Following the premature end of the last cease-fire on Tuesday (19/8/14) the conflict between Israel and militants in Gaza has settled into something of a rhythm of gradually increasing violence with rockets and mortars being fired into Israel and Israel carrying out air-strikes in response.
Friday (22/8/14) began looking as though it was going to be a relatively calm day but events quickly escalated with some 70 to 80 rockets and mortars being fired into Israel. The vast majority of these were mortars and short range rockets but there were also a substantial number of longer range rockets targeting northern and central Israel including Tel Aviv. At one point Hamas even fired a missile into Bethlehem on the West Bank although Israel intercepted it protecting Palestinians living there.
The rocket fire and in particular the mortar fire seems to have become more dangerous. For example three people were lightly injured when a mortar scored a direct hit on a Synagogue in Ashdod. One person was seriously injured when a mortar struck close to his car in Eshkol and another person was seriously injured when a rocket struck close to their car in Ashdod. The most serious incident of the day though came when a 4 year old boy was killed in Negev when his Kindergarten came under mortar fire. The source of that mortar fire was tracked back to the Jafar Ali Ibn Taleb school in the Zeitoun district of Gaza.
Although many people will be quick to point to the Palestinian children who have been killed in this conflict the death of this Israeli child highlights the brutality of Hamas' tactics. While Israel has very sophisticated ways of protecting its civilians including bomb shelters, early warning systems and the Iron Dome system every single one of the 3700+ rockets and mortars fired into Israel has been fired with the intention of killing Israeli civilians of all ages and each constitutes an individual war crime. In order to carry out its attacks on Israel Hamas hides amongst the civilian population in the hope they will act as shields protecting the militants from attack or perhaps even better will be killed and become martyrs to Israel's 'aggression.' For example the Jafar school was being used as a shelter for several thousand civilians at the time. No doubt if any of them had even been injured in an Israeli strike there would have been international uproar yet there seems to be no criticism of Hamas' use of a civilian shelter as a launching site.
Further evidence of Hamas' brutality was exposed earlier on Friday when they publicly executed 18 people outside a Mosque before and after Friday prayers. On Saturday (23/8/14) Hamas executed a further 4 people in a similar fashion. All 22 civilians were said to have been sentenced to death after being found guilty by a military court of collaborating with Israel.
While I think it was always going to happen Friday's death seems to have triggered an escalation in the Israeli Defence Force (IDF) operations. Up until now they have been focused on assassinating senior militants and destroying rocket launch sites in open areas. On Saturday Israel moved to start targeting launch sites that are located in more built up areas. Israel signalled this escalation by dropping leaflets, sending sms messages and making hundreds of telephone calls to inform the people of Gaza that this is what they were going to start doing and instructing people to evacuate from areas close to launch sites.
The most dramatic incident in this expansion of operations came when a 12 story building was destroyed in the al-Zafer district of Gaza City. Although it was home to some 48 families this building was being used by Hamas as a command centre to allow senior members to meet up and plan future attacks. As such it was a legitimate military target. However rather then simply destroying the building the IDF forewent the opportunity of killing a significant number of senior Hamas figures in favour of warning the civilian residents to evacuate. So 20 minutes before the air-strike all apartments in the building were telephoned to warn that it was going to be bombed. 10 minutes before the air-strike a dummy bomb was dropped onto the roof of the building to provide a "roof knock" to again warn the residents to evacuate because the building was definitely going to be bombed. This appears to have paid off because there have been no reported fatalities from the strike and only a dozen reported injures.
Obviously this type of compromise is hardly ideal for either the civilians in the building who have been left homeless or the IDF who have lost the opportunity to land a heavy blow against Hamas' ability to fight them. However the IDF have succeeded in destroying a command centre and the hope is that Hamas will now locate its new command centre away from a civilian area in accordance with the laws of war.
In terms of the assassination element of the operation which is perfectly legal under international law the IDF have had a number of successes. On Friday they succeeded in killing 5 militants as they were preparing to launch rockets. On Saturday the IDF struck a car in the north of the Gaza strip killing one man and injuring 10 others. The dead man is suspected of being the head of the military wing of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) although that has not been confirmed. Today the IDF confirmed that they had succeeded in killing Mohamed Al-Oul who is essentially Hamas' central banker organising funding for their operations. There are also reports of a mysterious strike against two motorbikes today.
While the IDF escalated their operations in Gaza with 60 air-strikes on Saturday versus 20 on Friday Hamas have also escalated their operations. On Friday around 80 rockets and mortars were fired. On Saturday 106 were fired and it seems that today that total has already been exceeded. This obviously includes all types of rockets but there seems to have been a slight shift in focus towards mortars. Although both rockets and mortars are unguided, dumb weapons they can be aimed and because they are fired over shorter distances mortars are slightly more accurate. As such this shift in focus could reflect an increased desire on the part of Hamas to kill Israelis in retaliation for the senior leaders they have lost over recent days. For example this morning they fired a barrage of mortars at the Erez border crossing into Israel where a large number of people were gathered in the open air. Fortunately though only three people were lightly wounded and the IDF were quickly able to destroy the mortar position.
Overnight there was also the worrying development of a mid-range, military grade Katyusha rocket being fired from Lebanon into Galilee in northern Israel lightly injuring two people. This was almost immediately proceeded by the firing of six short-range, military grade Grad rockets from Syria into the Golan Heights which is considered Israeli occupied territory. Although both incidents appear to be the work of rogue individuals they did provide a glimpse of Israel's increasingly precarious security situation that could once again see them under attack from three directions at the same time.
Finally Hamas has indicated that it intends to support the Palestinian Authority's plan to join the International Criminal Court (ICC). As with the plan for UN recognition of a Palestinian State I don't think that the Palestinians have really thought this one through because as with statehood membership of the ICC would place obligations on the Palestinians that I don't think they're yet ready to meet.
For example an ICC investigation into this current conflict is likely to conclude that through their rocket fire the Palestinians have committed in excess of 3700 war crimes. Given Hamas' charter it is even possible to argue that these constitute the crime against humanity of extermination (genocide). As a result of this behaviour it is extremely unlikely that the ICC will be able to find fault with Israel's behaviour but the Palestinians will be forced to prosecute every single one of those 3700 crimes or face being expelled from the ICC.
17:50 on 24/8/14 (UK date).
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