Amos Harel Analysis Israel Launches Gaza Campaign That May Last Several Days
It's going to be hard to call it a mistake this time, or to blame it all on a lightning storm. Hamas has yet to issue a formal statement or explanation about the rocket shot from Rafah in the Gaza Strip toward central Israel early Monday morning, which injured seven in moshav Mishmeret.
Lacking any statements, at the moment Israel is regarding the rocket as an intentional action by the Hamas leadership in Gaza (though anonymous Hamas sources claimed on Monday that the organization was not responsible).
With 15 days remaining until the general election, Israel's military reaction is likely to be stronger than it has been in recent months. The steps already taken – Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu shortening his visit to the U.S., calling up the reserves to man the Iron Dome air defense system, sending forces to the south – show that Israel is preparing for a campaign likely to last several days, if not more.
Brig. Gen. Ronen Manelis, the Israel Defense Forces spokesman, told reporters on Monday morning that the rocket had been manufactured in Gaza, and that it was launched from a position controlled by the organization. It scored a direct hit on a house in the moshav, destroying it completely – a range of 120 kilometers. Unlike in the case of the rockets fired at Tel Aviv 10 days ago, this time the army didn't volunteer an interpretation of Hamas' move, nor did it weigh in on debates about whether the shot had been intentional or accidental.
Like last time, there was no attempt to intercept the rocket. The army does not reveal information about the deployment of the Iron Dome, but the two incidents could point to two problems. One is a gap in intelligence and analysis of the Palestinian organizations' intentions. The other is a gap in Iron Dome deployment, whether due to operational mistakes or a shortage of batteries.
At the start of the decade, a report by the Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee said that Israel needs 13 batteries to cover the whole country, but today the army operates only 10 batteries in the case of an emergency situation.
The rocket forced Netanyahu to cut short his visit to Washington. He managed to meet with U.S. President Donald Trump on Monday but had to forgo addressing the American Israel Public Affairs Committee convention on Tuesday. For him, it's a high political price: A visit to the U.S. two weeks before the general election was designed to entrench his image of a superstatesman who leaves his rivals in the dust by virtue of his perfect English and ties with leaders like Trump. But the prime minister had to forgo all those goodies because of Gaza, of all things – the problem he has done his best to ignore throughout all of last year.
There was something symbolic about the brief exchange Netanyahu had with reporters before boarding his flight to Washington on Saturday night. He had just finished a long interview to Channel 12 about his legal problems, without saying a word about the situation in Gaza. When the Kan public broadcaster correspondent Gili Cohen asked how Israel could restore a state of quiet with Hamas despite the violence along the border, he dismissed the question with a terse reply and resumed attacking his political rivals. Now Gaza has pursued Netanyahu to Washington and he has no choice but to act.
Shortening his visit was a dramatic move, spurring expectations among the public with the election in the background. And this wasn't the first time: Operation Pillar of Defense in November 2012 also began after an escalation of events in Gaza at the height of an election campaign. Then, too, Netanyahu drew back from a broad military campaign but had to engage after being accused of neglecting the residents in Israel's south. The operation was called off eight days later, after 80,000 reservists had been called up, without Israeli ground forces entering the enclave.
At that time, Egypt mediated the ceasefire. This time it's also deeply involved, but its position is completely different. In 2012 Cairo was controlled by Mohammed Morsi's Muslim Brotherhood government, which viewed Hamas as its conceptual sister organization. The present regime under Abdel-Fattah al-Sissi is much fonder of Israel.
Throughout the election campaign, and especially after this morning, Netanyahu has been under attack for his government's inaction over the Gaza Strip. The criticism from the right is easy to understand. Naftali Bennett, Avigdor Lieberman and others see that their parties are in peril of not making it into the next Knesset and have to distinguish themselves from Likud. One might expect more caution from the left wing and the center: It will be interesting to see whether Kahol Lavan's Benny Gantz, Labor's Avi Gabbay and other politicians urging Netanyahu to strike Hamas into submission will be there to support him after the first 10 funerals on our side, let alone 20 or 50.
A shadow over the election
There are all sorts of hypotheses about the rocket attack on Monday morning. It could have been Hamas' way of disrupting Netanyahu's visit to Washington. Or it might have been a reaction to an incident at Ktzi'ot Prison, in which 12 Hamas prisoners were wounded after stabbing two guards. There have been protracted problems in the prisons in general, and tensions have been building after the installation of a system to prevent prisoners from making cellphone calls.
In any case, the rocket launch cannot be dissociated from the events along the Gaza-Israel border and developments on other fronts, from Israeli prisons to the latest rise in terror attacks in the West Bank. (Jerusalem's Temple Mount has calmed down for the time being after the compromise Israel reached with Jordan about the Bab al-Rahma building, which had become a flashpoint of tension between Palestinians and Israeli security forces.)
Israel is planning to escalate its response against the Strip while Hamas is gearing up for this coming Friday, which will mark one year of protests along the border.
The military escalation will continue to haunt the election campaigns. If it intensifies, the political discourse about it will come at the expense of conversations about the latest scandals, from Gantz's hacked phone to the conduct of Netanyahu and his associates in the submarines affair.
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