A 72-hour cease-fire to go into effect this morning
Published 5 August 2014
Both Israel and the Palestinian delegation to Cairo, which includes Hamas representatives, have accepted an Egyptian proposal for a 72-hour cease-fire to begin at 08:00 Middle East time (02:00 EST) today (Tuesday).
This is the same proposal Egypt put forth two weeks ago, which Israel had accepted but which was rejected by Hamas. It is not clear whether the cease-fire will go into effect, or will go into effect and then violated. Six earlier humanitarian cease-fires were violated by Hamas within minutes of going into effect. Israel, in the meantime, has concluded the destruction of thirty-one Hamas tunnels which reached inside Israel. Hamas was planning to use the tunnels for a Mumbai-like simultaneous, coordinated attack on Israeli kibbutzim near the Gaza Strip for the purpose of killing Israeli civilians – possibly hundreds of them – and capturing scores to be brought back into Gaza to be used as bargaining chips to extract concessions from Israel.
Both Israel and the Palestinian delegation to Cairo, which includes Hamas representatives, have accepted an Egyptian proposal for a 72-hour cease-fire to begin at 08:00 Middle East time (02:00 EST) today (Tuesday).
This is the same proposal Egypt put forth two weeks ago, which Israel had accepted but which was rejected by Hamas. Secretary of State John Kerry then tried to formulate an alternative cease-fire proposal in consultation with two of Hamas supporters, Qatar and Turkey, but that proposal not only undermined the Egyptian proposal, but favored some of Hamas’s more extravagant demands to such an extent that Israel and the Palestinian Authority rejected it out of hand.
It is not clear whether the cease-fire will go into effect, or will go into effect and then violated. Six earlier humanitarian cease-fires were violated by Hamas within minutes of going into effect.
The New York Times reports that Israel, in the meantime, has concluded the destruction of thirty-one Hamas tunnels which reached inside Israel. Hamas was planning to use the tunnels for a Mumbai-like simultaneous, coordinated attack on Israeli kibbutzim near the Gaza Strip for the purpose of killing Israeli civilians – possibly hundreds of them – and capturing scores to be brought back into Gaza to be used as bargaining chips to extract concessions from Israel.
The 2008 Mumbai attacks were a series of twelve coordinated shooting and bombing attacks lasting four days across Mumbai. The ten attackers were members of Lashkar-e-Taiba, a Kashmiri Islamist organization based in Pakistan. The Pakistani military intelligence service, ISI, helped train the terrorists, equip them, and choose the targets. The terrorists were in phone contact with ISI officers while the attacks were unfolding. The attacks began on Wednesday, 26 November and lasted until Saturday, 29 November 2008. In all, 164 people were killed and 308 wounded.
Israel said that even after the withdrawal of the army from the Gaza Strip back into Israel, the army, and especially the air force, will respond forcefully to attacks and rocket fire by Hamas and Islamic Jihad.
After Hamas violated last Friday’s cease-fire within an hour of it going into effect, Israel said it would act unilaterally from now on, because Hamas proved itself to be utterly untrustworthy. Israeli officials said, though, that they appreciated Egypt’s efforts and were willing to accept the Egyptian proposal, as Israel did two weeks ago.
Israel was also under pressure as the humanitarian crisis in Gaza continued to deteriorate.
Israel said that it welcomed efforts to rebuild Gaza, but said that a mechanism has to be found to make sure that Hamas does not divert building materials and other forms of aid to tunnel and arms building.
On Monday, Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that “What is about to conclude is the IDF action to deal with the tunnels, but this operation will end only when quiet and security are restored to the citizens of Israel for a lengthy period…. We struck a very severe blow at Hamas and the other terrorist organizations. We have no intention of attacking the residents of Gaza.”
Tzipi Livni, the justice minister who has emerged as one of Netanyahu closest confidants despite past political differences, has made clear that Israel will take unilateral actions to defend its interests and no longer wants to negotiate a cease-fire with Hamas, but would be happy for Egypt and President Mahmoud Abbas of the Palestinian Authority to try. She told Israeli newspaper Ynet that any agreement with the Hamas was not expected now. “You want to talk about lifting the siege?” she asked. “Not with us, and not now.”
The Times notes that Livni has been pushing for a unilateral cease-fire to be followed by multilateral diplomacy, with Israel seeking support for the reconstruction of Gaza in return for a gradual demilitarization through stricter controls over smuggling. She is said to favor an Egyptian effort to give Muhammad Abbas and the Palestinian Authority control over the Rafah crossing on the Gaza side.
Israel finds itself in a much improved regional strategic situation, with Egypt again ruled by a former military man, Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, who last year overthrew President Mohamed Morsi, of the Muslim Brotherhood, a close ally of Hamas. Morsi did nothing to prevent smuggling of arms into Gaza through tunnels from the Sinai Peninsula, and allowed Hamas to import cement, iron, and other building materials which Hamas used to build a vast and intricate system of tunnels under Gaza.
Even more importantly, Morsi authorized the export to Gaza of large quantities of machining equipment which allowed Hamas to build an indigenous arms factories for rockets (about 80 percent of the short- and mid-range rockets Hamas fire into Israel were home-made, and only about 20 percent imported from Iran and Syria).
“The big difference this time is that you have an Egyptian leader who understands that Hamas is not just a problem for Israel, but for Egypt, too,” one senior Israeli official told the Times. “So the ability of Hamas to bring stuff in is much, much more limited. And because the Gaza tunnels are mostly shut down, the Egyptians have leverage with reopening Rafah. So it is possible to deal far more effectively with illicit transfers, which could make an end game more stable.”
The Times notes that Sisi’s antipathy toward Hamas is even stronger than that of Hosni Mubarak, the former president who saw the group as Israel’s problem and only intermittently suppressed the smuggling.
Egypt is joined in its antipathy toward Hamas by Saudi Arabia, Jordan, the Gulf States, and other moderate states worried about the rise of militant Islam in the region. The stunning success of ISIS in Iraq, where the organization is now controlling about a third of the country, has offered a vivid demonstration of the dangers Islamist fundamentalist organization such as Hamas pose.
www.homelandsecuritynewswire.com
No comments:
Post a Comment