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Last update - 14:23 26/05/2008 ANALYSIS / Gaza truce appears to be inching farther away By Amos Harel and Avi Issacharoff, Haaretz Correspondents Tags: Hamas, Israel, truce, Egypt An incident last week that received little attention at the time is now impacting on Egypt's cease-fire initiative in the Gaza Strip. The attack on the Erez crossing last Thursday, which caused no Israeli casualties, quickly disappeared from the media headlines. But the defense establishment has a very different view of the incident, which involved a truck laden with several tons of explosives and driven by an Islamic Jihad suicide bomber. According to the defense establishment, only its correct deployment of its forces prevented the attack from succeeding. Both the Shin Bet security service and the army see this incident as a "near miss" that raises many questions about the future. Both concluded from it that Hamas, which is in charge in the Strip, is sufficiently confident to initiate showcase attacks against Israel even when it is holding indirect talks on a tahadiyeh (truce). A similar attack against the Kerem Shalom crossing a month ago resulted in injuries to 11 Israel Defense Forces soldiers. The attempt on Erez, in parallel with the continuous rocket attacks on communities bordering the Gaza Strip, may serve as grounds for the Israel Defense Forces to intensify its operations against Hamas even as Egypt is trying to mediate a truce. Those supporting such escalation argue that without it, Israel will enter the tahadiyeh from a position of weakness, which will only encourage provocations by militant Palestinian groups. Advertisement Thus the cease-fire that appeared relatively near at the Sharm al-Sheikh conference last week is now a little further away. There are also other reasons for this, of which one is the vast distance between the parties' positions regarding the release of kidnapped soldier Gilad Shalit. For the time being, Hamas is rejecting Israel's demand that significant progress be achieved in the talks on Shalit as part of the cease-fire negotiations. Moreover, Hamas is demanding an immediate lifting of the blockade on the Strip, which Israel would like to see lifted only gradually, conditional on progress in the Shalit deal and on compliance with the truce. But senior Hamas officials say that Shalit is not the obstacle to the tahadiyeh, since Israel has not made his release a condition of the deal. It is also impossible to ignore the implications for the cease-fire talks of the political instability in Israel that has been sparked by the investigation against Prime Minister Ehud Olmert. Two Kadima ministers, Haim Ramon and Meir Sheetrit, have flanked Olmert on the right by calling on him not to negotiate with Hamas. Moreover, Shin Bet chief Yuval Diskin told the cabinet yesterday that Hamas has rockets capable of striking as far as Ashdod and Kiryat Gat. He also did not hide his opinion that at the end of the day, a military operation will be necessary in order to remove the rocket threat on Israel from the Strip. As a counterweight to the views of the Shin Bet chief, however, it is worth recalling that Hezbollah has an arsenal of rockets that can reach targets throughout the northern two-thirds of the country - yet Israel is not embarking on a military operation against the extremist Lebanese group. Other relevant factors include Israel's wish to avoid diplomatic friction with Egypt, which a rejection of its mediation efforts might cause, and its desire to acquire the broadest possible international support for any large-scale military operation in Gaza. But even the tahadiyeh's supporters in the cabinet only talk about it in terms of a lull - a bit of breathing room. They say it is very possible that in a few months, it will still be necessary to carry out a major operation in the Gaza Strip. But for now, they argue, the wise move is to buy some time - inter alia, due to regional developments that range from the talks with Syria to the debate within the Bush administration over how to deal with Iran. In response to the dual threat posed by rockets and truck bombs, the IDF has begun evacuating noncombat soldiers to safer locations. That decision has evoked a bitter response from civilians in communities near Gaza, as it has fed their suspicions that the state attributes greater importance to the lives of soldiers - whose job is to protect civilians - than to the lives of the civilians themselves. Bookmark to del.icio.us   Nuclear allegation Jimmy Carter says Israel has arsenal of 150 nuclear weapons. On penalty of death Rightist MK Eldad says those who give away Israeli land should get death penalty.   1.   truce 04:53  |  Shmuelshachor 26/05/08   2.   Just think 07:18  |  David K 26/05/08   3.   Israel should not risk its soldiers, use artillary to clear Gaza 08:16  |  David 26/05/08   4.   More foot dragging by the warlords & thieves to sign a cease-fire 08:41  |  Dutch 26/05/08   5.   No Truce Nor operation 08:51  |  Gaza observer 26/05/08   6.   The meaning of a ceasefire. 09:03  |  Jean Van Daem 26/05/08   7.   Amos Harel & Avi Issacharoff don`t make laugh 09:31  |  Dutch 26/05/08   8.   "calm" 09:42  |  JS 26/05/08   9.   As if 15:07  |  Natallie Durson 26/05/08   10.   #9 by which valid treaty is that nutullie? 17:19  |  victor hardman 26/05/08   11.   `peace` with hamarse was always a delusion. bomb them. 18:48  |  frenz 27/05/08

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