Operation Protective Edge: It’s Over…For Now

   On Tuesday, August 26, Israel and Hamas announced that they accepted an Egyptian proposal for an open-ended cease-fire starting immediately. At 7:15 PM Jerusalem time all rocket and mortar fire ceased from Gaza, and Israel stopped attacking militant targets.

   The silence was eerie. No sirens, no explosions on either side, no Iron Dome interceptors streaking skywards, no pillars of fire lighting the Gaza night, no roar of Israeli jets on endless rounds of attack missions or the ominous and unmistakable sounds of  Israeli combat helicopters hovering briefly as they face the target they are about to destroy with devastating air-to-ground missiles.

   The silence was disrupted in Gaza by spontaneous celebrations in the streets, accompanied by festive gunfire in the air. Hamas spokesmen bragged over every loudspeaker in the squares about the “glorious victory” over “the army that no-one else in the world could beat”

  What “Victory?” – When the leaders of Hamas finally crawled out of the bunkers they were cowering in during the war they saw the terrible devastation they had caused. Large areas of the Gaza Strip are in ruins. Whole residential and commercial areas are piles of rubble. Public service buildings are unusable and the hospitals are over-crowded and understaffed. There is almost no electricity or running water. Broken sewage pipes spill raw sewage into the streets.

    A lot of the damage happened in the previous week, and could have been prevented if only Hamas had accepted just one more 24 hour cease-fire extension, to give the negotiators time to reach an interim deal.

   But as predicted in this update last week, the cease-fire was never extended. The rocket fire from Gaza intensified in volume and range, and we saw more use of mortar fire by the terrorists. Last Friday, a mortar shell killed a beautiful; smiling four year old boy, Daniel Tregerman, who was just inches away from reaching the “secure area” inside his home in Kibbutz Nachal Oz.

   As the rocket and mortar barrages continued around the clock, Israel stepped up strikes against the launchers and military targets of both Hamas and the Islamic Jihad. Israel warned the entire population of Gaza, through thousands of flyers, hacked Palestinian radio and TV broadcasts and direct phone calls to immediately evacuate any building or area where Hamas or Islamic Jihad military activity was taking place, as that area or building will be attacked by the IDF.

   On Sunday and Monday the Israeli air force destroyed several multi-story office and apartment buildings after warning the occupants, because they were being used as terrorist command centers or launch sites.

  In addition, Israel successfully continued to decimate the command structure of the military wing of Hamas through precision targeted killings. One attack targeted Mohammed Deif, the legendary and elusive commander of the Hamas military wing. Hamas announced that while his wife and son were killed when the house they were hiding in was destroyed, there was no information about whether Deif himself was killed or injured. Either way the pinpoint attack on his secret hiding place was a huge psychological blow to the terrorist organization.

   The following day Israel succeeded in eliminating the three most senior military commanders of Hamas directly under Deif.    

   Despite losing their senior command, the rocket fire did not ease up. Over the past weekend more than 200 rockets and mortars were fired at Israel, including several towards Tel-Aviv, Jerusalem and Ben Gurion airport.

   As the cross border attacks continued relentlessly, the Egyptians succeeded in getting all sides (Israel, Hamas, Islamic Jihad and the smaller “resistance groups” in Gaza) to agree to a new “cease-fire”. This one will not be time limited, and will be conditioned on absolute “quiet for quiet”.

   As of this writing the new cease-fire has held for 3 days.

  

Here is a summary of the war from August 8 to today:

• Since July 8th, 4,564 rockets and mortars were fired at Israel from Gaza Strip.
• Most proved to be harmless when of the 3,641 which exploded in Israeli territory only 224 hit residential areas, and the remaining fell in open areas; Iron Dome intercepted over 735.
•  Over 1,300 of the rockets hit the Eshkol Regional Council (Near the Gaza Strip)
• The IDF attacked 5,263 targets across the Gaza Strip, hitting rocket launching sites, arms and munitions factories and warehouses, as well as the homes and offices of Hamas and its local regime.
•  Over 34 attack tunnels were destroyed.
• Palestinian health officials say 2,139 people, 490 children, have been killed 
• Over 980 of them were Hamas or Islamic Jihad terrorists.
• An estimated 470 of them were children. 
• Over 11,000 were injured. 
• The Palestinian Center for Human Rights said 540,000 people had been displaced in the Gaza Strip and roughly 100,000 are homeless.
• Israel has said Hamas bears responsibility for civilian casualties because it operates among civilians and uses schools and mosques to store weapons and as launch sites for rockets. 
• Israel's death toll stood at 64 soldiers and six civilians – one was a 4-year-old boy.
• Israel's Ministry of Tourism reports that tourism for July dropped by 26 percent from the same period last year.
• Israel's Manufacturers Association estimated the total economic impact on Israeli manufacturers for this round of the conflict at about 1.2 billion shekels. 
•  The agricultural sector has also experienced significant physical damage from the falling projectiles.

   Here are the details of the Egyptian Cease-Fire:

• Hamas and other militant groups in Gaza agree to halt all rocket and mortar fire into Israel. 
•  Israel will stop all military action including air strikes and ground operations.
• Israel agrees to open more of its border crossings with Gaza to allow the easier flow of goods, including humanitarian aid and reconstruction equipment. 
• In a separate, bilateral agreement, Egypt will agree to open its border with Gaza at Rafah.
•  The Palestinian Authority, headed by President Mahmoud Abbas, is expected to take over responsibility for administering Gaza's borders from Hamas. Israel and Egypt hope it will ensure weapons, ammunition and any "dual-use" goods are prevented from entering Gaza. They also expect tight monitoring of imports of construction materials like cement and cast iron to make sure they are used to rebuild or build homes rather than tunnels that have been used to attack Israel.
• The Palestinian Authority will lead coordination of the reconstruction effort in Gaza with international donors, including the European Union, Qatar, Turkey and Norway.
• Israel is expected to narrow the security buffer - a no-go area for Palestinians that runs along the inside of the Gaza border - reducing it from 300 meters to 100 meters if the truce holds. The move will allow Palestinians more access to farm land close to the border.
• Israel will extend the fishing limit off Gaza's coast to six miles from three miles, with the possibility of widening it gradually if the truce holds. Ultimately, the Palestinians want to return to a full 12-mile international allowance. This was also part of the previous ceasefire deal in 2012, and was briefly implemented before being rescinded in March 2013.

Longer term issues to be discussed within one month (If the Cease-fire holds)

• Hamas wants Israel to release hundreds of Palestinian prisoners rounded up in the West Bank following the abduction and killing of three Jewish students in June.  Hamas initially denied involvement in the killings, but a senior Hamas official in exile in Turkey last week admitted the group did carry out the attack.
• President Abbas, who heads the Fatah party, wants freedom for long-serving Palestinian prisoners whose release was dropped after the collapse of peace talks between Israel and the Palestinian Authority.
• Israel wants Hamas and other militant groups in Gaza to hand over all body parts and personal effects of Israeli soldiers killed during the war.
• Hamas wants a sea port built in Gaza, allowing goods and people to be ferried in and out of the enclave. Israel has long rejected the plan, but it is possible that progress towards it could be made if there are absolute security guarantees. In antiquity, Gaza was a major port in the eastern Mediterranean, a critical point for spice trading. There have been plans to build a new port since the Oslo peace accords in the mid-1990s, but no progress has been made.
• Hamas wants the un-freezing of funds to allow it to pay 40,000 police, government workers and other administrative staff who have largely been without salaries since late last year. The funds were frozen by the Palestinian Authority.
• Israel has said it wants the full "demilitarization" of Gaza. The United States and European Union have supported the goal, but it remains unclear what it would mean in practice and Hamas has rejected it as unfeasible. It is possible that Israel will raise it again as talks progress.
• The Palestinians also want the airport in Gaza - Yasser Arafat International, which opened in 1998 but was shut down in 2000 after it was bombed by Israel - to be rebuilt.

Bottom Line:

  So what does Hamas have to show for all the devastation, pain and suffering it caused the residents of Gaza in the past two months, with a lofty promise that this struggle is worth the pain because it will: “Break the blockade”, “Build a seaport”, “End the occupation”, “Release the prisoners, “Liberate Jerusalem”, “Get compensation from the donor countries” and more – nothing more than a few more miles of fishing in a very restricted area.

   Two months of death and destruction which brought the people of Gaza exactly back to where they were at the end of the last war in 2012.