Operation Broken Record: Israel is already counting down to the next Gaza conflict

Operation Broken Record: Israel is already counting down to the next Gaza conflict

Emanuel Fabian

Round of hostilities branded a success due to initial strikes targeting Islamic Jihad leaders, but fighting dragged on longer than expected, with next battle likely not far away

The five-day battle between Israel and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad terror group in the Gaza Strip dubbed Operation Shield and Arrow, which ended with a ceasefire Saturday night, was the first major conflict overseen by military chief Lt. Gen. Herzi Halevi. The round of fighting was considered successful, but dragged on longer than needed, with the next potential escalation just around the corner.

On a strictly military basis, Israel emerged as the clear victor. Six senior Islamic Jihad commanders were killed — three in the opening strikes early Tuesday morning — and hundreds of sites belonging to the terror group were struck. The Israel Defense Forces said the rate of mortar fire on southern border communities decreased by 50 percent in comparison to previous rounds against Islamic Jihad, thanks to strikes against launch squads.

Israeli officials said the military achieved all of its goals — not during the fighting, but in the initial strikes in Gaza just after 2 a.m. on Tuesday. Still, three more senior commanders in the terror group were killed in the following days, after major rocket attacks on southern and central Israel. Officials, including Halevi, had threatened Islamic Jihad that the targeted killings would continue should the rocket fire not cease.

The cycle of limited battles in recent years against Islamic Jihad, the second-largest terror group in the Gaza Strip, is sounding like a broken record: Time and again Israel has killed senior members of the group after attacks on the country, leading to rocket fire for several days, until a truce is mediated by Egypt.

The first time Israel fought against Islamic Jihad alone, without Gaza’s ruling Hamas terror group joining, was in 2019, following the assassination of a senior commander: Baha Abu al-Ata was the Islamic Jihad chief in northern Gaza, responsible for a series of rocket attacks against Israel that year.

In August 2022, Israel fought a similar battle against Islamic Jihad, after again launching a surprise attack against the group and killing Tayseer Jabari, also the commander of the terror group in northern Gaza. (Jabari had replaced Hussam Abu Harbeed, who was killed by Israel during a war in May 2021 against Hamas and other groups. Abu Harbeed had, in turn, replaced Abu al-Ata.)

The operation last year came after threats by Islamic Jihad to respond to the arrest of a senior member of the group in the West Bank, Bassem Saadi.

This year’s battle started under similar circumstances: A member of Islamic Jihad in the West Bank, Khader Adnan, long accused of being a spokesperson for the group, died in Israeli custody while awaiting trial, after an 86-day hunger strike. Not long after Adnan’s death on May 2, Islamic Jihad launched over 100 rockets at Israel. After a single day of fighting, the sides agreed to a ceasefire mediated by officials from Egypt, Qatar, and the United Nations.

But Israel had other plans.

The initial strikes

The same day the ceasefire took effect, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met with senior military and defense officials to approve Operation Shield and Arrow.

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