Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (left) and Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas (right). AP
A cease fire proposed by Egypt’s Foreign Ministry was accepted by the Israel’s Security Cabinet that would have ended the week-long conflict. However, less than half an hour later, a senior Hamas official said the group rejected the proposal, claiming that Cairo had not consulted them.
“We did not receive any official draft of this Egyptian proposal,” Sami Abu Zuhri said, adding that the plan, as is, was “not acceptable.”
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had warned Hamas and the international community earlier that he was prepared to “intensify” the country’s military campaign against the Islamic militant group Hamas in the Gaza Strip if the group rejected the terms.
“If Hamas rejects the Egyptian proposal and the rocket fire from Gaza does not cease, and that appears to be the case, we are prepared to continue and intensify our operation,” Netanyahu said in a statement.
But both the terror group’s words and actions suggest a return to a cease fire was never truly in the cards.
Early Tuesday, Hamas said Egypt’s proposal “wasn’t worth the ink it was written with,” and the Israeli military confirmed that 24 rockets have been fired at Israeli territory from Gaza since the start of the proposed cease-fire. Three people were injured Tuesday when three rockets were fired at the southern city of Eilat, though the military says previous rocket attacks on the city have come from radical Islamic militants in the neighboring Sinai Peninsula, not Gaza.
As for why the militant group rejected the cease fire, a Hamas spokesman said they wanted an easing a the border blockade in Gaza enforced by Israel and Egypt, and also to be recognized by Egypt as a partner. Similar terms regarding the blockade were part of the truce to end violence back in 2012, but were quickly ignored by Egypt and Israel after Hamas resumed the violence.
Thanks to the Iron Dome, a joint U.S.-funded, Israeli designed missile defense system, there have been no Israelis killed in the conflict to date. However, several have been wounded by rocket shrapnel, including two sisters, ages 11 and 13, who were in serious condition Monday. The Health Ministry in Gaza claimed that 185 people have been killed since the conflict began, and more than 1,000 people have been wounded. It is not clear how many casualties were civilians and how many were Hamas militants.
For the first time, Hamas launched an unmanned drone into Israeli airspace that was quickly shot down, but event demonstrated an increased willingness by Iran, who has made great strides in drone technology after President Obama failed to retrieve a down craft in what was known as the Iran–U.S. RQ-170 incident. On December 4, 2011, an American Lockheed Martin RQ-170 Sentinel unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) was captured by Iranian forces near the city of Kashmar in northeastern Iran.
Meanwhile, Secretary of State John Kerry decided not to travel to the region on his way back to Washington from Vienna, where talks regarding Iran’s nuclear program are quickly failing. A State Department spokesman refused to say whether Kerry would reconsider his decision now that the cease-fire was rejected by Hamas.
The latest violence began following the kidnappings and killings of three Israeli teenagers last month. Their bodies had been discovered in a shallow grave in the West Bank. Then, there was a subsequent kidnapping and killing of a Palestinian teenager in an apparent revenge attack. Israel launched an offensive on July 8, saying it was going to put an end to Hamas rocket fire “once and for all” out of Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip.
It has been grossly under-reported that Hamas was in dire financial straits prior to the outbreak of fighting, because a tight crack down of the blockade by Egypt had stopped cash and weapons from coming into the strip through hundreds of smuggling tunnels under the Gaza-Egypt border. The conditions led many to believe the three kidnapped teenagers were to be ransomed by Hamas, but later killed when it became clear Israeli military raids would be the strategic response by the Israeli government. While both Israeli and U.S. officials have said there was a substantial amount of evidence to show Hamas was responsible, PPD has yet to see evidence of a ransom, though the financial incentive was real and strong.
Israeli officials said the objective of the campaign is to restore quiet, which has absorbed hundreds of rocket strikes, and Prime Minister Netanyahu said Sunday they are prepared to continue the campaign until the objective is achieved. Officials have also said that any cease-fire would have to include guarantees of an extended period of calm. Hamas officials, on the other hand, say they will not accept “calm for calm.”
