The truce under severe test

Jul 19th 2005
From The Economist Global Agenda

With Israeli troops massing on Gaza’s border and Palestinian militants continuing to fire rockets, their fragile ceasefire has never looked more shaky. But it can still be rescued

THE level of trust was never very high, but now it seems to have broken down completely. The tahdiya or “lull” observed by Palestinian militant factions since Ariel Sharon and Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen), the Israeli and Palestinian leaders, met at Sharm el-Sheikh in February, was only partial: there continued to be deaths on both sides, though at a much lower rate than during the five-year-long intifada. Yet after each clash, both Israeli troops and Palestinian militants had avoided an escalation.

Not this time. After a suicide-bombing in the Israeli town of Netanya last week, organised by Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ), which killed five people plus the bomber, Israeli forces retaliated by arresting several PIJ militants in the West Bank and killing one. That provoked a volley of rocket attacks from the Gaza strip into Israel, one of which killed an Israeli woman. Responsibility was claimed both by Hamas, the main Islamist militant faction in the Palestinian territories, and the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, who are linked to Mr Abbas’s Fatah party, which runs the Palestinian Authority (PA).

On Friday, Israel launched a series of “targeted assassinations” of Hamas militants said to be either planning future attacks or involved in firing rockets. It had suspended that tactic after the February summit between the Israeli and Palestinian leaders and the return to it is a clear signal that Israel’s confidence in the tahdiya has vanished. That in turn provoked a further barrage of rockets out of Gaza. On Sunday, as Israeli troops and tanks massed on the border with Gaza, Israel told Mr Abbas there would be a massive incursion into the strip unless he brought things under control within 24 hours.

To try to save the truce, Mr Abbas has sent the PA's police to intercept the Palestinian militants in Gaza and stop them firing rockets at the Israelis. But this has only provoked fighting between the police and militants. On Monday, fewer rockets were fired and things seemed to be quietening down. However, on Tuesday July 19th—after two Hamas buildings and one of the group's vehicles had been set alight—fresh gunfights broke out between Mr Abbas's police and the militants. In some of the worst internecine fighting in years, two Palestinians died and more than 30 were hospitalised in the Gaza clashes.

In the West Bank on Tuesday, Israeli forces continued their attack on Palestinian militant leaders, shooting two brothers—reportedly local leaders of PIJ and/or Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigade—near Jenin. Israel told Reuters news agency that the men were “a ticking bomb”, actively preparing a suicide-attack; Mr Abbas's prime minister, Ahmed Qurie, condemned their killing as “criminal”.

The big worry now is that the renewed violence might disrupt Israel’s planned withdrawal of troops and Jewish settlers from Gaza (occupied by Israel, along with the West Bank and other areas, since a 1967 war), which is due in a matter of weeks, in mid-August. The pull-out is fiercely opposed by settlers’ groups: on Monday, 20,000 Israeli police and soldiers were deployed to stop them and their supporters defying a ban and marching across the border from Israel to Gaza’s largest settlement block. On Tuesday, as Mr Abbas's police were battling Palestinian militants, Mr Sharon's cops were scuffling with radical Israeli protesters, who vowed they would not be stopped from crossing into Gaza.

If Israel’s security forces find themselves struggling to contain Israeli anti-withdrawal protesters on the one hand, while conducting a big operation to stop Palestinian rocket attacks and suicide-bombings on the other, they might find it impossible to evacuate the Gaza settlers in safety.

The important question is why Hamas has now gotten involved. Having originally gained support among Palestinians through a mixture of social programmes and terrorist attacks on Israel, Hamas has been trying to sell itself as a real political alternative to Fatah. It did well in municipal elections earlier this year and expected similar results in legislative elections, due this month until the PA postponed them. Keenly aware that Palestinians are tired of the conflict, it has striven harder than other factions to stick to the ceasefire—indeed, on Sunday it said it would continue to hold to it, though it would still “respond” to Israeli violence. PIJ has been more provocative—some think because it believes that doing so will win it popular support, others because it is being sponsored by an outside agent interested in wrecking any peace process, such as Iran.

But Hamas’s patience has been wearing thin—not just with Israel, but with the PA. The tahdiya began as a bargain struck between Mr Abbas and 13 militant factions. They promised not to launch attacks without provocation. He promised to root out corruption in the PA (mostly personified by hangers-on from the era of the late Yasser Arafat), hold elections and keep his security forces off the militants’ backs. Yet many of the chief Arafat cronies have stayed. The legislative elections, and the third and biggest round of municipal elections, have been postponed because of Fatah infighting about how to choose candidates. And the PA security forces—reluctantly, with much prodding from Israel—have been making occasional forays against the militants.

In this they have been doubly hampered: both because Israel has kept military control over most of the West Bank (meaning that the PA forces cannot operate there) and has obstructed the supply of weapons and equipment to the PA; and because the PA does not have the people on its side. This was graphically obvious during the clashes over the last few days, when hundreds of civilians provided cover for the Hamas fighters, making it hard for the PA forces to shoot at them.

However, Hamas may now have achieved precisely what it needed: to demonstrate to all concerned that the PA is utterly ineffectual. That impression will grow stronger after the Gaza disengagement if, as seems likely, the PA security forces cannot prevent looting and land invasions of the evacuated Israeli settlements. By January, when the legislative elections are expected at last to be held, Fatah may be in such tatters that Hamas can sweep the board. Meanwhile, Egypt, which has an interest in a calm Gaza on its doorstep, has sent mediators for talks with the militants and the PA. Condoleezza Rice, the American secretary of state, is due to visit this week and is expected to counsel restraint to the Israeli side. With any luck, any further escalation can be avoided for now.

However, while Hamas is by far the most disciplined of the Palestinian factions, some of its members may not agree with continuing the tahdiya, and might launch attacks in the future, with or without the leadership’s consent. Mr Sharon will be reluctant to send troops into Gaza so soon after pulling out the settlers but if rocket attacks from Gaza on southern Israeli towns continue after the withdrawal, the domestic clamour will leave him little choice but to respond. That will drive another nail into the coffin of Mr Abbas’s authority and thus undermine hopes that the Gaza pull-out can be followed by moves towards a fuller Israeli-Palestinian peace settlement. The only winner will be Hamas.

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