An outburst of Hamas rocket attacks and Israeli airstrikes has no end in sight, as Israeli officials are blaming Iran for the conflagration and vowing to dominate the security landscape.
“Israel is not preparing for a ceasefire,” Israeli Defense Minister Benny Gantz said Wednesday while visiting Ashkelon, one day after the city sustained a wave of rocket attacks that were imperfectly fended off by the vaunted Iron Dome missile defense system. “There is currently no end date for the operation. Only when we achieve complete quiet can we talk about calm.”
Gantz continued a theme of Israeli anger at international criticism of the country’s role in the crisis, which erupted when a dispute over Israeli plans to evict several Palestinian families from an East Jerusalem neighborhood gave Hamas the opportunity to upstage rival Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas by targeting Israel. The defense minister rejected foreign “moral preaching,” as other Israeli officials put a spotlight on Tehran.
“After several days of disorder on the streets of Jerusalem, Hamas has fired hundreds of rockets on Israel, targeting our capital Jerusalem, and houses on the outskirts of the city have been damaged,” Israeli President Reuven Rivlin said Wednesday, per the Times of Israel. “We are also looking north, to Iran’s northern proxy in our area — Hezbollah.”
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The dueling fusillades intensified Tuesday, as Hamas and Islamic Jihad launched hundreds of rockets in an apparent attempt to beat Israel’s missile defense system through sheer dint of numbers.
Israeli officials expect more rocket attacks following the killing of four Hamas commanders and 10 “other operatives from Hamas’s weapons production and research and development department” in operations earlier Wednesday.
“Hamas’s stamina is running out, but this is an organization with stamina,” Israeli Defense Forces spokesman Hidai Zilberman said. “It won’t run out in 24 hours.”
International observers fear the conflict will expand rather than taper.
“We’re escalating towards a full scale war,” Tor Wennesland, the United Nations special coordinator for the Middle East peace process, wrote Wednesday on Twitter. “Leaders on all sides have to take the responsibility of deescalation. The cost of war in Gaza is devastating & is being paid by ordinary people. UN is working w/ all sides to restore calm. Stop the violence now.”
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Gantz rebuffed such rhetoric, emphasizing that Israeli forces can outlast Hamas.
“We will not listen to moral preaching from any organization or institution regarding our right and duty to protect the citizens of Israel,” he said, according to the Times of Israel. “All means and all options are on the table.”
