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Winter waiting game By Amos Harel and Avi Issacharoff Tags: Israel, Hamas, Gaza In the course of Operation Warm Winter, held in the Gaza Strip at the beginning of the week, the commander of the 74th battalion of the Barak Armored Brigade, Lieutenant Colonel Nir Ben-David, noticed three young Palestinians in civilian clothing entering a house at the edge of the town of Jabalya. Using two Kalashnikov rifles and an RPG missile, the three then opened fire in the direction of the tanks. When an Israel Defense Forces unit responded to the fire, the Palestinians abandoned their weapons and fled the site. According to the General Staff, this act was one of cunning, not cowardice. The operation by the Givati Brigade and the Armored Corps, which the army has described as a relative success, illustrated the difficulty of countering a terror organization that occasionally uses guerrilla tactics and quasi-military fighting methods. Hamas is adopting a strategy of disappearance: If it wants to, it will clash with the army, in uniform and with weapons. Yet, if it so desires, it can also shed its uniforms, enter houses and pull out the weapons from the cache only once it discovers a military force's weakness. Colonel Ilan Malka, the Givati Brigade commander in charge of Warm Winter, received clear instructions: to deploy, within a few hours, at a certain longitude, northeast of Gaza City; to prevent the launching of Qassams; to arrest wanted men; and to seize weapons. Although Hamas' defensive system is separated into battalions and brigades, the two brigade commanders in whose sector Malka operated did not demonstrate much determination in checking the Givati advance. From the moment it became clear that the IDF was stronger, they focused their efforts on attacking the force's tail end, inflicting losses and gaining pictures that would help in the battle for public opinion. Had Hamas succeeded in catching a burning Israeli tank on video for 15 seconds, it might have been satisfied. But it did not get the shot. It only attained the desired image yesterday morning, when an explosive device destroyed a military jeep next to Kibbutz Ein Hashlosha. Advertisement A dramatic event, caught by the cameras, can change the Israeli public's view on the need for a major ground operation in the Strip. The destruction of two APCs in Gaza in May 2004, resulting in 11 dead in 24 hours, increased public support for then prime minister Ariel Sharon's disengagement plan. The ratio of casualties in this week's fighting - three Israeli dead versus about 120 Palestinians (many of them civilians) - did not eradicate the fear of additional losses. According to estimates by political officials, a major ground operation could result in 200 to 300 casualties, a number they use to explain Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's reservations about the move. As for the General Staff, it thinks the casualty estimates are exaggerated. The IDF does not believe that the mission of a comprehensive operation - meaning the capture of parts of the northern Strip and the capture or encirclement of parts of southern Gaza - is impossible. It even believes that remaining in the area afterward constitutes a reasonable challenge. The great difficulty lies in arranging an exit strategy: How do they prevent a future threat to Sderot and Ashkelon once the IDF withdraws? Won't Hamas again declare victory once the IDF pulls out, as it did this week in Jabalya? In the battle for public opinion, the Palestinians have the upper hand. Israel's explanation that civilian members of the Atallah family were killed in an Israel Air Force bombing because they chose to build an assembly line for Qassam rockets in their home did not penetrate the public mind. Israel also failed to exploit the fact that Hamas shelled the Sufa crossing at a time when 60 trucks with food were entering Gaza. The 14th floor A senior defense official estimates that a major military campaign in Gaza will last at least six to seven months: a month to take over the areas to be occupied and approximately half a year for investigations, the arrest of wanted men and the destruction of weapons. In time, the aim is to reduce the firing of rockets and slow down the pace of Hamas' empowerment, in part by addressing the problem of arms smuggling to Rafah, too. For now, the military top brass is still working on an exit strategy. Israel hopes that a multinational force can be established, which will control the border crossings from the Strip into both Israel and Egypt, and might even assume greater responsibility for parts of Gaza. However, such a force must be credible in the eyes of Gaza residents. With this in mind, initial feelers have already been put out in Arab and Muslim countries. Surprisingly, the responses were relatively positive. It was a difficult week on the 14th floor, which connects the Defense Ministry building with the General Staff building in the Kirya Defense Ministry compound in Tel Aviv. Relations between the people on either side of the corridor - Defense Minister Ehud Barak and Chief of Staff Gabi Ashkenazi - are usually proper, until the moment Ashkenazi refuses to participate in the political game. This happened most recently on Sunday, when the chief of staff decided to pull out the Givati soldiers from Jabalya, and made the pretenses disseminated by the office of the Defense Minister look somewhat ridiculous. As far as Barak is concerned, Ashkenazi is a tough customer. He enjoys a solid and independent status in public opinion, he is sufficiently experienced not to get involved in the political arena and fall into the same traps that brought down his predecessor Dan Halutz in the Second Lebanon War. After Roni Yihye was killed by a Qassam strike at Sapir College last week, and in the wake of the firing of Grads on Ashkelon, the public declarations of several ministers created the sense that Israel and Hamas are on the brink of war. This impression was supported by a leak about unprecedented preparations by the army to attack in Gaza. In fact, the plans were limited to massive aerial attacks, the prospect of which slowly faded on Monday, and to the Givati ground operation. Several generals thought the momentum should be maintained: They called for additional forces to be brought to the border of the Strip and for a succession of rolling ground operations. The chief of staff preferred to wait. In his opinion, as long as the government does not outline specific targets and a clear timetable for the army, there is no reason to drive the forces to the point of burnout. From the moment Military Intelligence indicated Hamas was planning to rein in the firing, and without receiving instructions from Olmert and Barak to accelerate preparations for a larger operation, Ashkenazi decided to slightly move up the withdrawal of the Givati force and stop the escalation. On Monday there were hardly any IDF forces left in the Strip, except for the battalions that carry out ongoing security missions along the border. Within 48 hours Barak managed to generate the following ideas: focused firing on Qassam launching sites (the legal authorities are hesitant), the creation of Palestinian "ghost towns" near the border of the Strip (Sharon thought of that; it was never implemented), an arrangement for the voluntary evacuation of settlement outposts (let's wait and see), and even a war against the ultra-Orthodox draft-evasion. Every initiative immediately received positive media coverage. It is quite possible that the election campaign has already begun without our knowing about it, but it is hard to blame the chief of staff for not being willing to join it. The army is certain that the next round is just around the corner. And for this battle, too, the chief of staff will recommend trying all the existing "gradations," including assassinations of the leaders of Hamas' political arm before launching a large-scale invasion. The gap between declarations and deeds that became evident this week left a somewhat bitter taste among the army's top brass. "Every time we embark on such a campaign, at whose conclusion the previous situation is restored, our deterrence is eroded a little further," admits a senior officer. Beyond Sderot On the street parallel to Saladin Road, which crosses Gaza from north to south, in the area where the Givati Brigade and the Armored Corps operated, some houses were completely destroyed after being battered by IDF bulldozers; others were damaged by shells and bullets. The areas east of Jabalya have also incurred great infrastructural damage, including burst water pipes, torn electricity lines and asphalt roads that have simply disappeared. A Palestinian journalist who visited there (for over a year now, the IDF has forbidden Israeli journalists from entering the Strip) says the most concrete evidence of what happened in the area is found in the large numbers of mourners' tents. There are several such tents on every street. The sight is almost always the same: a plastic sheet put up in the yard of a house, plastic chairs, loudspeakers, pictures of the dead, most of them Hamas members, and a microphone for those visitors who want to say some words of consolation. The few places where no mourners' tents stood were frequented by men in wheelchairs or on crutches. The destruction, the dead and the wounded did not prevent senior Hamas officials from declaring victory immediately after the IDF withdrawal. The first of the celebrants was Mahmoud al-Zahar, who has recently been consolidating his status as the leading figure in the Strip's political echelon, in part because Israel killed two of his sons. Nor did the large number of dead arouse doubts in Khalil al-Haya's mind, who is Zahar's rival for seniority in Hamas and has also lost a son in one of last week's battles. "Be careful, be careful, be careful," Haya told the Israelis, promising that Hamas' real strength has yet to be demonstrated. A third senior official, MP Fathi Hamad, convened a press conference in order to wave about a blood-stained IDF shirt. Hamad, who claimed that it was the shirt of one of the soldiers killed in the operation, did not manage to explain what message he meant to convey. All of them were surpassed by Mushir al Masri, a 30-year-old Palestinian MP. In a speech in the spirit of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, Masri explained that Hamas is capable of hitting "Ma baad Sderot," what lies beyond Sderot. In spite of the massive barrage of rockets on Sderot and Ashkelon, Hamas also understands that so far it has not chalked up an impressive success in direct clashes with the IDF. The victory celebrations are meant mainly for the ears of its political rival, Fatah. The IDF operation in Gaza increased Hamas' popularity among the residents of the Strip. And more importantly: It proved Hamas' ability to dictate an agenda in the West Bank as well. It is doubtful whether Hamas was behind the popular demonstrations in the West Bank this week. But the protest, which was accompanied by the throwing of stones and Molotov cocktails, testifies to the organization's influence in the West Bank, right under Fatah's nose. At the beginning of the week, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, whom the Arab media accused of being a collaborator in light of the mass killing in Gaza, announced a freeze in negotiations with Israel. But Abbas changed his mind Tuesday, when U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice arrived in Ramallah, and agreed to renew the talks. The next morning the president changed his mind again, announcing that there would be no negotiations without an overall cease-fire. Rice, who heard the announcement during meetings in Jerusalem, was shocked and hastened to reprimand him. The reprimand was effective, and Abbas reversed his stance yet again. The negotiations, he said, will be renewed in the coming days. In spite of the belligerent tone adopted by both sides, the idea of a comprehensive cease-fire has still not been completely removed from the agenda. Just recently, Hamas outlined its conditions for a lull: It would cease firing rockets in exchange for a cessation of the aerial assassinations and the IDF ground raids in Gaza. With regard to the West Bank, officials with indirect contact to Hamas claim the group has announced that it will agree to adopt an attitude of "constructive fog" regarding the continuation of the arrests of wanted men there. Yet there are disputes on how this stance should be interpreted. As such, the General Staff maintains that Hamas' demand is unequivocal: an end to the arrests. The IDF analysis is simple: without arrests, the attacks will resume. The military echelon is more determined than its political counterpart, which is likely to support one more lull before things deteriorate into a more violent confrontation in the Strip. Behind the debate lies another question: Is bringing down the Hamas government in the Strip really a desirable goal for Israel? The flip side of the optimistic scenario of deploying a multinational force in the Strip is widespread anarchy, which will allow splinter groups identified with international jihad to flourish. The head of MI, Major General Amos Yadlin, estimates that under cover of the downing of the border fence in Rafah, dozens of terrorists connected to Al-Qaida infiltrated the Strip. And what if Al-Qaida succeeds in taking over? The General Staff claims that this is a theoretical discussion, which is like comparing what is preferable - an encounter in a dark alley with the Boston Strangler or a nocturnal visit from Jack the Ripper. Bookmark to del.icio.us   Bring the house down Dichter to police: Demolish home of J'lem yeshiva terrorist. Media frenzy Israel to boycott Al-Jazeera TV, claiming incitement to terror.   1.   Waiting for the major Gaza operation 17:37  |  Alex Huzau 07/03/08   2.   Atallah family 18:27  |  Elder of Ziyon 07/03/08   3.   Those killed yesterday don`t have the luxury to wait anymore 20:01  |  Shepherd 07/03/08   4.   In other words... 20:15  |  Colin Wright 07/03/08   5.   We need the spring thaw 08:24  |  tal 08/03/08   6.   #2 Elder, don`t bother looking 11:11  |  elj 08/03/08   7.   #5 Canadian soldiers are fighting in Gaza? 11:24  |  elj 08/03/08   8.   #1 12:15  |  GPWS1 08/03/08   9.   #8 14:40  |  Alex Huzau 08/03/08

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