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Analysis

Operation Protective Edge: Update and overview

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Last Update: 9.30 BST, 20/08/2014. For the latest updates go to www.bicom.org.uk/news

Key points

  • Rocket fire continued Wednesday morning from the Gaza Strip into Israel after Palestinian armed groups broke the ceasefire by resuming their rocket fire on Tuesday.
  • According to reports, Hamas were dissatisfied with the ceasefire proposal being offered by the Egyptian government.
  • The agreement would have seen an easing of the crossings followed by further talks on more substantial long term arrangements.

 

What are the latest developments?

  • Rocket fire continued Wednesday morning from the Gaza Strip into Israel after armed groups in the Gaza Strip broke the ceasefire by resuming their rocket fire on Tuesday.
  • Israel responded with airstrikes Tuesday against armed groups in the Gaza Strip, including one targeting Mohammed Deif, head of Hamas armed wing. Palestinian sources report that Deif’s wife and child were killed, along with a third unidentified person.
  • Israel withdrew from the Cairo talks after the resumption of rocket fire. The Palestinian delegation has also left.
  • Tuesday’s rocket fire included firing at both Jerusalem and Tel Aviv. More than 70 rockets have been fired since yesterday, with a number of them intercepted by Iron Dome.
  • Reservists have been called up by the IDF, and a second ground operation is being considered.
  • US State Department Deputy Spokeswoman Marie Harf condemned the “renewed rocket fire” from Gaza.

 

Why has the ceasefire broken down?

  • The humanitarian truce that has held for much of the last week was intended to allow time to establish a long term ceasefire. An Israeli delegation and a joint Palestinian delegation including Hamas and Palestinian Authority representatives were negotiating in Cairo through Egyptian mediators.
  • According to reports, Hamas were dissatisfied with the ceasefire proposal being offered by the Egyptian government. Hamas political chief Khaled Mashaal adopted uncompromising positions in comments over the weekend and Hamas spokesmen had threatened to resume violence if no agreement was reached. According to some reports, Mashaal deliberately ordered the resumption of fire, and was under intense pressure from authorities in Qatar, where he lives, not to accept the Egyptian proposal.
  • There is greater consensus between Egypt, Israel and the Palestinian Authority on the ceasefire arrangements. However, the proposed deal faced objections from within the Israeli coalition, and according to reports, Prime Minister Netanyahu may have been seeking adjustments that would have enabled him to have it approved by his cabinet.
  • Israel is determined to maintain deterrence against rocket fire and has consistently maintained that it will only negotiate when firing stops.
  • Despite the establishment of a Palestinian unity government, there is considerable tension between Hamas and the Fatah faction which dominates the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank. This tension intensified this week with Israeli security forces uncovering a Hamas plot to destabilise the West Bank.

 

What was being discussed in Cairo?

  • The Egyptian ceasefire proposal had two stages. In the first stage, Hamas would stop attacks, and Israel would agree to ease restrictions on movement of goods through crossing into the Gaza Strip and a gradual increase in the fishing zone off the Gaza coastline. Materials which could be used for military purposes (construction materials such as cement) would be subject to international supervision.
  • Discussions on a more substantial set of arrangements would be postponed for one month. Issues to be addressed after a month would include the further opening up of the Gaza Strip’s borders, particularly the Rafah crossing with Egypt, and the deployment of PA security forces loyal to President Mahmoud Abbas along Gaza’s border crossings. The demilitarisation of Gaza, one of Israel’s key demands, would be negotiated during this period, as would Hamas’s demands for the construction of an airport and sea port in the Gaza Strip.
  • The issue of the release of Hamas prisoners in exchange for the release of the remains of Israeli soldiers would also be discussed during this period.

 

Background to the conflict

  • Armed groups in the Hamas-run Gaza Strip began to gradually increase firing into Israel over the first few months of 2014. After Israel launched Operation Brother’s Keeper in June to find three teenagers abducted by Hamas operatives in the West Bank, rocket fire from Gaza increased substantially.
  • The escalation of fire from the Gaza Strip – forcing thousands of Israelis into shelters – in particular the firing of around 100 rockets on Monday 7 July, forced the Israeli Security Cabinet to launch Operation Protective Edge in an effort to restore quiet and degrade the capabilities of Hamas and other armed groups.
  • Israel escalated to a ground operation in the Gaza Strip on 17 July, following the rejection by Hamas of an Egyptian ceasefire proposal backed by the Arab League on 15 July. Tunnels dug by Hamas under the Gaza-Israel border rose to the top of Israel’s list of concerns on 17 July, after IDF forces intercepted Hamas fighters emerging from tunnels originating in the Gaza Strip. Destroying the tunnels was the main focus of Israel’s ground operation, and Israeli ground troops pulled out when this job was completed at the beginning of August.
  • Whilst the current escalation was set off by events in the West Bank, it is driven by its own dynamics, in particular the desire of Hamas to extricate itself from an economic and political crisis. Hamas wants Egypt to open the Rafah border and needs money to pay its 40,000 civil servants. It demands Israel release Hamas men who were freed as part of the Gilad Shalit deal in 2011 but rearrested during the search for the missing Israeli teenagers in the West Bank. Hamas is also having a harder time controlling smaller armed groups, who initially led the firing on Israel for most of 2014, and wants to re-establish its authority internally. Hamas has increased the range of its rocket attacks, and attempted other attacks to such as raids through tunnels into Israel, to try and increase its level of threat. However, Israel’s defences have minimised casualties on the Israeli side. Hamas is ideologically committed to Israel’s destruction and rejects international demands to accept previous agreements between Israel and the Palestinians.
  • In the recent conflict, the Hamas-run Gaza health ministry claims there over 2,000 fatalities. Israel disputes Hamas claims that most of the fatalities are civilians, claiming that between 750 and 1,000 of the fatalities are militants.
  • Until yesterday a total of 3,356 rockets were fired towards Israel since the start of Operation Protective Edge, with Iron Dome intercepting 587 of them.
  • There have been 64 Israeli military fatalities and three civilians killed by rockets.