It is hard to downplay the severity of the terrorist infiltration of the Israel-Gaza Strip border on Tuesday. The complete security failure aside, the fact that three terrorists were able to breach the fence at a time of heightened military deployment in the Gaza sector – over the Land Day march planned for Friday – is particularly jarring.
The only bright spot in this event is that the three were apprehended before anyone was hurt. This cannot be attributed to IDF operation, but rather to the fact that the terrorists, for reasons known only to them, decided to bide their time.
One shudders to think how many opportunities they had between breaching the fence and the Tze'elim army base, near which they were apprehended, to target soldiers, civilians, motorists and communities.
The Shin Bet security agency will likely get to the bottom of their motives, but that is inconsequential. As far as the IDF is concerned, this was a grave, multisystem failure: there was no intelligence suggesting a breach was imminent, the lookouts did not spot the terrorists as they were crossing the fence, whose sensors failed to alert to military that it was disturbed, and security forces began canvassing the area only after a routine patrol noticed footprints in the sand near the border.
Overall, this was an embarrassing triumph of old-school tactics over high technology.
This was also the third incident this week that required the military to review its own operational protocols. It was preceded by a border infiltration on Saturday, in which four Palestinians vandalized military equipment and were able to flee the scene, and by a massive engagement of the Iron Dome rocket defense system, which was trigged Sunday night by errant Hamas machine-gun fire.
While the three incidents are unrelated, successive incidents of this nature at a time of heightened security alert is something the General Staff and the Southern Command, in particular, must look into.
There is no doubt that the IDF will investigate these incidents thoroughly to pinpoint and rectify any inadequacies. Still, events like these naturally breed anxiety, and precisely because it is in Israel's interest to get through Friday's march without a security escalation, the commanders on the ground must hone and reiterate the rule of engagement so as to avoid further mishaps.
It is also safe to assume that Hamas is not oblivious to this sequence of events. Still, security assessments in Israel are adamant that Gaza's rulers have no interest in provoking an escalation at this time.
Israel must, however, make sure that Hamas is not tempted to interpret recent events as a sign of weakness or a breach in Israel's overall defenses and tries to mark tactical achievements.
