Depending where you are in the World the past 24 hours has seen the
start of the Eid festival. The part of me that watches too much Family
Guy really wants to describe this as 'Jewish Christmas.' However that is
entirely because it is neither a Jewish nor a Christian festival.
Instead it is a Muslim holiday marking the end of the fasting month of
Ramadan. In practical terms this means that people sit around at home
eating too much, watching too much TV and generally arguing with their
relatives.
Added to that the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) have changed their rules
of engagement (RoE) to take up a defensive posture. This means that they
will only fire when fired upon and air-support and artillery fire is to
be used extremely sparingly and only when under attack by heavy
weapons.
The combination of these two things means that even in Palestine no-one
has really been in the mood to do too much fighting. It has not though
stopped the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) throwing in their two
cents. At 04:00 (00:00 New York/07:00 Israel/Palestine) they
unanimously endorsed a statement on the conflict that can be read here;
http://australia-unsc.gov.au/2014/07/security-council-presidential-statement-situation-in-the-middle-east/
Apart from commending US Secretary of State John Kerry for his rather
bizarre visit to the region over the past week it called on all parties
to sign up to the Egyptian initiative. The full 165 words of that
initiative can be read here;
http://www.jpost.com/Defense/Text-of-Israel-Hamas-cease-fire-agreement#
This is of course the cease-fire that officially brought an end to the
last Gaza war in 2012 which was known as Pillars of Defence. Unlike the
current operation in Gaza which is very much a war of necessity for
Israel Pillars of Defence was much more of cynical war of choice.
Following the deterioration in the security situations in both Egypt and
Libya in 2011 Israel watched as thousands on military grade missiles
were looted from Libya and smuggled through Egypt into Gaza. So Israel
engineered a confrontation with Hamas in order to give them a pretext to
go in and destroy some of those missiles using an air campaign. Such
was the level of planning behind the Israeli operation they even timed
it to coincide with pop-star Rihanna's "777 Tour" in the hope that
people like me would be too busy to notice.
Throughout Pillars of Defence Egypt's then President Morsi who
represented Hamas' parent organisation the Muslim Brotherhood made a
constant nuisance out of himself calling endless press conferences and
arranging meetings with diplomats from around the globe. So when Israel
had achieved its objectives and was bringing the operation to an end it
gave Morsi the Egyptian initiative as a little scrap of paper that he
could wave around to make himself feel important. The fact that Morsi
seemed more intent on doing this then his job of being President of
Egypt was a major contributing factor in why the people of Egypt rose up
7 months later to kick him out of office.
Apart from the fact that it is so short and so scant on detail it would
barely qualify as a footnote within a proper peace proposal the main
problem with the Egyptian initiative is that it gives parity to Israel
and Hamas. While I personally don't have a problem with that it is
hugely offensive to the Israelis who consider their democratically
elected, civilian government superior to Hamas. As such by endorsing
this document both the US and the UNSC seem to be trying to provoke and
cause offence to Israel.
The other main problem is that completely disregards Israel's legitimate
security concerns. For example it demands that Israel throws open all
the border crossings and stops restricting the free movement of Gaza
residents (into Israel). However it does not require that Hamas disarms,
refrains from offensive operations or even acknowledge Israelis right
to live free from the fear of terrorist attack.
Within an hour of the UNSC endorsing the Egypt initiative Hamas fired a
barrage of rockets into southern Israel either in defiance or
celebration. In keeping with their RoE the IDF responded by shelling the
rocket launch site in Beit Lahia.
Despite this exchange of fire an uneasy quiet continued throughout the
day until around 15:00 (18:00 local) when reports started to come in on
explosions at the Al-Shifa hospital and the near-by Al-Shati refugee
camp in eastern Gaza City. Although details are yet to be confirmed it
appears that at least 8 children and 2 adults were killed.
What Hamas claim is that both the hospital and the refugee camp were
targeted by the IDF in what is already been dubbed an "Eid massacre."
This seems unlikely because there were no IDF units in the area at the
time as they've only really been targeting the Shejayia district in
western Gaza City. This means that if the IDF did carry out the attack
it would have had to have been a missile strike from either a fighter
jet or drone. Although they have been working hard to improve my
experience of previous conflicts means that I cannot say that the IDF
will not purposely target civilians. However that experience also tells
me that the IDF only do it when they think they can get away with it by
blaming errant artillery or mortar fire or types of cluster weapon. You
simply cannot do that with a Hellfire-type missile because packed with
USD100,000 of laser-guided targeting systems Hellfire-type missiles do
not miss and can actually be destroyed remotely if those targeting
systems fail.
What Israel claim is that Islamic Jihad were firing rockets into Israel
and two of these missiles failed and landed on the hospital and the
refugee camp by accident. This seems much more likely because
unidentified militants were firing rockets from the area at the time and
roughly 10% (200 out of 2000) of the rockets/mortars fired into Israel
in this particular conflict have failed and fallen short in Gaza often
killing and wounding civilians. This is particularly true of the weapons
fired by Islamic Jihad because being a much smaller group then Hamas
they have to rely on lower quality and often home made weapons. All the
militant groups in Gaza also have a tendency to paint their Qassam-type
rockets in sort of team colours so the Israelis know exactly who is
shooting at them. It is perhaps telling then that foreign journalists
were banned by Hamas from both al-Shifa and al-Shata until the wreckage
of the explosive devices had been cleared away.
While news of the explosions at al-Shifa and al-Shata was coming in a
barrage of mortars was fired into Southern Israel killing 4 IDF soldiers
and injuring a number of civilians. Along with a 5th soldier who was
killed by sniper fire inside Gaza this brings the total of Israeli
soldiers killed in battle to 48. On both of these occasions the IDF
returned fire in accordance with their RoE.
At around 17:00 (20:00 local) five militants used a tunnel to emerge
from Gaza within Southern Israel near Nahal Oz. They were intercepted by
IDF soldiers who confirmed that they killed 1 fighter. Although details
are still classified it is believed that the other 4 then fled back
down the tunnel but the area is continuing to be searched just in case.
Shortly afterwards residents in Beit Hanoun, Beit Lahia and Jabalia were
instructed to seek shelter in central Gaza City. This was followed by
Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu addressing the nation to tell it to
prepare for a long fight. As such it seems likely Israel is going to
expand its current low intensity operations until 100% of Hamas'
offensive tunnels and ideally 95-100% of its advanced rockets are
destroyed. That is after all Israel's only choice at this point.
(Originally Posted) 20:35 on 28/7/14 (UK date).
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