Israel's Operation Cast Lead in Gaza bring stemporary quiet

By David Harris, Xinhua News Agency

JERUSALEM, Dec. 25 (Xinhua) -- It was at this time about one year ago that the Gaza Strip became the top news item of the world. Israel launched what it dubbed Operation Cast Lead on Dec. 27, 2008, with its stated aim of ending the rocket attacks on Israeli towns and villages close to the Palestinian coastal enclave.
A little more than three weeks later, Israeli aircraft ended their sorties over Gaza, and the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) soldiers and tanks withdrew from the streets of the largely impoverished area.
Since then the Israel-Gaza front has been largely quiet, but Israel fears Hamas is rearming with more sophisticated weapons and some analysts believe it is inevitable that another battle will erupt, noting that it is merely a matter of time.

TEMPORARY CALM
Rather than facing night after night in bomb shelters hiding from the crudely-made Qassam rockets of Hamas, Israelis within target range have been able to return to life more or less as normal in the wake of Operation Cast Lead. Occasionally, rockets are fired from Gaza, but at a rate of one or two a week, rather than in the hundreds.
Hamas, which controls Gaza, issued a statement in late November claiming it had reached agreement with the various armed factions in Gaza to halt all missile strikes against Israel, so long as Israel refrains from launching incursions into the densely populated strip. Islamic Jihad immediately said it was not party to any such understanding.
Immediately after Hamas made its announcement, the IDF issued a statement of its own: "Nearly 270 rockets and mortar shells were fired at Israel since the end of Operation Cast Lead on Jan. 18, 2009, in comparison to over 3,300 rockets and mortars fired in the year before the operation. The last month had seen approximately 15 rockets and mortar shells fired at Israel from Gaza."
Clearly there is a big difference between the pre- and post-war statistics, which leaves Israel saying its military operation was justified. However, some argue that the results could have been even better had it been launched earlier and with different tactics.
Ely Karmon, a senior research scholar at the International Institute for Counter-terrorism at Israel's Interdisciplinary Center, believes the military planners should have aimed to capture the Philadelphi Route, a very narrow strip of land that divides Gaza from Egypt, under which hundreds of tunnels have been constructed to smuggle weapons, cash, goods and people in and out of Gaza.

HAMAS REARMING
However, experts such as Karmon warn that Hamas has spent much of the interim rearming. During Operation Cast Lead, Hamas' rockets managed to reach the Israeli port cities Ashkelon and Ashdod, just a handful of miles north of Gaza.
However, in early November Israel claimed it had detected the test fire of a missile from Gaza into the Mediterranean Sea. As a result, Israel believes Hamas now has a rocket in its possession capable of reaching Tel Aviv, some 60 km from Gaza.
Israel is also firmly of the opinion that Iran is sending arms shipments to Gaza. Just after the fighting ended in January, a Cypriot-flagged ship was intercepted, with its cargo reportedly including Iranian arms bound for Gaza.
Jared Malsin, the English editor of Maan, the Palestinian news agency, is of the view that despite such reports Hamas does not possess any more powerful weapons than it did on the eve of Operation Cast Lead.
As far as Malsin is concerned, the key route for arms is the numerous tunnels built under the Gaza-Egypt border. However, based on his own visits to the Philadelphi area he has seen no evidence of the smuggling of heavy weapons.
"Hamas and the other armed groups in Gaza are not getting the military hardware they need like anti-tank missiles," Malsin said on Friday. This means the military balance remains the same.

"FIGHTING ON HORIZON"
Yet like Karmon, Malsin believes it is inevitable that fighting will resume, saying that it is a case of "when rather than if."
"The situation is better now (than it was a year ago) but a new operation could begin at any moment," Karmon said, citing several factors that could easily lead to a re-igniting of hostilities.
The closed borders of the Gaza Strip play a direct role in the daily hardships such as lack of food, poor health care and rampant unemployment that the Palestinian population faces. In the past this plight has lead to public demonstrations and violence. If that unrest reoccurs, it could force the Hamas leadership to attempt to break the siege.
Karmon feels that if Hamas was to use any longer-range missiles against Israel, a retaliatory military operation would be all but inevitable.
In addition, any American or Israeli military strike against Iran would also lead to a likely confrontation between Israel and Hamas. Leaders of Hamas have already stated that should Iran come under fire they would do what they could to defend Tehran.
"The pact between Iran, Hezbollah, Syria and Hamas is very strong because of (Iran's) nuclear program," said Karmon, pointing to the seized shipments of weapons that Israel claims were sent from Iran bound for Gaza.
The political instability within the Palestinian areas also adds to the likelihood that Israel will make a military move against Hamas at some point.
Hamas is embroiled in a protracted war of words with its main political rival Fatah. Their differences have spilled onto the streets of Gaza resulting in bloodshed and the end of any effective authority that West Bank-based Fatah once enjoyed in the strip.
This political standoff makes any peace deal between Israel and the Palestinians highly unlikely in the short term.
There were suggestions in the media, both in the Middle East and further a field that Fatah did not object to Israel's Operation Cast Lead because it was a way to oust Hamas. Publicly this was always strongly denied by Fatah, but Hamas' continued control over Gaza, its rearming and its refusal to recognize Israel, make the potential of another armed campaign more likely.