Pat Dollard | Young Americans

Israel debates major Gaza strike amid 18-mortar Palestinian barrage

DEBKAfile:

An IDF counter-attack Tuesday, June 10, killed two Palestinian Hamas mortar-men and injured seven. The mortar shells exploded on open ground near Nahal Oz. Four missiles were fired during the morning as Israeli trucks began to unload wheat and other commodities for the Gaza population at a border crossing. The trucks fled the barrage.

DEBKAfile’s military sources reported earlier Tuesday that prime minister Ehud Olmert, supported by defense minister Ehud Barak and foreign minister Tzipi Livni, had effectively opted to take up the Egyptian-Hamas informal offer of a truce in Gaza – possibly preceded by a nominal Israeli military attack which leaves Hamas riding high.

Last week, responding after many delays to the distress of a quarter of a million Israelis buffeted by constant Palestinian mortar and missile fire, all three Israeli leaders finally pledged strong military action to smash Hamas’ missile-war machine.

Tuesday, June 10, there was a sudden change of tone for the conference the prime minister scheduled on Gaza, with Barak, Livni, chief of staff Lt. Gen. Gaby Ashkenazi, Shin Bet director Yuval Diskin and military intelligence chief Maj. Gen. Amos Yadlin. The pretext? The third letter received by Gilead Shalit’s parents through the Carter foundation, in which the kidnapped soldier is reported to plead for his life.

DEBKAfile’s Middle East sources confirm that, contrary to various claims, Hamas has not accepted Israel’s terms for a truce, any more than the Palestinian Authority chairman Mahmoud Abbas heeded Israel’s ultimatum when he went ahead over the weekend with reconciliation talks with Hamas in Dakar. The Olmert government has quietly bowed to Cairo’s formula and agreed to a tryout of an informal, unsigned truce, which Hamas is free to end at any moment; problems arising would be solved ad hoc.

Tuesday and Wednesday Olmert will go through the motions of consultation with key ministers, followed by the endorsement of this course by his tame majority in the inner defense and foreign affairs cabinet.

The Israeli government thus surrenders to the following situation:

1. Hamas is under no binding commitment to hold its missile fire or force its allied terrorist groups in the territory it governs to join a ceasefire. Although they govern the Gaza Strip, Hamas leaders shrug off responsibility for Jihad Islami and other Palestinian terrorist groups. The missile and mortar attacks from Gaza may slow down for a while but undoubtedly continue. The same applies to Palestinian terrorist incursions across the border.

2. The informal truce arrangement does not provide for the release of the Israel soldier Gilead Shalit, as Olmert promised. He has been held captive for more than two years since he was kidnapped on Israeli soil.

3. Another Israeli condition ignored in the upcoming truce deal is the guaranteed cessation of smuggling to the Gaza Strip through Sinai of Palestinian fighting men, armaments and money. Whereas Egypt offered another of its empty promises to stem the flow, in the last two weeks, an unprecedented volume of smuggled war materiel was allowed to reach the Gaza Strip and top up Hamas’ war arsenal.

4. Israel has quietly agreed to lift its blockade of the Gaza Strip in stages. This entails reopening the border crossings, including the Rafah terminal to Egyptian Sinai. Next are negotiations through Egypt for handing the crossing facilities over to Mahmoud Abbas’ presidential guard. In this way, Israel will let itself be maneuvered into “contributing“ to the Palestinian fence-mending deal between Fatah and Hamas, and accepting Hamas as the ruling power in the Gaza Strip behind a token PA administration. There is nothing to stop the same formula from being extended to the West Bank, installing Hamas as the majority power in Ramallah.