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Comment and Opinion

Foreign Policy: A War We Didn’t Want, by Brig. Gen. (res) Michael Herzog

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Ever since Israel unilaterally evacuated Gaza in 2005, Israelis often say that while Israel left Gaza, Gaza never left Israel. I was reminded of this as the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) undertakes yet another ground operation to stop the firing of rockets into Israel. For 10 days prior to the incursion, Hamas and other Palestinian armed groups in Gaza fired some 1,400 rockets all over the country, driving millions of Israelis into bomb shelters. Israel tried to stop the rockets through airstrikes, but when Hamas continued to fire and rejected an Egyptian cease-fire proposal, Israel was left with little choice other than a ground operation.

Israel’s decision-makers were evidently reluctant to send ground troops. They would have much preferred to achieve their stated goal — a long, durable cease-fire — using airstrikes alone. With the Iron Dome rocket-interception system scoring an amazing success rate of about 90 percent, they could afford to give prolonged targeted airstrikes a chance to give way to a mediated cease-fire. The government sustained accusations by some in Israel of hesitancy, yet it remained clear-eyed about the challenge.

Gaza is a densely populated area, with 1.7 million people living in an area of 225 square miles. It is highly militarized, with thousands of rockets and production and storage facilities — some courtesy of Iran. To make things worse, Hamas purposely nests its military capabilities inside civilian facilities — the U.N. Relief and Works Agency just announced the discovery of 20 rockets in one of its schools — and in an intricate web of underground tunnels and bunkers beneath urban areas. Israel did not seek this confrontation, nor does it desire to be drawn into Gaza while facing other strategic challenges in an unstable, hostile environment and with a delicate standing regionally and internationally.

Read the article in full at Foreign Policy.