“It’s very easy to see where it will be finished,” encourages Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s former national security advisor, Yaakov Amidror. “If nothing bad will happen, we will identify the locations of the tunnels, we will blow them up and we will retreat.” But “How to finish the whole operation in terms of stopping the rockets and the missiles, this is much more complicated.” Twice before Israel entered Gaza to battle the Palestinians of Hamas. In both cases international pressure forced withdrawals without achieving an end to the militants’ rocket fire. This time Israel isn’t being pushed to end the incursion. President Obama combines his concern for the “loss of innocent life,” with no nation should be vulnerable to persistent rocket attacks and attacks from underground incursions. Instead of battling the Gaza Strip in two as it did in 2009, Israeli troops are in the farmlands within a mile of the border, uncovering over 20 tunnel exits. However the call-up of 82-thousand reservists may indicate Israel is in no mood to end the operation quickly, Netanyahu telling his troops, Friday, “prepare for the possibility of widening,” the offensive, “significantly.” Over 65 children have been killed during Israel’s attempt to disarm the militants. A shell killed three in their bedroom, a shell killed eight members of a family, four of them children. In all, over 280 are dead and over 2-thousand wounded in the 12 day air assault. Still, Hamas was able to counter with 135 rockets on the first day of the incursion. But the damage is considered minuscule with only an empty kindergarten and synagogue hit under Israel’s Iron Dome defense system. Israel’s death count totaled one soldier and one citizen by Saturday morning. A weakened Hamas is running out of friends, particularly, their strong supporter, former president of Egypt Mohamed Morsi who successfully negotiated ceasefires and prisoner exchanges. Don’t expect Washington to broker a deal with the Russian missile destruction of the 777 over Ukraine, the Isis invasion of Iraq, and nuclear talks with Iran on the front burners. Former Israeli diplomat and university president Itamar Rabinovich says “You need mediators–you find that magic formula, a constructive ambiguity, that enables both parties to claim achievement.” That leaves President Mahmoud Abbas of the Palestinian Authority, and adversary of both Israel and Hamas to try to put a settlement together. Abbas shuttled between Cairo and Istanbul Friday with ideas on how to end the violence in the Gaza Strip.
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