Israel and Gaza
The air war continues
Dec 28th 2008 | JERUSALEM
From Economist.com
Israel continues its assault on the Gaza Strip, killing over 280 people
A SECOND day of Israeli bombing in the Gaza Strip on Sunday December 28th took dozens more Palestinian lives—lifting the reported total death toll above 280 people—but failed to staunch Hamas rocket fire into Israel. Ground incursions into Gaza by Israeli forces have thus become more likely and may even be imminent. The army has massed regular armoured and infantry units on the Gaza border, and the cabinet has approved an order to call up some 6,500 reservists. Both steps have been well publicised, perhaps in the hope they might deter further rocket firing and avert a ground war after all.
An initial wave of Israeli air strikes on Saturday morning killed more than 200 Palestinians. Some 60 warplanes, helicopters and drones took part, dropping 100 tonnes of ordnance within four minutes on Hamas offices, training camps, police stations and storehouses in Gaza City and throughout the Strip. Most of the dead were thought to be Hamas militiamen and police, but there were civilian casualties too. In follow-up raids on Saturday and Sunday the main Gaza security complex and prison was hit, as were Hamas’s Al-Aqsa television station and a mosque that, Israel claims, is used by militants for their operations.
The Israeli cabinet approved the attack in principle on December 24th, leaving the timing to the prime minister, Ehud Olmert, the defence minister, Ehud Barak, and the foreign minister, Tzipi Livni. Hamas and other Palestinians were caught off-guard. Mr Barak announced before the weekend that he would open the border crossings and let food and other staples into the Strip. Soldiers in border camps were allowed home for the weekend. Ministers publicly scheduled more consultations over Gaza for Sunday.
Hamas’s rockets have reached farther into Israel than before. One hit a home near the port city of Ashdod on Sunday, almost 40 km from the Gaza Strip, although there were no casualties. On Saturday a shorter-range rocket killed a man in the town of Netivot. Otherwise there have been no Israeli fatalities.
The goal of Israel’s campaign is to stop—or at least significantly reduce—the rocket fire, just as it was in the month-long war between Israel and the Lebanese Hizbullah in the summer of 2006. Then, Mr Olmert was advised that aerial bombardment could silence the missile launchers, but Hizbullah’s missiles proved resilient (they were also more lethal than those used by Hamas now). Three weeks later, and with a third of Lebanon virtually paralysed, grounds forces were sent in. They performed poorly against the entrenched Hizbullah fighters and a cease-fire after three days left Hizbullah free to claim victory and Israel’s military and political leaders embroiled in mutual recriminations.
“After Lebanon,” says Tzachi Hanegbi, chairman of the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defence Committee, “everyone understands that rocket fire can’t be silenced by air power alone.” But Hamas, hopelessly outgunned from the air, may well want to lure Israeli ground troops into the heavily built-up Gaza Strip where they could be engaged in street-fighting.
“We are not spoiling for a fight,” Mr Olmert told Israel in a television broadcast on Saturday night. But if this campaign, too, ends badly for Israel, he would go down in history as the leader who lost two wars against two vastly inferior foes. Mr Olmert, facing corruption investigations, is heading a caretaker government pending the formation of a new government after an election, which is due on February 10th.
For Mr Barak, the outcome of the current conflict could shape his future. Whatever Mr Olmert’s formal powers, the defence minister and Labour Party leader is seen as running the war. He has encouraged this perception with a string of tough-sounding interviews to Israeli and foreign media.
Mr Barak has been lagging far behind Ms Livni of Kadima and Binyamin Netanyahu, the opposition Likud leader, in the election campaign. In desperation, he mounted a countrywide campaign last week, on billboards and on the Internet, admitting that he is “not nice”, “not cuddly”, and “not trendy”. Such qualities might be useful in attacking Hamas, and may perhaps prove popular among the Israeli electorate too.