Today's Situation

Operation Summer Rains Wednesday, June 28, 2006

Israeli officials meanwhile continue to point the finger of blame at Khaled Mish’al, based in Damascus, where there are reports that Syrian President Bashar Assad has even been trying to score some points with the Americans by trying to coax Mish’al into giving the order to the Izzadin el Qassam to give up the kidnapped soldier.

Mish’al was dubbed a war criminal today by Shimon Peres, while Justice Minister Haim Ramon said Mish’al is a target for assassination. The Hamas secretary general, who sent the Palestinian guerrilla crew into action against the Kibbutz Kerem Shalom army post where the soldier was grabbed, is said to be due in Egypt tomorrow for talks with intelligence chief Omar Suleiman about returning the soldier.

Although Israel keeps reiterating it will not negotiate for the release of the soldier, it has negotiated in the past for the release of soldiers, both dead and alive as well as for Israeli citizens who were held by groups Israel considers terrorist. No Entebbe-like rescue is possible without very precise information about where the soldier is being held.

There is no rain in summer in this part of the world, and even if there is an occasional drizzle, it dries up immediately upon hitting the ground. One can only wonder what the IDF was thinking when it gave the code name Summer Rains to the operation. So far, the Israeli move into southern Gaza has been focused, says the military, on preventing the soldier’s captors from moving him into Sinai, and perhaps beyond. There is shelling of the no-man’s land between the Egyptian and Gazan border, and troops have taken over the Dahaniyeh airport, which was long ago destroyed by Israeli planes, while air force planes have bombed out bridges linking the southern part of Gaza to the northern part. Israeli navy ships are close to the coastline, preventing Palestinians from using the beach as a path from south to north. Altogether, three divisions of Golani and Givati infantry, armor and engineering corps are in action. The air force is making sonic booms and electricity in parts of Gaza has been cut off by a bomb run on a transformer in southern Gaza. No casualties have been reported on either side. But hundreds of Palestinians were streaming out of the eastern and southern flanks of Rafah, heading for the beaches. Palestinian officials keep calling for dialogue with Israel to discuss ways to resolve the crisis and restore a ceasefire, while condemning the operation.

A very tired-sounding Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, speaking at an arts prize ceremony, insisted that Israel has no intention of returning to Gaza, and that the military moves are only intended to free the missing soldier. He also warned more extreme measures will be taken if the soldier is not returned. He pointed out that no Palestinians were harmed so far in the operation, and he said that those responsible for any harm done to the Palestinian population would be the Palestinian Authority and ‘elements in Damascus.’

‘We have no intention of reoccupying Gaza, or to remain there. We have one main purpose, to bring Gilad home,’ he said. But the press reads the operation differently, with much talk about how the army has plans for going house to house, searching not only for the soldier but for the ‘terrorist infrastructure,’ a euphemism for suspected terrorists, their weapons, and their munitions factories, such as the workshops where the Qasam rockets are made. Israel has conducted many such operations in the past, with mixed results that don’t last very long. Proof? Last night, even as the tanks were rolling into southern Gaza, four Qassams were fired from northern Gaza.

Olmert’s problem is not only the soldier -- there is a teenage settler missing in the West Bank, where the ‘Popular Resistance Committees’ a vaguely ideological militant faction with origins in the Palestinian criminal underworld, claims to have kidnapped him. They are threatening to murder the settler youth, who went missing on Sunday night.

While the army believes it has finally convinced the political echelons that there is no distinction to be made between ‘Hamas-Gaza’ and ‘Hamas-Damascus,’ there were reports yesterday that PA Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh and PA President Mahmoud Abbas finally reached an agreement on the Prisoners’ Document, signaling a break between Haniyeh and Mish’al, who has been opposed to the Prisoners’ Document from the start, because of its implied recognition of Israel. If the Fateh deal with Hamas-Gaza is indeed done, it could lead to a Palestinian national unity government, which, with Abbas as president, would likely win just the kind of international recognition and acceptance that Israel has worked so hard to deny the Hamas government. But that is speculation, and given the fluidity of the situation, no such speculation from whatever circle, can be considered particularly informative when less is known to the press and public than is known to the inner circles of the decision makers now in Israel, Gaza, Damascus, and Cairo.

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