Israel, Hamas ease back in rocket error
JERUSALEM — Israel and Hamas on Friday worked quickly to de-escalate after a rare instance of rocket fire from Gaza launched against Tel Aviv the night before.
The events underscored that neither side appears to want a broader clash right now, and at the same time, the ever-present chance of a miscalculation setting off the next war.
Thursday night, rockets from Gaza that headed for Tel Aviv seemed to come out of the blue, then disappear almost without a trace. Israel blamed Hamas, which controls Gaza, and retaliated swiftly, with strikes at what it said were Hamas military sites and compounds throughout Gaza.
Hamas denied responsibility for the attack but had nonetheless expected such a response and left the sites ahead of time.
By Friday morning, Israeli military officials said that operatives had launched the rockets from a Hamas launcher “by mistake.” The officials would not elaborate.
About 10 hours after the flare-up began, a fragile calm appeared to have been restored.
Micky Rosenfeld, a spokesman for the Israeli police, said remains of one rocket was found Friday in an open area south of Tel Aviv. There were no details about the other rocket.
Hamas and Islamic Jihad are the only groups in Gaza known to possess rockets with a range capable of reaching Tel Aviv.
A spokesman for Islamic Jihad, Dawoud Shehab, said that Egyptian officials had been making contact with the militant groups in Gaza throughout the night to restore the Egyptian-brokered truce that ended the 2014 war between Israel and Hamas.
“The Egyptians are effective mediators up to a point,” said Michael Herzog, an Israel-based fellow with the Washington Institute for Near East Policy who has participated in past Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiations.
“They can restore calm when the two sides have a basic interest in a ceasefire,” he said, “but they cannot do the magic when one party does not.”
Herzog said the Israeli military’s claim of a mistaken launch was reasonable since Hamas did not usually start off a round of hostilities by firing directly at Tel Aviv. In most cases, he said, Hamas would begin firing on areas closer to Gaza.
In what appeared to be a further effort to tamp down tensions, Hamas and the other militant factions in Gaza announced Friday morning that they were canceling that afternoon’s protest along the fence that divides the Palestinian territory from Israel.
The organizing committee described the postponement — the first in almost a year — as an “exceptional” move in the “public interest” as they prepare for what they hope will be a million-strong demonstration on March 30, the anniversary of the start of the often-violent protests, in which scores of Palestinians have been killed by Israeli fire.