The Hamas and Jihad Islami organizations in Gaza decided to take a step toward escalation yesterday. Possibly because they were getting little media coverage of their kite and balloon offensive outside of Israel. In any case, they fired some 200 rockets at Jewish towns and villages in the area. One rocket hit the living room of the Buchris family. Four of them are now in hospital with injuries reported as being serious. The Israeli response was, as usual, air attacks on various buildings and installations. The Gaza authorities claimed 2 people were killed. That may give them the coverage they want. If no one is killed, the foreign press tends to ignore what happens there.
On the Israeli side, where I get more information via local TV, there is a scheduled military exercise for today which might even be a trial run for another serious intervention on the ground in Gaza. Israeli air attacks have occurred before, and the are usually marked by choosing physical targets associated with either Hamas or Jihad Islami. They usually occur at night when the target locations are not occupied, so there are few injuries and no collateral damage. The Israeli response has not been only military. transfer of goods, food and other items via the only open crossing into Gaza was suspended. That step doesn’t have much effect for 2 reasons. First, the Hamas ruling party doesn’t really care. They are happy to be able to show how miserable the people are, and to blame the Israelis. Second, there really isn’t any shortage of food in Gaza now, and reserves there are sufficient for some time. There has been unrest in Gaza because the electricity supplies have been cut back following a Hamas decision not to pay the Palestinian Authority in Ramallah for fuel for the local generator. Water supplies are also problematic. Hamas has invested lots of money in building fortifications and acquiring weapons. They have never spent anything on the water and sewage system. Currently, clean fresh water is almost not available and many water outlets are polluted from sewage overflow. This is purely a problem created by their own choice of priorities for spending what funds they have. I have heard that the entire kite and balloon campaign was devised in order to focus the Gaza population on an external enemy in order to avoid demonstrations against the Hamas government.
I recall a historical precedent for these events. In 1918 British General Allenby held back his forces to allow the Arab irregulars revolting against Turkish rule to capture, AND administer, the city of Damascus. The plan worked for about a week. Then the Arabs came to him to beg for help because the practical side of handling the needs of a large city was well outside their level of expertise. It begins to look like Hamas has not learned from history, and is condemned to repeat it.
Wetherhorn 