Word: gaza
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Even before Shalit's kidnapping, it would have been a stretch to call the atmosphere placid. For months Gaza militants have fired homemade rockets at Israeli towns, usually missing but causing some injuries and great misery, and drawing Israeli artillery barrages in response. Tensions escalated early last month after seven members of a Palestinian family died in a Gaza beach explosion, which Palestinians blamed on an errant Israeli artillery shell. (Israel denied responsibility.) That prompted Hamas leaders to renounce a 16-month-old cease-fire with Israel, giving an array of Palestinian guerrilla groups the green light to stage...
According to an Israeli military-intelligence officer, the June 25 assault on the Kerem Shalom army post was weeks in the planning. Two days before the raid, Israeli special forces kidnapped two Hamas militants in Rafah, Gaza. After interrogating the detainees, the troops alerted military commanders that an attack was imminent. "The alert didn't include the color of the underwear of the militants," says the officer. "But it was very specific." It wasn't enough. At 5:30 a.m. on June 25, six Palestinian militants emerged from a tunnel dug 10 yds. deep and stretching from a private house...
...surrounding Rafah, a teeming city of refugee camps of some 250,000 people. Three separate groups claimed responsibility for the abduction, including the military wing of Hamas, which Israel charged was acting on the directions of Khaled Mashaal, the Hamas supremo in Damascus (see box). Two days into the Gaza incursion, Olmert ordered Israeli forces to halt their advance to allow for a mediation push by Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak. On Friday, Mubarak claimed that Hamas had agreed to release Shalit, but Shalit's captors demanded the release of 1,000 Palestinian prisoners, which Israel refused. Haniya's spokesman, Ghazi...
That, in part, explains the ardor of the Israelis' effort to find Shalit. Olmert, who took office after Ariel Sharon's stroke in January, had little choice but to go into Gaza, given the Israeli public's deep identification with the army, in which most Israeli citizens have served. Lacking any counterpart on the Palestinian side that it trusts, Israel has taken a "shake the trees" approach, putting as much pressure as possible on the government and civilian population in the hopes that someone would turn on Hamas. But it's difficult to see how some Israeli tactics, particularly...
Whether Israel can succeed in bringing down Hamas is also questionable. In Gaza there are signs that the Israeli offensive has bolstered support for the beleaguered Hamas leadership. In Rafah and other Gaza cities, Hamas' resistance to the pressure is being seen as almost heroic. Even if the government falls, Hamas won't go away. Indeed, a collapse could boost the group's more militant factions, which would prefer to abandon the political process and return to armed struggle. "This will help Hamas because they have been saying they do not trust the Israelis," says Saied Zourob, an official...