Gaza Erupts as 40 Rockets Hit Israel

Well, so much for belief that Israeli withdrawal from Gaza would immediately lead to a greater peace in the region as Palestinian terrorists launched a slew of missiles into Israel. I should note, of course, that I would seriously question anyone foolish enough to have ever harbored such hopes.

Barely two weeks after Israel’s pullout from the Gaza Strip, the area erupted into violence over the weekend as Islamic militias launched 40 missiles into Israel, which responded by resuming assassinations, as the two sides sought to set new ground rules in the wake of the pullout.

Four alleged Hamas operatives were killed on Saturday when helicopters fired missiles at two cars in the northern part of the Gaza Strip, the area from which missiles aimed at the Israeli town of Sderot had been launched. In this and other Israeli air attacks against weapons facilities and other Hamas targets, 17 Palestinians, most of them civilians, were wounded. Six Israeli civilians were lightly wounded in the Palestinian attacks.

For the first time, Israel moved artillery into position at the edge of the Gaza Strip and warned that it would use it if necessary.

“We are undertaking a continuing series of attacks on Hamas and Islamic Jihad,” said Israeli General Yisrael Ziv. “Our time framework is open-ended.”

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The weekend flare-up was triggered by two incidents, one on the West Bank and one in Gaza.

The first took place before dawn on Friday, local time, when Israeli security forces killed three alleged Islamic Jihad operatives near the West Bank town of Tulkarm. Israeli officials said the three had organised several suicide bombings and were drawing up plans to make rockets to be fired from the West Bank at Israel’s heartland. The officials said the three, after being surrounded, had started the exchange of fire that killed them.

Hours later, three Palestinian-made Kassem rockets were fired from the Gaza Strip by Islamic Jihad into Israel in retaliation for the Tulkarm killings. There were no casualties.

In the second incident, on Friday evening, an explosion occurred during a military parade staged by Hamas in the Jabaliya refugee camp celebrating the Israeli withdrawal from Gaza after 38 years. Fifteen people were killed and 80 wounded in the blast. Hamas accused Israel of being behind the explosion and unleashed dozens of rockets at Sderot and other Israeli targets.

Israel denied involvement and, surprisingly, was supported by the Palestinian Authority. “The explosion occurred when a Hamas vehicle loaded with locally made rockets blew up during the rally,” said the authority’s Interior Ministry spokesman, Tawkif Abu Khoussa. He noted that a similar explosion during a Hamas rally last month had killed five onlookers. “We urge our brothers in Hamas to assume their responsibilities instead of levelling charges against others,” Mr Khoussa said.

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas’s Fatah movement issued a statement condemning Hamas for staging paramilitary rallies in residential areas. “This rally was held despite our warnings to refrain from displaying and storing weapons in residential areas,” he said. “The Fatah Central Committee holds Hamas fully responsible for the deaths.”

My problem with the unilateral Israeli withdrawal from an unstable Gaza was that it inevitably would be trumpeted as a triumph by the terrorists. Never an inch given without an inch deserved. Perhaps there is a silver lining to the maneuver, however, as a shift in Israeli strategy would seem to indicate.

In this first military confrontation with Palestinian militants since the pullout, Israel is intent on establishing new rules of combat that will permit it greater freedom of action against the Palestinians than it allowed itself when it was an occupying power. Officials have warned that there would be “zero tolerance” after the withdrawal and that Israel would regard an attack upon it from Gaza as an attack on its sovereignty by a foreign entity.

Israel also wants to undo the attempt by Palestinian militants to create a deterrent balance, by which Israeli activity against militants in the West Bank will be met by retaliatory fire from the Gaza Strip, as occurred on Friday with Islamic Jihad. By employing wide-ranging strikes against militant targets Israel hopes to discourage such linkage.

Ah, at least the battlefield has lines that are far more clearly drawn now than during the age of the settlements and occupation. Though there is still a great political need for restraint and judicious use of force, the Israelis once again have a defined an area where they can go “weapons free” as needed.