Indicating that it is at odds with the government regarding policy on Gaza, the Israeli military on Monday warned that war with the impoverished Hamas-controlled enclave could be back on the horizon in days or weeks if Israel did not work to ease living conditions there.
Saturday and Sunday saw two days of intense fighting that saw nearly 700 rockets fired at Israel and four Israeli civilians killed.In response to the onslaught, the Israel Defense Forces conducted over 300 strikes from the air and land, including a rare assassination of a terrorist operative whom the IDF said funneled money from Iran to terror groups in the Strip.
The fighting was some of the heaviest seen since 2014’s 50-day war with Gaza, but tapered off late Sunday and early Monday, as Palestinian factions Hamas and Islamic Jihad said a ceasefire had been reached.
In a press briefing, the military said the country needed to make changes to its strategic policy to improve living conditions in the Gaza Strip if it did not want another flareup of violence in coming weeks.
Now that there is some degree of calm, the IDF said it believes that the Israeli government should strike while the iron is hot and work towards a longer term ceasefire agreement. In the meantime, however, the military is keeping the air force, including air defense units, on high alert in case of another breakout of violence.
The violent outburst on Saturday and Sunday was the latest in a series of escalating clashes between Israel and Gaza-based terrorists to bring the sides to the brink of war, as Hamas has pushed for a blockade on the Strip maintained by Israel and Egypt to be lifted and other restrictions eased.
While the army has reportedly pushed for measures meant to make the lives of Palestinians in the Strip more bearable, the political leadership has been more hesitant, fearing being portrayed as giving in to terror, especially with Hamas holding Israeli captives and the remains of soldiers.
The military said in its briefing that throughout the fighting, it had been ordered by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government to retaliate against the rocket fire forcefully, but with sufficient restraint as to avoid all-out war. Netanyahu also serves as defense minister.
The IDF contradicted claims by members of the security cabinet that the Memorial and Independence Days coming up this week and the Eurovision Song Contest planned for next week were not considerations in its decision-making.
The army said it had been instructed to try to bring the fighting to an end before these events, if not sooner, and with as many achievements as possible. Memorial Day begins Tuesday night, with Independence Day the next night
The military said the need to wrap up the fighting quickly prevented it from conducting strikes on Hamas’s longer range rockets.
In response, a security cabinet minister told Channel 12 news, “We were shocked by the army’s briefings. They are not in line with what the chief of staff presented to the cabinet. This is an attempt by the army to push blame onto the cabinet.”
Other cabinet officials told the outlet that there were other circumstances beyond the upcoming holidays and events that justified the ceasefire. The officials hinted that the reasoning was similar to the case in November when a truce was accepted ahead of the IDF’s Operation Northern Shield the following month, which found and destroyed attack tunnels dug by the Hezbollah terror group from Lebanon into northern Israel.
Military Intelligence believes that, for now, terror groups in the Strip will not carry out attacks against Israel in the lead-up to the Eurovision Song Contest, which is expected to draw tens of thousands of visitors.
But the army said that, while extant, this deterrence is shaky, especially as it relates to the Iran-backed Palestinian Islamic Jihad, whom the IDF primarily blames for this weekend’s battle.
Before this latest flareup, the military said it had identified plans by the terror group to carry out an attack on the international music competition.
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