At 05:00 (08:00 local) on Tuesday (5/8/14) both Israel and Hamas began a 72 hour cease-fire. At around 18:00 (21:00 local) on Thursday (7/8/14) a Hamas spokesman gave a televised address in which he announced that Hamas would resume military action when the cease-fire ended at 05:00 (08:00 local) on Friday (8/8/14) unless all of Hamas' demands were met.
As the only three demands that Israel have not agreed to are the opening of an airport in Gaza, the opening of a seaport in Gaza and the free movement of Gazans into Israel this was essentially Hamas announcing that it was going to resume attacks on Israel. After all as Hamas has spent the last two months doing everything in its power to attack Israel and kill Israelis there is no way on earth Israel is going to agree to make it easier for Hamas to re-arm and intensify its attacks.
As it turns out Islamic Jihad actually fired first launching mortars into Israel at around 01:00 (04:00 local) on Friday morning breaking the cease-fire by around 4 hours. However as soon as the cease-fire expired Hamas also resumed rocket fire with 76 rockets being fired into Israel since the cease-fire expired. Of those 20% have fallen short and landed in Gaza. Each one of those rockets represents what is termed an indiscriminate, area weapon. As such their use against civilian areas in Israel each constitutes an individual war crime. Under the self-defence principle of meeting force with equal force each rocket entitles Israel to use indiscriminate, area weapons such as artillery against civilian areas in Gaza without being accused of committing war crimes.
So far Israel has held back from exercising that right and has limited its response to guided air-power striking 70 targets in Gaza since the end of the cease-fire. The overwhelming majority of these targets have been rocket launch sites. Unlike Qassam rockets that can be launched from pretty anywhere in a matter of moments the more advanced rockets that Hamas have been using in this conflict need specialised launch sites which are essentially mini-missile silos which can take several days to set up. So once these launch sites have been identified by having rockets fired from them the Israeli Defence Force (IDF) move in quickly to destroy them in order to prevent them being used in future attacks.
Israel has also been carrying out limited strikes against senior Hamas personnel and weapons stores The most high profile of these has probably been the overnight attack on the al-Qassam Mosque in which senior Hamas official Moaaz Zaid was killed. Although I cannot account for every single air-strike as far as I can tell when attacking homes and other civilians buildings the IDF have resumed the practise of issuing a telephone warning followed by a dummy 'roof knock' strike on the building in order to allow civilians to evacuate. Of course by providing these warnings the IDF are also making it a lot easier for their intended targets to escape. As a result there is a debate as to whether Israel is prepared to simply destroy Hamas militants homes rather then killing civilians in an attempt to kill them. Destroying military officials homes like this is most certainly allowed under the rules of war and to me at least it seems highly preferable to killing civilians even if it does mean that it is likely to extend the conflict.
In terms of peace talks Hamas' decision to resume attacks left the Israeli delegation with little choice other then to leave Egypt in protest. However the Palestinian delegation remain in Egypt and the Israeli delegation have indicated to the mediators that they could be prepared to return if the circumstances permit. I am actually quite comfortable with this situation provided the Palestinian delegation is prepared to make progress. After all it is impossible to argue that it is anything other then Hamas' inflexibility that is providing the main sticking point at this time.
16:05 on 9/8/14 (UK date).
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