If Hamas stops causing deaths of its own civilians it will be seen as a failure, PR dries up unless it's killing, "sees little choice." Qatar aids Hamas says Israel.
8/19/14, "Rockets From Gaza and Israeli Response Break Cease-Fire," NY Times,
The
prospect of a negotiated and lasting peace had seemed distant from the
start of the Cairo talks as each side set bottom-line goals that the
other flatly rejected.
After
weeks of intermittent negotiations and fighting, analysts said that
Israel’s leadership might well have considered it preferable to let the
conflict continue at a low simmer rather than give concessions that
could be seen as rewarding militants who fired about 3,000 rockets into
Israel, penetrated its territory through tunnels, and killed 64 soldiers
over a month of bloody battle....
Buoyed
in the Palestinian public for having achieved more militarily than in
previous violent exchanges with Israel, Hamas is nonetheless under
extreme pressure to deliver a tangible change to daily life in Gaza.
During the war, the rising death toll put pressure on Israel. But during
the cease-fire Hamas finds itself with diminished leverage, and so has
resorted to threatening and provoking Israel.
It sent a flurry of rockets that reached Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, and on Monday the group’s armed wing even invited a Reuters crew
inside a tunnel like the ones through which it repeatedly attacked
Israeli soldiers last month, showing off masked gunmen talking tough....
The
Palestinian delegation had called for a complete lifting of what it
calls Israel’s siege on Gaza, the reopening of border crossings into
Egypt and Israel and the building of a seaport and revival of an old
airport in the crowded coastal territory. Israel demanded the
demilitarization of Gaza with strict international controls to prevent
the rebuilding of tunnels its troops just destroyed.
As
the temporary halt in hostilities was extended — from an original 72
hours last week, for five more days and then an additional 24 hours that
was supposed to last until midnight Tuesday — people involved in the
talks said these maximalist demands had been dropped, or at least
postponed.
The
focus was instead on more incremental changes in Israeli rules on
imports and exports and on an internationally monitored rehabilitation
of Gaza. For the Palestinians, it was too little and too late....
Before
the cease-fire broke down Tuesday evening, another Hamas spokesman,
Fawzi Barhoum, warned that if Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of
Israel “does not understand the message and the demands of Gaza through
the political language of negotiations in Cairo, we know very well the
way that will oblige him to understand it.”
Hamas
denied responsibility for the first round of rockets, fired before 4
p.m. local time. But by 11 p.m., it claimed credit for firing two toward
Tel Aviv and two more toward Ben-Gurion International Airport, among
others. The Israeli military said about 50 fell before midnight,
including one on open ground in Jerusalem.
Israel
responded with more than 25 airstrikes in Gaza, the military said, but
it declined to specify targets. Witnesses said Israeli F-16 warplanes
dropped at least four bombs on a Gaza City house around 9:30 p.m.; the
Gaza-based Health Ministry said the strikes killed a man, a woman and a
child, and injured 45 others....
It
was unclear on Tuesday night whether the renewed exchange would lead to
an escalation, given the exhaustion of the publics on both sides.
Israel, which has been condemned by world leaders for the high number of
civilian casualties, may be granted some leeway to respond to fire, but
that would be likely to disappear if the death toll began to rise
quickly. While Hamas may see little choice but to continue launching
rockets, analysts said the Palestinians need a deal more than Israel
does.
Azzam
al-Ahmed, the head of the Palestinian negotiating team and an ally of
President Mahmoud Abbas of the Palestinian Authority, said in a
late-night news conference that his delegation would also leave Cairo
but that he did “not consider that we have withdrawn from the
negotiations.” He blamed Israel for the failed talks, saying it did not
respond to the Hamas demands.
Israelis
has blamed Khaled Mashal, the exiled political leader of Hamas, and his
Qatari sponsors for setting a hard line and thwarting progress....
“Israel
prefers to end the war without committing itself to lifting the siege
in writing,” said Mukhaimer Abusaada, a political scientist at Al-Azhar
University in Gaza City. Accusing Israel of exploiting the rocket fire
as “an excuse to sabotage the talks,” he added, “A unilateral decision
by Israel to gradually lift the siege will deprive Hamas of a sense of
victory after this destructive war.” Kobi
Michael, a former head of the Palestinian desk at Israel’s Ministry of
Strategic Affairs, said Israel’s move “weakens Hamas — it kills it
softly in front of its people.”
“Israel
prefers a de facto cease-fire and reconstruction in a controlled manner
in coordination with the Egyptians,” said Mr. Michael, now at the
Institute for National Security Studies in Tel Aviv. “If Hamas is doomed
to be a marginal player, it would prefer to be one without an agreement
and not be marginal in an agreement.’
But
Sami Abdel Shafi, a Gaza-based consultant and political commentator,
said Israel’s unwillingness to make concessions, and the Palestinian
leaders’ lack of leverage to force them, left the people of Gaza in
“potentially explosive” despair.
“The
only place to look, and the appropriate place to look, is toward the
international community and the United Nations,” he said. “They have to
seriously step up to the plate and defuse a situations they will be seen
as responsible for if they don’t come forward and push the Israeli
government to recognize that people cannot be treated this way.”"
"Fares Akram contributed reporting from Gaza, and Merna Thomas from Cairo." via Pamela Geller
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