The media and politicians in Israel may be focused on a plan to resolve the illegal labor migrant crisis, but Israel's main challenge remains on the Gaza Strip border.
The success Hamas has had in restoring the international community's interest in the Palestinian issue following last Friday's mass march on the border was mostly due to the violent riots that erupted in which 17 people were killed, 10 of them known terrorists, and 1,400 others were wounded.
This public relations success, which followed a prolonged period when the Palestinian cause was sidelined on the global agenda, has revitalized Hamas and its operatives, further increasing the volatile potential of the next few months. By the looks of things, the recent tensions on the southern border could easily escalate into a full-fledged conflict between Israel and Hamas.
Before the Match 30 protest, Hamas was at the lowest point in its history. The Gaza Strip is in a dire state and is struggling with an energy crisis, rising unemployment rates and growing frustration among its 2 million residents, which at this point is directed at Israel and the Palestinian Authority, but may also pose a future threat to Hamas.
Add to that the pressure caused by Hamas' shaky relations with Egypt, the decline in donations from Sunni countries, and the deadlocked reconciliation talks with the Palestinian Authority, and Gaza's rulers are in the midst of a significant crisis.
The obvious solution to Hamas' difficulties would be for the terrorist group to provoke a fresh round of hostilities with Israel. That was its preferred course of action in 2014, but the blows it suffered during Operation Protective Edge and especially the fear that after another conflict Gaza would be left in even greater ruins have prompted Hamas to exercise restraint and avoid reckless military action.
However, we must not take this to mean that Hamas is not ready for another war. On the contrary. Hamas has been preparing for the next conflict for several years now and even more intensively in recent weeks. Still, as things stand, it seems to prefer biding its time.
The border demonstrations seem to have solved Hamas' dilemma. What began as semi-spontaneous protests following U.S. President Donald Trump's recognition of Jerusalem as Israel's capital in December and his decision to relocate the U.S. Embassy from Tel Aviv has become an institutionalized endeavor. Every Friday, Hamas urges protesters, including many of its operatives, to amass at the border and clash with Israeli soldiers. Some Fridays see more violent demonstrations than others, but until last week it was a local affair between the IDF and Hamas.
In a sense, last week Hamas was able to breach the decade-old blockade on the Gaza Strip. Not physically, as the IDF did not allow the protesters to compromise the security fence or breach Israeli territory, but psychologically.
The tens of thousands of Palestinians who gathered at the fence received extensive media coverage and the high number of casualties made headlines and snagged global attention. After a long period in which the international community and Arab world's view of the Palestinian issue ranged between uninterest and boredom, the Palestinians once again found themselves relevant, and not because of Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas' actions, but because of Hamas' military leader Yahya Sinwar's strategy.
This success is driving Hamas to continue. As far as the terrorist group is concerned, it has found the formula to keep the world interested: high-profile, semi-civilian demonstrations that make headlines and hold the international community's attention, coupled with Hamas keeping significant Israeli military deployment pinned near the border.
This is an unexpected boon for Hamas, which has effectively dragged the IDF into a situation it is uncomfortable with. The Israeli military has found itself forced to deal with civilians – a campaign where public opinion automatically sways against armed forces – rather than mounting a strategic and tactical campaign in which the Israeli Air Force, Military Intelligence and precision weapons give it a clear advantage.
Over the past week, Hamas tried to maintain this momentum, but only a small number of protesters heeded the call to demonstrate near the border. This means little, as the hardships of life in Gaza make it difficult to maintain such fervor on a daily basis.
The next test will be this coming Friday, after the traditional prayers end, and even more so on April 17, when the Palestinians mark Prisoners' Day, and on May 15, when they mark Nakba ("catastrophe") Day, which commemorates the displacement of Palestinian refugees during Israel's War of Independence. These will be followed by the holy month of Ramadan, and throughout this entire period, violent protests on the border may prove to be Gazans' new favorite pastime.
A slippery slope
This is bound to cause Israel a serious headache. Last Friday's events were lauded by defense officials as an operational success – residents of the communities near the border were able to celebrate their Passover Seders peacefully and no Palestinians infiltrated the security fence – but it is doubtful that the IDF wants to be dragged into daily confrontations with Palestinian civilians on the border. Gaza is not the West Bank towns of Bil'in or Naalin, where Palestinians often demonstrate near the security fence, and the potential threats in Gaza are completely different.
From an operational standpoint, this means the IDF will have to maintain extensive troop deployments on the Israel-Gaza border at the expense of other sectors and of training. This is necessary not only to contain the demonstrations and prevent them from hindering the rapidly progressing construction of the underground countertunnel barrier on the Israeli side of the fence, but also mainly to prevent the volatile situation on the southern border from rapidly escalating, as that could ignite tensions across Judea and Samaria and perhaps even on the northern border.
In the meantime, Israel is handling the situation only militarily, as public diplomacy has proved sluggish with respect to providing a response to the new challenge emerging from Gaza. This was reflected this week in the belligerent statements from world leaders and in the media coverage that, after a long period of time, was poignantly anti-Israel.
This could be dismissed with the usual "the world hates us" attitude or we could decide to fight it and explain that these are not spontaneous civilian protests but events cunningly orchestrated by Hamas, which has embedded dozens of operatives in the crowd with the aim of carrying out terrorist attacks and provoking the IDF. Hamas hopes for a higher number of civilian casualties, which would cast the IDF and Israel in a negative light and increase international support for the Palestinians.
The dissonance between the IDF's tactical success and Israel's strategic failure is liable to increase as the demonstrations intensify and the number of casualties increases. No one but Israel cares how many of those killed were terrorists. The international community is keeping score of the wounded and dead, and the images from the border dominate the news.
This requires Israel to rethink how best to handle the situation in order to curb the Palestinian momentum and prevent events from turning into something that would prompt the international community to force Israel into agreeing to a solution not in its favor.
The problem is that Israel systematically avoids making strategic decisions, and in any case, such processes require time that Israel may not have, given that the situation in Gaza could spiral out of control at any moment.
Strategically, Hamas still has no interest in provoking a fresh round of violence, but it is doubtful that its leaders understand how dangerously close one is. Had the terrorists it sent last week to operate under the auspices of the protest succeeded in killing Israeli soldiers, the IDF would have mounted a forceful response and a conflagration in Gaza would have been unavoidable.
This flare-up could happen on Friday, or on Prisoners' Day, or at any other moment. Israel can take a small measure of comfort in the fact that Hamas has been reining in its operatives despite – and perhaps because of – the number of casualties last week, and it has not fired rockets at Israel.
However, Hamas' sense of self-restraint is hardly reliable. The Gaza Strip is a powder keg and there is no shortage of matches there. All it would take is the smallest of sparks to ignite the entire sector.
Israel's mission is to prevent this so as to enable the completion of the countertunnel barrier and peaceful 70th Independence Day celebrations. It is clear to Israeli decisionmakers that no good will come from further escalation and another round of fighting in Gaza, as in the absence of a strategic plan, Hamas and Israel will find themselves right back where they started.
