The situation in the south returned to full normalcy yesterday, exactly one week after the escalation that started the last round of fighting.
As part of this, all restrictions on the Israeli home front were removed, and Palestinian civil activity was fully renewed - from the introduction of laborers to work in Israel, through the full transit of goods to and from the Strip, to the opening of the fishing areas.
This economic leverage was a major reason for Hamas's avoidance of joining the fighting.
Even so, the civil-economic distress in the Gaza Strip is great.
As of yesterday, for example, there was only electricity for two hours.
The residents, who are groaning under the burden, did not want to return to fighting and its meanings a year after Operation Guard of the Walls.
For them, the current round was unnecessary, devoid of reason and logic, and they demanded by all means to end it as soon as possible.
There is a clear lesson here for the future: Hamas is indeed a Jihad organization that will continue to champion the destruction of the State of Israel, but it is also the owner of the house in the Gaza Strip and is attentive to its residents.
Steps that will raise the standard of living in Gaza will certainly increase Hamas's future dilemma whenever it considers starting a round of fighting.
This should of course happen at the same time as maintaining deterrence - similar to the way Israel behaved last year - when any rocket, shooting or balloon should be responded to harshly.
Launching rockets from Gaza during the operation, photo: AFP
A combination of these two aspects, the security and civil, may allow Israel to create a more reasonable equation of existence vis-a-vis Gaza than it was in the past.
This may also be a convenient springboard for broader agreements that Egypt is trying to promote, and even be a platform for resolving the issue of the bodies of the IDF martyrs and the two civilians who are being held in Gaza. While Hamas has so far set an impossible bar for their release, it may now be flexible; the senior political-security echelon is expected Discuss the issue next week, in an attempt (the chances of which are very low) to precede it.
Israel wants to leverage achievements
The results of the operation also give Hamas an opportunity to create a new balance of power against the Islamic Jihad, which has weakened significantly following the assassination of its two military leaders in the Strip.
It is not clear if Hamas will do this, among other things because this also depends on Iranian funds and the connections that sometimes exist between different parties in the two organizations, but it is likely that Hamas will seek to make sure that the Islamic Jihad does not drag them and the entire Gaza Strip into an unnecessary escalation again, with only losses on its side.
Israel seeks to leverage the clear deterrence achieved in the last operation to other sectors as well, primarily against Hezbollah.
Nasrallah (archive), photo: AFP
Recently, the organization threatened to harm Israeli gas production if the maritime dispute between the countries around the Harish and Kana reservoirs is not resolved, and it seems that now Lebanon also needs to think.
Although a war in the north is not at all similar to a few days of battle against a small and limited organization like the Islamic Jihad, the message passed is that Israel proved that it was right to enter the campaign in order not to give up its principles.
This is an important lesson, which may help solve the gas crisis facing Lebanon;
The American mediator is expected to return to the region soon, and if he achieves progress in his bypass between Jerusalem and Beirut - the parties will return and meet directly this month (in the presence of the Americans) at the Nakura crossing.
But the achievements of the operation, and the Israeli victory, must not blur the big picture: Gaza has not gone and will not go anywhere.
Its two million residents - because of their problems and the terrorist organizations that control them - remain here, and they will continue to challenge Israel in the future as well.
Although Israel scored some good points and strengthened deterrence, to solve the Gaza problem it will need much more than that.
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