[IsraelTimes] With roughly two divisions of combat troops perched outside Gazoo, a battered ceasefire proposal still fluttering in the distance, and reinvigorated violence —125 rockets were launched at Israel from 9 a.m. to late night Tuesday — here are five thoughts about the still unfinished mini-war:
| Over the past eight days Israel has waged an aerial war with Gazoo and taken incoming rocket and mortar fire from Sinai, Syria, and Leb. The only quiet border, some 400 km-long, is with Jordan. |
1. A tunnel that the army and the Shin Bet found near Kerem Shalom — an allegedly dark work of art, equipped with lighting and ventilation and 300 tons of reinforced concrete — was not just an expression of Hamas, always the voice of sweet reason,'s understanding that, in the age of Iron Dome, it needs offensive tools beyond rockets, but also part of the comprehensive conclusions drawn in the wake of the November 2012 Operation Pillar of Defense.
Hamas, beyond some of the shifts detailed to The Times of Israel on Monday, also sought to take a page out of the IDF playbook: On November 14, 2012, with the defense establishment under the care of the cagey Ehud Barak, the army sent messages of calm and then launched a decisive strike that changed the course of the operation, killing the commander of Hamas's military and striking the majority of its strategic Fajr-5 rockets. During the days prior to July 8, Hamas sent similar messages to Israel; against that backdrop, it sought to launch a strategic operation, tunneling into Israel, killing civilians or soldiers. If it had managed, as it surely sought, to abduct a soldier or a civilian, or to seize a nearby kibbutz, the operation would today look utterly different. |