On Thursday (24/7/14) the Israeli Defence Force (IDF) uncovered 31 Hamas tunnels into Israel and struck more then 90 targets on the ground in Gaza. There is evidence that this approach is working with only 62 rockets being fired into Israel down from a high of 115 rockets a day as Israeli operations destroy rockets and launching sites.
According to the Hamas run Gaza Health Authority the death toll within Gaza has risen to 805 with exactly 100 deaths being added since Wednesday. However as Gazan authorities do not distinguish between civilians and combatants it is impossible to give a more accurate breakdown of the death toll. The IDF though are reporting killing 40 combatants in the past 24 hours. They are also beginning to report the death of an IDF soldier
The big event of the day though was the killing of 15 people at a United Nations Relief Works Agency (UNRWA) school in the town of Beit Hanoun on the north-east edge of Gaza that was being used as a civilian shelter. Despite this incident making headline news across the World and seemingly everyone having an opinion facts of exactly what happened are still very hard to come by. However based on information provided the IDF along with footage of the scene and the aftermath provided by the Hamas run Al-Asqa TV station what appears to have happened is as follows;
Located just 6 miles (9.6km) from the southern Israeli town of Sderot Beit Hanoun has long be used a primary launching site for rockets into Israel. As a result it has been a primary target of the IDF's operation. In the past several days this has led to some very intense fighting in the area which caused local civilians to seek shelter in the UNRWA school that had been converted into a temporary shelter. Since Tuesday (22/7/14) the UNRWA had been co-ordinating with the IDF to make sure they were aware of the location of the shelter and to seek their help in evacuating its residents.
On Thursday morning the IDF dispatched a unit to assist with that evacuation. Unfortunately as they were approaching the area they came under fire from - presumably - Hamas fighters who were operating from within less then a mile of the school. Being fired upon with both rockets and mortar bombs the IDF contacted the UNWRA to tell them that the evacuation was being cancelled before returning fire. The IDF most certainly used tank shells against the Hamas position but it is currently unable to confirm or deny whether it also used mortar fire. Rather then being the result of something suspicious this more likely simply reflects that the IDF commander on the ground is still out in the field and therefore has been unable to file a full after action report.
Unfortunately the message that the evacuation had been cancelled does not appear to have filtered down to those on the ground at the UNRWA shelter who continued to gather people in an open air courtyard/playground. During the exchange of fire between Hamas and the IDF a single mortar bomb fell into that courtyard creating the scenes of bloody destruction that you've all seen in your newspapers and on your TV's. As Hamas and the IDF both use the same type of mortar and mortar bombs fall almost directly vertically it is highly unlikely that we will ever be able to know for sure which side fired the individual round. Mortars of this type are notoriously less accurate then artillery fire which as I've explained before is not particularly accurate itself.
This of course directly contradicts the initial statements made by UNRWA spokesman Chris Gunness who accused the IDF of deliberately attacking the school/shelter with multiple artillery rounds effectively accusing the IDF or a war crime. Gunness did though confirm that the IDF had informed UNRWA that the evacuation had been cancelled.
I honestly think that this is one of those fog of war incidents where neither side has done anything particularly wrong but sadly a number of innocent civilians have been killed in the process. If you are looking for a more sinister explanation - as people in this type of conflict are prone to do - on Tuesday UNRWA discovered that Hamas had been using another school in Gaza to store weapons including rockets. This is the second time that this has happened. Early on Thursday it was confirmed that the UNRWA had simply handed these weapons back to Hamas. As such it is possible that Hamas deliberately targeted the shelter with a mortar to make it look as though the IDF had attacked the shelter to punish UNRWA for helping Hamas re-arm. This is a tactic that has become common in Syria where the insurgents - whose mere presence on the battlefield is a war crime - will routinely carry out massacres in the hope of blaming them on Syrian government forces.
Whatever the truth of the situation Hamas propaganda backed by the UNRWA's statements provoked a night of violent rioting in the West Bank in which a minimum of 10,000 Palestinians attempted to force their way through the Qalandiya checkpoint into Jerusalem. Both sides used live fire during the confrontation resulting in the deaths of at least 2 Palestinians.
In terms to negotiations to bring about an end to the fighting US Secretary of State John Kerry has now left the region following several days of near farcical talks. The main problem is that the US can't talk to Hamas and Hamas refuse to talk to the Egyptians. As a result Turkey has emerged as the most likely power broker. The problem is that over the past year or so Turkish Prime Minister Erdogan has revealed himself as holding so very strong anti-Semitic views.
Apparently all Erdogan's domestic problems including the Gezi Park protests and the 2013 corruption scandal are all the work of "The Jews." On Wednesday (23/7/14) Ali Yerlikaya - the AKP Governor of Tekirdağ province - made a point of being photographed drinking Fanta rather then Coca Cola whilst breaking his Ramadan fast. Fanta was invented specifically to get around a ban on Coca Cola being sold to Nazi Germany.
Apart from the personalities involved the main sticking point in cease-fire negotiations is Hamas' insistence on the blockade of Gaza being lifted allowing the free flow of goods into Gaza and the free movement of Palestinians into Israel. Putting aside the question of whether the lifting of the blockade is really something that is in Hamas' best interests this is something that Israel simply cannot agree to. Through the use of attack tunnels into Israel and the resumption of the use of suicide bombers Hamas has made it quite clear that it has returned to the terrorist tactics of the intifada that ended in 2005.
As such any agreement that allows Hamas fighters unfettered access into Israel is not a ceasefire but simply an attempt to force through a change in tactics that will allow Hamas to intensify its war against Israeli civilians. Clearly Hamas and Turkey have got to thinking that the peculiar standards that have been applied to the Syria conflict will now also be applied to this conflict.
11:55 on 25/7/14 (UK date).
Edited at around 19:00 on 25/7/14 (UK date) to add;
After delaying for more then six hours US Secretary of State John Kerry has finally given a press conference in Cairo, Egypt admitting that his attempts to broker a 7 day ceasefire to coincide with Eid have failed. He will now travel onto Paris, France where he was planning to triumphantly show off the ceasefire he had brokered.
Ultimately a ceasefire was not agreed because the Israelis rejected it. However the main reason that it failed is that the proposal wasn't a particularly good one. To counter rather valid suspicions that Hamas is only seeking a ceasefire because it is losing on the battlefield and needs time to reorganise its forces the plan allowed for the IDF to remain in Gaza to demolish Hamas' tunnel network. The chances of all the militant groups in Gaza not opening fire on the IDF during this time are pretty much nil. So even if a ceasefire had been agreed I'm pretty sure that tomorrow I would be telling you how that ceasefire had failed.
The other significant problem is that ceasefire has not been negotiated by the US. Instead it has primarily been negotiated by the Qataris who declined to appear at the press conference. Essentially their big plan was to get Hamas to give up on its key demands in return for a large cash payment from Qatar. As with their support for the insurgency in Syria the Qataris have their own geo-political reasons for making this offer that have absolutely nothing to do with a concern for civilians lives - Muslim or otherwise.
As a result at this point I'm inclined to say that the Israelis seem more committed to a Palestinian state then the Palestinians.
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