The accounts Hamas in Gaza conducts with
itself to decide whether, and mainly when, to launch another war against
Israel are also signals that Israeli officials scrutinize in an attempt
to learn about the enemy's plans to attack and deal them a pre-emptive
blow. The question of what Hamas will gain and what it will lose from
fresh hostilities with Israel is, at least in theory, the underlying one
that is supposed to help intelligence officials correctly assess how
likely another war in the south is and when it will happen.
When Military Intelligence Director Maj. Gen.
Herzl Halevi describes a severe economic crisis in the Strip, he is
effectively saying that the hourglass is running out, that we're
approaching the moment when Hamas in Gaza will tell itself that the
economic situation in the strip is so bad it has nothing more to lose.
On the other hand, there are contradictory
figures that show that Hamas still might have something to lose, after
all. The donor nations that pledged to send $4 million to rebuild Gaza
after Operation Protective Edge in the summer of 2014 have thus far only
transferred about one-fifth of that amount. A few of them are demanding
that Hamas supply proof and guarantees that the money will be used for
civilian rehabilitation and not the development of weapons or to build
bunkers and tunnels. If Hamas provokes another round of fighting, it
risks losing its chance at the money, or at least delaying the receipt
of it significantly.
And here are two more contradictory factors,
each of which could lead Hamas to conduct itself in a different manner:
Just a few months ago, the Israeli defense establishment was considering
returning to a policy of allowing laborers from Gaza to earn a living
in Israel, earning a daily wage that would be twice or three times as
much as they would bring home in Gaza. Defense Minister Avigdor
Lieberman spoke about the option openly.
The unemployment rate in Gaza is currently at
58%, and the past two years have seen a spike in the number of suicides
stemming from financial despair.
Israel, as we know, also sends a steady supply
of foodstuffs, home goods, medicine, fuel, and even some building
material to Gaza. A war now would cut off the Israeli, and possibly the
Egyptian, supply line for an indeterminate time, and would certainly
delay any decision about the question of whether to allow Gazan workers
into Israel until who knows when.
On the other hand, this reality is
encountering new leadership with a radical profile, headed by Yahya
Sinwar, a former senior member of Izzedine al-Qassam Brigades, Hamas'
military wing. Sitting alongside Sinwar in the organization's new
"diplomatic bureau" are at least five more military wing members, two of
whom were released from prison as part of the 2011 exchange deal for
captive soldier Gilad Schalit. This new diplomatic bureau's natural bent
appears to be toward radicalism and conflict.
One consideration that could prod Hamas into a
conflict is how relevant the cross-border attack tunnels that Hamas
held onto after Protective Edge -- about 15 of them according to recent
reports -- still are. The longer quiet is maintained, the longer Israel
is at leisure to pursue its engineering project of destroying the
tunnels on the Israel-Gaza border.
From Hamas' perspective, these tunnels are on
borrowed time as tools for attacking Israel, a fact that could spur the
group on to use them soon, before Israel makes them unusable for war or
creates mechanisms that will make the use of them difficult.
Different rules on the ground
Two other players, each of which could have a
different effect on Hamas, are Lieberman on one hand, and the Islamic
State on the other. Unlike Lieberman's predecessor, Moshe Ya'alon, the
current defense minister has warned Hamas that if it launches another
war from Gaza, Israel will ensure that it will no longer be in charge in
Gaza when it ends.
The election of U.S. President Donald Trump
also supposedly gives Israel more slack than it enjoyed from the U.S.
before to carry out the goal of bringing down the Hamas regime in Gaza.
Hamas is aware of that, but often, the field has its own rules.
Another actor that could fuel the flames is
Islamic State, or in the form it takes in Gaza -- the members of
Salafist organizations and groups that support Islamic State in Gaza and
Sinai. The two rockets fired at Israel last February, one at Eilat and
the second at the western Negev, are the acts of these groups, as are
the rocket launches toward Shaar Hanegev.
Israel sees Hamas as responsible for anything
fired from the Gaza Strip, and the more severe rules of the game under
Lieberman have led to "disproportionate" fire in response to the rocket
fire by Salafi terrorists, and many more direct hits on Hamas targets
along the border.
The harsh Israeli response has escalated Hamas
threats, at least verbally. Hamas leaders have announced that they will
no longer accept Lieberman's "new equation" and that if they are bombed
again, the response will be "massive." Have they put themselves in an
impossible position with the Palestinian public?
From a passive perspective -- and defense
officials are charged with accounting for the worst-case scenario and
presenting it to decision-makers -- some of the factors that swept
Israel and Hamas into an armed conflict in July 2014 are once again
present, along with other risk factors.
The distress among Gaza civilians leading up
to Operation Protective Edge is one example referenced in State
Comptroller Yosef Shapira's report on the Diplomatic-Security Cabinet's
functioning during the 2014 war, and it's no coincidence that Halevi is
now talking about similar trouble there.
The economic situation in Gaza is deplorable.
Two years ago, the U.N. projected that by 2020 Gaza would have no
potable drinking water. The groundwater aquifers in the Strip have run
dry because they were over-pumped. The only desalination facility in the
strip supplies just 10% of Gaza's water needs, and the price of water
is rising. The wealthy pay a fortune for desalinated water, but the
majority of the public uses water with a higher salt content for
purposes other than drinking, like laundry, cleaning, and bathing.
The electricity supply to Gaza is also shaky,
despite help from Israel and Egypt, and if that was not enough,
unemployment in the Strip is nearing 60%; about one-third of the
population of Gaza isn't hooked up to the sewage system. Narrow, open
sewage drains and collection holes are increasing the rate of infectious
disease. At the Ashkelon beach one can often see traces of sewage that
the ocean currents carry northward from the strip.
To that, we can add the hold-ups and freezes
to the transfer of money from donor nations and the building materials
sent to Gaza, and you have a powder keg.
Inverse logic
How does all this affect Hamas? It would be
logical to devote all available assistance and budgets to rehabilitating
the Strip for the sake of its residents, but Hamas' "logic" isn't
necessarily logic as we know it. Hamas is putting much of the money and
aid it receives into rebuilding its military might. The way the
organization sees it, the religious command of resistance must be
obeyed, even if the chance of victory through that resistance is slim.
The past two and a half years might have been
the quietest in a decade -- only 45 rockets have been fired from Gaza,
only four then landed in populated areas -- but Hamas is taking
advantage of the quiet to restore some of what it lost in Operation Cast
Lead in the winter of 2008.
The terror tunnels, we have learned, are still
here. The raw materials that were needed for civilian rebuilding were
diverted to manufacture weapons and reconstruct the tunnel
infrastructure. Hamas either seized these raw materials -- concrete,
iron, and wood -- before they even reached their civilian destination,
or confiscated or purchased the materials from the civilian recipients.
Prior to Operation Protective Edge, Hamas'
arsenal numbered some 11,000 rockets, mostly short-range. A small number
of rockets had longer ranges of up to 160 kilometers (100 miles). At
the end of the operation, about a third of its rocket stores remained
after it shot about 4,000 of them at Israel and lost others to Israeli
airstrikes.
Experts at the Meir Amit Intelligence and
Terrorist Information Center say that Hamas is now making it a priority
to increase its rocket and mortar stockpile, with an emphasis on
short-range high trajectory weapons. Simultaneously, Hamas is training
dedicated forces to carry the war into Israeli territory in a surprise
move, both through the terror tunnels and through its "naval commandos"
-- launching incursions into Israeli communities to execute terrorist
attacks and abduct Israelis to be used as bargaining chips.
After Protective Edge, Hamas beefed up its
presence along the border with Israel and built a line of outposts a few
hundred meters from the border fence. Next to them, it built lookout
towers, and it paved a road that runs along the fence.
Meanwhile, Hamas is constantly trying to
develop alternative smuggling routes for weapons, military equipment and
raw materials. Smuggling from the Sinai Peninsula took a serious hit
after the Egyptians stepped up to cut off that supply route, destroying
tunnels and closing the Rafah border crossing. For now, the alternative
is to smuggle them in from Israel with civilian shipments that pass
through crossings, as well as a sea route between Gaza and Sinai using
local fishermen.
The cooperation between the Islamic State
proxies in Sinai and Izzedine al-Qassam Brigades is also helping Hamas.
In the past two years, while it was battling Salafist groups in the
strip, Hamas was helping the Islamic State in Sinai manufacture weapons
and treat its wounded, and the Islamic State in Sinai helped Hamas
smuggle weapons from Libya and Sudan into Gaza.
According to IDF assessments, Hamas has not
regained the abilities it had before Operation Protective Edge.
According to the Intelligence and Terrorist Information Center in the
next round of fighting, Hamas will first try to attack civilian
communities and military targets near the border, as its capacity to
reach farther has been hampered and seriously reduced, although not
eradicated entirely.
And to all this we must add the new
composition of Hamas leadership, now headed by Sinwar. The latter was
involved in planning a series of terrorist attack that murdered a number
of Israelis, as well as in the murders of many Palestinians. His second
in command, Khalil Al-Hayya, was also a member of Hamas' former
diplomatic bureau. Al-Hayya's son was killed in southern Gaza in 2008
when he tried to fire rockets at Israel, and his wife and three more of
his children were killed by IDF artillery fire during the 2014 conflict.
Other members in the new bureau include
Mahmoud al-Zahar, who served as foreign minister under former Hamas
leader Ismail Haniyeh. Al-Zahar has formerly called to turn popular
terrorism into a military intifada; Rohi Mushtaha, who was sentenced to
seven life sentences for murdering Palestinians who collaborated with
Israel and who was also freed in the Schalit deal; Marwan Issa, former
head of Hamas' special operations; and Samah Al-Sarraj, who also served
in the last Hamas diplomatic bureau and has called to "train a new
generation that will carry the flag of Islam and liberate Palestine from
the filth of the occupation."
Needless chatter
In his latest report, the state comptroller
observed that the upper political echelon had not given enough attention
to a "diplomatic" method of detonating the political land mines laid
down on the way to the 2014 war. Some of the components of ticking bomb
of delay back then are once again hanging over our heads, as well as new
ones. This time, there are a few suggestions, but it doesn't look like
there's much chance they will be implemented any time soon.
For example, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu
is talking along the lines of "demilitarization in exchange for
rehabilitation" [of the Gaza Strip], an offer Hamas is rejecting.
Transportation Minister Yisrael Katz suggested building a port in Gaza.
Egypt, which also plays an influential role in
what happens in the strip, has been showing more consideration for and
making gestures to the Hamas leadership in Gaza. It has somewhat eased
the conditions of the closure on Gaza and is allowing more goods into
the strip. The question of what Hamas is planning and whether the
upcoming spring will surprise us with another round of bloodshed, is one
that has more than one answer.
A few weeks ago, Construction Minister Yoav Gallant and Habayit
Hayehudi leader Naftali Bennett spoke about the possibility that this
spring would see escalation in the south. Lieberman called the exchange
between the two "needless chatter that has no relation to the reality on
the ground." Either way, the south has different rules and operates
under a different type of logic. The five operations that the IDF
launched this past decade seem to be proof of that.
