Experts warn of Gaza war
Israel says Hamas is preparing for conflict and may initiate broad military action
THE ISRAELI military and Gaza’s Islamist movement Hamas are both preparing for the next conflict, according to Israeli military intelligence as reported by Haaretz.
A new round of fighting has been predicted by political analysts and intelligence agencies for a while now. This is due to the desperate economic situation as a result of the Israeli and Egyptian blockade of the Gaza Strip, which has a population of 2 million people squeezed inside an area of 365km², the third most densely populated polity in the world.
The two sides have fought several wars previously, including those in 2008/9, 2012 and the last in 2014 during which hundreds died, most of them Palestinian civilians.
But the next round could be coming earlier than expected, according to Israeli military intelligence’s research division, which has assessed that Hamas is going to increase pressure on the Gaza-Israel border to force international intervention because of the dire humanitarian situation in the coastal territory.
“Hamas may initiate broad military action that could bring forth an all-out military confrontation with Israel in a bid to obtain international involvement on the humanitarian situation in Gaza,” an Israeli intelligence report published on Wednesday asserted.
Hamas has been organising Friday protests near the border with Israel since March last year. The Great March of Return has largely involved burning tyres, throwing stones and flying burning kites into Israeli territory.
However, following an Egyptian-mediated agreement, the Islamist organisation agreed to tone down the protests in return for Israel lifting the crippling siege. But Gaza’s leaders now say that Israel has reneged on easing restrictions and so has upped protest measures at the border, adding that only extreme measures could bring about any change.
As a precaution the Israel Defence Force is undertaking preparatory measures, including operational plans for combat and setting up an administrative unit to handle the formation of a list of potential targets in the strip.
Two Iron Dome anti-missile batteries are being manned near the border with Gaza with a plan to increase the number to 10 before the end of the year.
Hamas, too, has been preparing for war with Israel ever since the end of Operation Protective Edge in 2014. The organisation has beefed up its subterranean tunnels beneath Gaza for a possible entry into Israel while warning that the ongoing siege will not continue unchallenged.
Meanwhile, in the Israeli-occupied West Bank the precarious rule of Palestinian Authority (PA) chairman, President Mahmoud Abbas, continues with the support of Israel.
The Fatah-affiliated PA is at loggerheads with Hamas in Gaza as the geographical and political divide between the two main Palestinian political factions widen with Abbas cutting off all aid to Gaza as he tries to impose the PA’s authority there.
Hamas, in the interim, has been recruiting cells in the West Bank to carry out attacks on Israeli settlers and soldiers and is also working to undermine Abbas’ rule there.
Israeli intelligence is also not ruling out the possibility that any deterioration of the situation in Gaza will ignite the West Bank.