Operation Cast Lead: Day 19

Israel continues to be bombarded with rockets, although not only from Gaza. Three more rockets were fired from Lebanon into Israel. Those attacks headed for Kiyrat Shimona, where schools continue their classes, but from within bomb shelters. Watch for Hizbullah to issue denials, but they're just biding their time. Hizbullah is watching to see what kind of Israeli response is mounted to those rocket attacks. Israel responded to the rocket fire with an artillery barrage of its own. However, it also shows the futility of Israel relying upon UNIFIL to disarm Southern Lebanon and all the militias operating there - particularly Hizbullah, which is the de facto controlling authority in Southern Lebanon.

As for the situation in Gaza, Hamas has been hurt, but not destroyed. Hamas thugs running the show from Gaza are apparently bickering with the bigwigs who are sipping tea from the comfort of Damascus. The terror masters in Damascus are seeking for Hamas to continue fighting, while those in Gaza are starting to waiver from their war aims.

Inside Gaza, the military wing of Hamas has been hit “to a certain extent” with “a few hundred” Hamas fighters killed during the ground offensive that began midway through the war, the intelligence officials said. They spoke on condition of anonymity in return for discussing internal assessments of the conflict. Hamas is still able to launch 20 to 30 rockets a day, including 5 to 10 missiles of ranges longer than 20 kilometers, or about 12 miles, down by a third from the start of the war, the officials said.

Greater damage has been done to Hamas’s capacity to run Gaza, with a large number of government buildings destroyed over the course of the operation, they said.

The Israeli Army’s chief of staff, Lt. Gen. Gabi Ashkenazi, speaking to Parliament on Tuesday, said that “we have achieved a lot in hitting Hamas and its infrastructure, its rule and its armed wing, but there is still work ahead.”

In Egypt, efforts to broker a cease-fire were complicated by bickering inside Hamas, the Egyptian official said. The official said that Hamas representatives in Gaza were eager for a cease-fire, but were being blocked because political decisions were being made by the group’s leadership in Damascus, Syria.

There's a reason that the terrorists in Gaza want a ceasefire (hudna). They know that they've been hurt hard. The terrorists in Damascus haven't felt the pain of Israeli weapons falling on their heads, destroying their ammo dumps and their ability to operate. The Damascus Hamas thugs, including Khalid Meshaal, see Hamas thugs in Gaza as cannon fodder, and don't care what happens to Gazans or to their own military capabilities.

In that respect, the failure of Hamas to figure out what they want enables Israel to continue pounding Hamas targets throughout Gaza into oblivion. Hamas rocket fire continues as well, hitting Beersheba and Yavne, while sirens were heard in Ashdod and Askhelon. Israel cannot stop until Hamas is incapable of firing a single rocket into Israel.

Israel continues attacking Hamas smuggling tunnels, which are pervasive along the former Philadelphi corridor along the Gaza-Egypt border.

Meanwhile, various statements by top politicians in Israel are going to give Hamas hope that they can outlast Israel's current retaliatory strikes and claim victory (which they'll do regardless of how many dead Hamas there are and how much of their terror infrastructure is destroyed).

Defense Minister Ehud Barak's statements regarding the nearing end of the Israeli offensive in Gaza have earned him harsh criticism from top Jerusalem officials, who have said that Hamas interprets such statements as Israel trying to find a way out of the fighting.

"Leaking details of ministers' private initiatives is irresponsible and regrettable," said a state official.

Other top Jerusalem sources said that such private initiatives, which are not sanctioned but the limited cabinet – namely Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, Defense Minister Ehud Barak and Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni – are detrimental to the future success of Operation Cast Lead.

Israeli leaders have thus far shown that they've learned lessons from the 2006 Hizbullah war, but their political instincts keep undermining the war effort. Hamas is on the ropes, and Israel cannot back down until Hamas surrenders.

Hamas continues hiding weapons all over Gaza, including in and around cemeteries. An Israeli airstrike hit one such cemetery, and the photographers and stringers had a field day with the illustrative comments of body parts flying about.

Elsewhere, we've finally heard from Osama bin Laden, who manages to come up with the same empty platitudes he's done in the past; seek jihad and launch a holy war to come to the aid of Gaza. In other words, it's nothing we haven't heard from him before. Jihadis seek jihad.

Protests continue around the world, including in Manila, where signs call for the cessation of killing of women and children. Where were these protests when Hamas was firing rockets with the intent to kill Israeli women and children? Oh yes, that doesn't count. Only when Israel responds to kill those terrorists who hide behind Palestinian women and children does the world show its outrage - at Israel.

UPDATE:
Is that all Hamas has left? Taunting Israeli soldiers with text messages? Israeli soldiers are already roaming freely throughout Gaza and killing Hamas thugs wherever they are found. Hamas thugs hide behind women and children, fire on Israel from schools and use hospitals and mosques as ammo dumps, and yet they're taunting Israeli soldiers?

UPDATE:
What humanitarian crisis? Gazans have little to fear from wanton Israeli airstrikes as witnessed by photos showing busy marketplaces fully stocked with food and no one fearfully running from Israeli airstrikes occuring nearby. There's a reason; they know that Israel isn't purposefully attacking civilians or gathering places. Hamas, on the other hand, couldn't care less who dies, which is why they're trying to goad Israel into attacking busy locations, schools, hospitals, and the like.

UPDATE:
War crime? Oh, it's just Palestinian terrorists firing a phosphorus shell purposefully at Israeli civilians. Never mind then. International law makes it abundantly clear that purposefully targeting civilians is a war crime. Nonetheless, the human rights groups lose their voice when Hamas attacks, but gets strident (and stridently wrong) when Israel defends itself.

UPDATE:
Has Hamas accepted a hudna? That's what reports indicate, although they're phrasing it as Hamas looks like they're going to accept a ceasefire.

Senior Hamas official Ayman Taha is expected to hold a press conference at 7:30 pm (GMT) in which he will present the understandings reached during the Cairo talks.

However, a Hamas leader said on Wednesday that points of difference remained over the Egyptian proposal.

"There are still points of difference on the initiative," Osama Hamdan, the Hamas representative in Lebanon, said in an interview broadcast on Al Jazeera television.

Meanwhile, the website of Spanish newspaper El Pais quoted Spanish Foreign Minister Miguel Angel Moratinos as saying that Hamas has accepted the ceasefire plan.

The report said Israel would respond to the proposal on Thursday.

The only way to tell if Hamas has accepted anything is whether the rocket fire stops. If Israel gets hit by any rockets or mortars, then there's no ceasefire. Israel can and must adopt a zero-tolerance rule for attacks from Gaza or any of its other borders to deter the terrorists from upping the ante with each successive attack.

Gaza could have avoided so much misery had Hamas simply chosen not to go to war against Israel by firing thousands of rockets at Israel, including hundreds during the ceasefire. All the dead and injured have no one to blame but Hamas, although many will ignore that and go for the easy target - blaming Israel for defending itself.

UPDATE:
There isn't much to report on the outline for the proposed 10-day ceasefire:

Egypt's foreign minister, Ahmed Aboul Gheit, said details on the proposed cease-fire would be kept "under a lid of secrecy" until all parties agreed but said issues included an Israeli withdrawal from Gaza, opening crossings into the blockaded territory and some kind of international monitors.

Hamas and Egypt both have resisted having international monitors in Gaza or at the borders, and UNIFIL has shown itself incapable of disarming Hizbullah or preventing attacks against Israel. Thus, one can only conclude that this will be nothing more than a hudna during which Hamas will regroup and rearm for the next battle.

Israel has already engaged in a series of humanitarian pauses to allow aid shipments into Gaza, which have also managed to include Hamas smuggling equipment in and among the humanitarian aid. Israeli troops would not have entered Gaza had Hamas not bombarded Israel, so the onus must be on Hamas to cease and desist.

Of course, the diplomats see things differently and will force Israel to concede on security matters when Hamas gets to lick its wounds.

UPDATE:
Hamas says that they will not give up the smuggling tunnels and will not stop any actions that relate to their ongoing war against Israel:

Earlier Wednesday another senior Hamas official, Rafaat Nassif, said that the group would not agree to have the tunnels between Gaza and Egypt destroyed. "We reject any attempt to undermine the resistance or any commitment that would undermine the resistance," he said.

"As long as the occupation exists, so will the resistance," Nassif declared in a phone interview to al-Arabiya television network.

Other Hamas officials seem to be playing Egypt and the diplomats for fools, however, as the diplomats think that a deal is going to be forthcoming. I see this as nothing but another hudna in the making.

UPDATE:
Carl in Jerusalem takes a look at the Hamas hudna and doesn't think it's going to amount to much. The Muqata and Aussie Dave at Israellycool are both covering the situation as well.