Depending where you are in the World the past 24 hours has seen the start of the Eid festival. The part of me that watches too much Family Guy really wants to describe this as 'Jewish Christmas.' However that is entirely because it is neither a Jewish nor a Christian festival. Instead it is a Muslim holiday marking the end of the fasting month of Ramadan. In practical terms this means that people sit around at home eating too much, watching too much TV and generally arguing with their relatives.
Added to that the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) have changed their rules of engagement (RoE) to take up a defensive posture. This means that they will only fire when fired upon and air-support and artillery fire is to be used extremely sparingly and only when under attack by heavy weapons.
The combination of these two things means that even in Palestine no-one has really been in the mood to do too much fighting. It has not though stopped the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) throwing in their two cents. At 04:00 (00:00 New York/07:00 Israel/Palestine) they unanimously endorsed a statement on the conflict that can be read here; http://australia-unsc.gov.au/2014/07/security-council-presidential-statement-situation-in-the-middle-east/
Apart from commending US Secretary of State John Kerry for his rather bizarre visit to the region over the past week it called on all parties to sign up to the Egyptian initiative. The full 165 words of that initiative can be read here; http://www.jpost.com/Defense/Text-of-Israel-Hamas-cease-fire-agreement#
This is of course the cease-fire that officially brought an end to the last Gaza war in 2012 which was known as Pillars of Defence. Unlike the current operation in Gaza which is very much a war of necessity for Israel Pillars of Defence was much more of cynical war of choice. Following the deterioration in the security situations in both Egypt and Libya in 2011 Israel watched as thousands on military grade missiles were looted from Libya and smuggled through Egypt into Gaza. So Israel engineered a confrontation with Hamas in order to give them a pretext to go in and destroy some of those missiles using an air campaign. Such was the level of planning behind the Israeli operation they even timed it to coincide with pop-star Rihanna's "777 Tour" in the hope that people like me would be too busy to notice.
Throughout Pillars of Defence Egypt's then President Morsi who represented Hamas' parent organisation the Muslim Brotherhood made a constant nuisance out of himself calling endless press conferences and arranging meetings with diplomats from around the globe. So when Israel had achieved its objectives and was bringing the operation to an end it gave Morsi the Egyptian initiative as a little scrap of paper that he could wave around to make himself feel important. The fact that Morsi seemed more intent on doing this then his job of being President of Egypt was a major contributing factor in why the people of Egypt rose up 7 months later to kick him out of office.
Apart from the fact that it is so short and so scant on detail it would barely qualify as a footnote within a proper peace proposal the main problem with the Egyptian initiative is that it gives parity to Israel and Hamas. While I personally don't have a problem with that it is hugely offensive to the Israelis who consider their democratically elected, civilian government superior to Hamas. As such by endorsing this document both the US and the UNSC seem to be trying to provoke and cause offence to Israel.
The other main problem is that completely disregards Israel's legitimate security concerns. For example it demands that Israel throws open all the border crossings and stops restricting the free movement of Gaza residents (into Israel). However it does not require that Hamas disarms, refrains from offensive operations or even acknowledge Israelis right to live free from the fear of terrorist attack.
Within an hour of the UNSC endorsing the Egypt initiative Hamas fired a barrage of rockets into southern Israel either in defiance or celebration. In keeping with their RoE the IDF responded by shelling the rocket launch site in Beit Lahia.
Despite this exchange of fire an uneasy quiet continued throughout the day until around 15:00 (18:00 local) when reports started to come in on explosions at the Al-Shifa hospital and the near-by Al-Shati refugee camp in eastern Gaza City. Although details are yet to be confirmed it appears that at least 8 children and 2 adults were killed.
What Hamas claim is that both the hospital and the refugee camp were targeted by the IDF in what is already been dubbed an "Eid massacre." This seems unlikely because there were no IDF units in the area at the time as they've only really been targeting the Shejayia district in western Gaza City. This means that if the IDF did carry out the attack it would have had to have been a missile strike from either a fighter jet or drone. Although they have been working hard to improve my experience of previous conflicts means that I cannot say that the IDF will not purposely target civilians. However that experience also tells me that the IDF only do it when they think they can get away with it by blaming errant artillery or mortar fire or types of cluster weapon. You simply cannot do that with a Hellfire-type missile because packed with USD30,000 of laser-guided targeting systems Hellfire-type missiles do not miss and can actually be destroyed remotely if those targeting systems fail.
What Israel claim is that Islamic Jihad were firing rockets into Israel and two of these missiles failed and landed on the hospital and the refugee camp by accident. This seems much more likely because unidentified militants were firing rockets from the area at the time and roughly 10% (200 out of 2000) of the rockets/mortars fired into Israel in this particular conflict have failed and fallen short in Gaza often killing an wounding civilians. This is particularly true of the weapons fired by Islamic Jihad because being a much smaller group then Hamas they have to rely on lower quality and often home made weapons. All the militant groups in Gaza also have a tendency to paint their Qassam-type rockets in sort of team colours so the Israelis know exactly who is shooting at them. It is perhaps telling then that foreign journalists were banned by Hamas from both al-Shifa and al-Shata until the wreckage of the explosive devices had been cleared away.
While news of the explosions at al-Shifa and al-Shata was coming in a barrage of mortars was fired into Southern Israel killing 4 IDF soldiers and injuring a number of civilians. Along with a 5th soldier who was killed by sniper fire inside Gaza this brings the total of Israeli soldiers killed in battle to 48. On both of these occasions the IDF returned fire in accordance with their RoE.
At around 17:00 (20:00 local) five militants used a tunnel to emerge from Gaza within Southern Israel near Nahal Oz. They were intercepted by IDF soldiers who confirmed that they killed 1 fighter. Although details are still classified it is believed that the other 4 then fled back down the tunnel but the area is continuing to be searched just in case.
Shortly afterwards residents in Beit Hanoun, Beit Lahia and Jabalia were instructed to seek shelter in central Gaza City. This was followed by Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu addressing the nation to tell it to prepare for a long fight. As such it seems likely Israel is going to expand its current low intensity operations until 100% of Hamas' offensive tunnels and ideally 95-100% of its advanced rockets are destroyed. That is after all Israel's only choice at this point.
20:35 on 28/7/14 (UK date).
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