Gaza - Israel's "Second Lebanon" - Opinion

In the past six weeks, seven soldiers and two Israeli civilians have been killed in terror attacks in Gaza, clashes with Palestinian gunmen, and at border crossings between Israel and the Gaza Strip. Despite the fact that senior government officials have stated a number of times that it is only a matter of time before a large scale military operation will be launched in the Gaza Strip, Israel appears reluctant and instead opts to launch frequent limited incursions on the ground and rely on air force strikes, rather then a major ground offensive. 

 Hamas appears keen to escalate the situation as Israel prepares for the Pessah holiday. On one hand it has built up a fully trained fighting force that has adopted Hizbullah’s strategy, its goal, Israel's destruction. Hamas receives intense funding from Iran and Syria, which allows it to stock up on the latest weapons and send operatives abroad to Syria, Iran or Lebanon to undergo training,  and smuggle back into Gaza skilled bomb and weapons experts.

On the other hand,  Hamas continues to  talk of a ceasefire with Israel. An Egyptian mediated truce. Hamas demands that the siege on the Gaza Strip be lifted and the border crossing with Egypt opened. If not, it warns attacks against Israel will continued as well as attacks on Egyptian security forces  

Since the disengagement from Gaza in 2005, Israel's intelligence capability has been severely restricted, unable to maintain a constant troop presence on the ground inside Gaza, prevents security forces from compiling key intelligence on terrorists’ movements and capabilities.

The past two and a half years have allowed Hamas to strengthen its ranks and boost its weapons capabilities as well as dispatch operatives for intensive rigorous training abroad. All this has occurred under Israel’s watchful, but somewhat helpless eye. 

Since IDF troops pulled out of Gaza, the buffer zone that separates the Gaza Strip from the nearby Israeli communities has turned into a "Second Lebanon", and judging from the situation on the ground, it is only going to get worse.

It is clear that in the event Israel launches a major ground offensive in Gaza there will be casualties on both sides, as the terror groups have had time to prepare for such an event. On the other hand, failing to respond harshly and concisely has also meant that Israel has lost its deterrence.  

In conversations with Israeli defense officials in recent months, there were those who supported continuing with the current IDF strategy, relying on small but frequent ground incursions and air strikes to do the job and eventually reap results. There were other officials who declared that after almost eight years of intifada, constant rocket attacks on Israeli communities in the South, it was time to act, and harshly. Time  to make the terrorists pay.  The method ?   To issue warnings to residents in Gaza informing them that they have until the following day to leave their homes., and then bomb the neighborhoods and flatten them. Only then, the officials said, will the Palestinians realize that Israel means business and that if the terror continues, there will be heavy and harsh price to pay.  

An initial IDF inquiry into the gun battles that claimed the lives of the three IDF soldiers, identified as Sgt. Matan Ovdati, 19 of Moshav Patish in north Negev, Sgt. Menhash Albaniat, 20, a tracker of Kseife, and Sgt. David Panian, 21 of Tel Aviv, revealed that tactical mistakes were made by the commanding officers, and there were not an adequate number of soldiers on the ground to engage with the terrorists once the three soldiers had been hit, even though the soldiers acted in accordance with regulations and immediately strove to contact, and engage in gun battles with the terrorists.

Initial reports also queried the route taken by the soldiers. After two terrorists were spotted approaching the border opposite Kibbutz Beéri and appeared to be trying to place a bomb,  a number of soldiers were dispatched to pursue them, and as the troops chased after them, a nearby observation post failed to spot an additional group of terrorists deployed on a hilltop overlooking the area, who once the soldiers were in range, opened fire. 

The aftermath óf the tragic incident on Wednesday morning, saw a series of Air Force strikes throughout the Gaza Strip in which at least 20 Palestinians were killed, including two children and a local Reuters photographer.Throughout the day, over twenty Kassam rockets were fired at Israeli communities in southern Israel causing damage but thankfully no casualties.

As the violence in the South threatens to mar the Pessah holiday once again, perhaps Israel's government echelon owes it to its citizens to take more decisive and determined action, and take the necessary steps, once and for all, to protect its citizens and halt the terror..04/17/08

Margot Dudkevitch

Infolive.tv