After failing to persuade the Arab states and the West to help Gaza, Hamas switched to blackmail. This method has worked well for the past two and a half years, and if the balloons do not do the job, the demonstrations on the fence will return. • Continue taking measured measures to try to avoid escalation • Interpretation
The scenario is well known and worn out: Hamas is terrorizing the residents of the Gaza Strip so that they can put pressure on the Israeli government, in order to get it to find a solution that will flow cash and projects to Gaza, so that Hamas will stop the terror it is carrying out.
Hamas has been using this very tactic since the violent events on the fence began in March 2018. After failing in all attempts since Operation Eitan to persuade the Arab and Western countries to help the battered, poor and desperate Gaza, it has moved to blackmail: to put pressure on Israel to resolve it. The problems.
Photo: Newsenders
This method has worked well for Hamas for the past two and a half years. The demonstrations and balloons (incendiary and explosive) that followed led the Israeli government to mediate the monthly cash transfer agreement from Qatar to the Gaza Strip. First five million dollars, then 10 million, and now 30 million, every month, ostensibly for poor financing, and in practice also for lubricating the wheels of the huge apparatus built by Hamas in the Gaza Strip, which is partly routed (contrary to donors' intentions) for terrorist purposes.
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• Tensions in the south: Air Force attacks in Gaza
• Ganz and Chief of Staff Kochavi conclude: "We will not move on to the agenda of launching balloons"
• Exchange of fire on the Gaza Strip border; no casualties
But that monthly assistance is due to end in September. The funds for August have already passed, and no one has any idea what will happen next: whether the funding will continue, and if so - for how long. Hamas is worried that they will be left without the almost only assistance they receive, and has returned to harassing Israel so that it will solve the problem for them. Money is the main thing that lies on the table, but not only. Also on the agenda is a series of projects that are very important to Hamas (from the industrial zone to the power line, and some other issues), which he claims are being delayed too much. Here, too, the organization hopes that what the series did not do months ago, will do a few days of balloons and fires. If that does not help, Hamas will also return to the nightly harassment - the use of explosives close to the settlements near the fence in order to disturb the sleep and peace of the residents - and perhaps also to Friday demonstrations on the fence.
Hamas' pressure is also intensifying against the backdrop of the corona. Not only the declining international attention, but also the fact that the 7,000 workers who received permits to work in Israel remained in the Gaza Strip. Israel is actually willing to accept them, but Hamas fears that they will be infected and cause a mass outbreak of the disease in Gaza. His decision is medically understandable, but its economic consequences are heavy: less money enters the Strip, and many are left without a livelihood.
There are several things to learn from this. The first is that Hamas is in real and deep economic distress, on the verge of despair. The second, that Hamas fully controls the Gaza Strip and what is happening in it; If he wishes, he will carry out terrorism, and if he wishes, he will stop it. The third, that Hamas does not want escalation or war, but a solution; The measures he is taking are measured and are intended to prevent casualties, and the organization estimates that Israel will know how to live with them.
Israel understands this, and therefore responds in a measured manner, accordingly. The two airstrikes that have taken place in recent days (of fighter jets over the weekend and of aircraft on Sunday) are mainly intended to signal and deter. The step taken yesterday - of closing the goods crossing in Kerem Shalom - is already more significant: it is exerting real pressure on Hamas, on its most painful issue of maintaining a routine of life in Gaza. If the balloons continue, we will likely see more steps, but ones that will ensure that there is no deterioration to escalation. The rhetoric heard yesterday by the senior political-security echelon was harsh - and it took on a new meaning when it was said against the background of fighter jets and warships - but no one at the top of Israel now wants escalation in Gaza.
The opposite is true: the attempt that has been made in recent hours is to find a solution that will bring Hamas down from the tree, and restore peace to the surrounding communities. But along the way something might go wrong; A fire that gets out of control and causes casualties, or an Israeli reaction that will cause unplanned damage in the Gaza Strip and lead to a reaction. After all, this is a game of fire, which can also cause burns.
Israel and Hamas try to be careful to avoid this. But even if they succeed, it will be a temporary success. Gaza's problems are too deep and ingrained for spot aid to solve. And in the absence of a major strategic move - of an extensive agreement on the one hand, or an extensive military move on the other - nothing will really be resolved, and sooner or later the familiar scenario will repeat itself.