Agencies-Gaza post
Why IOF may want ceasefire, why is it not easy to achieve??
Three days into Operation Breaking Dawn, even as Prime Minister Yair Lapid was stating that the IOF’s attack on Palestinian Islamic Jihad in Gaza would continue for “as long as necessary,” Israeli officials were privately demonstrating Sunday that they were holding connections with Egyptian mediators on a ceasefire.
Israel’s willingness to end the battle is understandable. Targeted places on Friday and Saturday killed two of the Iran-sponsored terror group’s most dangerous leaders. Many members of a cell that intended to fire anti-tank rockets at soldiers or civilians across the Gaza border were also killed. Shell stores, rocket launchers, and other Islamic Jihad support have been bombed.
The continuously boosted Iron Dome missile defense system how untenable Israel’s reality would have been without it having intercepted almost all of the hundreds of missiles that were headed for populated regions. Israelis in the firing line across much of the south and into major Israel have been reliably following Homefront Command instructions to run for reinforced rooms and shelters, preventing loss of life.
One or more errant strike on Gaza, with major Palestinian civilian deaths, would drain the rather solid diplomatic support Israel is obtaining from many of its allies, led by the US, who were formulated ahead of time for Israel’s resort to force and given the reasons for it. A “successful” missile attack, with major Israeli civilian casualties, would prompt growing demands at home for a deeper operation against Gaza’s leaders.
According to Israeli media, whenever this round of battle finishes, as former head of IOF Military Intelligence Amos Yadlin outlined on Saturday night, those many Israelis living near Gaza who stayed days under semi-lockdown last week as Islamic Jihad prepared to fight, and the IOF, it turned out, was finalizing its plans to preempt “will be left feeling bitter” that Islamic Jihad, not to mention Hamas, will stay to pose almost as potent a threat after the operation as before.
“But most of the [IOF] achievements are already behind us,” asserted Yadlin. While Israel should not be seeking a ceasefire, he added, it should certainly be ready for one.
