warplanes ‘to buzz’ the summer palace of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. The move, which already occurred in the past, was seen by some as a way to suggest Israel’s restlessness about Syria sheltering many radical Palestinian factions, notably Hamas hard-liner, Khaleed Meshal. Meshal was credited by Israel to be behind Sunday’s attack and abduction.
Another view has it that it is much more likely that the operation was conceived and implemented by the military wing of Hamas in Gaza, and not on orders from Damascus. But Israel found it profitable to open, purposefully and only for a few hours, another front in order to vent out frustration and ease domestic tension.

Possible exit strategy

A bilateral ceasefire that would include the release of the kidnapped soldier and a prisoner release that would be gradual and measured based on the success of the ceasefire (Gershon Baskin, Co-CEO of IPCRI, the Israel/Palestine Center for Research and Information)