Gaza: A Handy Map for Reference

I'm struggling to keep up with all the locations in the Gaza conflict, so this is proving useful (reprinted from Hyscience):

Rolling Updates on the Israeli Invasion of Gaza (6 January --- Evening)

Later Updates on the Israeli Invasion of Gaza (7 January)
Earlier Updates on the Israeli Invasion of Gaza (6 January)

2:20 a.m. That's it for a while. Thanks to all who checked in with us on a turbulent day. I hesitate to think about tomorrow....

2:15 a.m. French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner is pushing the "Mubarak plan" for "immediate cease-fire for a limited period" for humanitarian aid deliveries and Egyptian invitation to Israel and "Palestinian factions/authorities" to talks on border security and blockade.

But....Kouchner sidesteps questions of whether Europeans will deal with Hamas by repeating this is an "Egyptian proposal". Yeah, right --- that's why Nicolas Sarkozy was hopping from Jerusalem to Ramallah to Damascus to Cairo before the proposal appear.

And...Kouchner makes clear that this proposal is not alongside UN Security Council resolution but instead of one. Arab journalists (and I suspect a lot of Arab people outside Governments) are not impressed.

2 a.m. Media reporting Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas's "impassioned plea" to the UN Security Council for "an urgent intervention by the Security Council to...deter the aggressor". Hmm.... Forgive my scepticism, but in light of today's manoeuvres, some cease-fires are more equal than others: what are the political objectives of this one?

Meanwhile, Israel is scrambling to regard publicity advantage (or at least a shred of respectability) by opening a "humanitarian corridor". Israeli spokespersons are still insisting that the Jabaliya school/shelter struck by Israeli tank fire, killing 40 Gazans, was being used by Hamas militants as a base for operations.

1:30 a.m. CNN missed the significance in Rice's statement --- totally missed it. Their UN correspondent, Richard Roth, is wittering on without any reference to the Secretary of State's call for restoration of Palestinian Authority in Gaza.

1:22 a.m. RICE CALLS FOR LEGAL COUP IN GAZA


Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice begins speech at UN Security Council. She's very much on-message: basic problem is "ongoing attacks against Israel" (which followed Hamas' "illegal coup" in Gaza), so have to have "sustainable and durable" cease-fire for "true calm" and not "return to status quo ante".

Rice does throw in the concession of opening border crossings on lines of 2005 agreement, but the basics of this are control of tunnels and cut-off of arms into Gaza.

Then the killer phrase: this is to restore Palestinian Authority's "legitimate control" of Gaza.

Got it? Rice has in fact inverted history and current events: she has turned Hamas' electoral victory in Gaza in 2006 into an "illegal coup" to justify a "legal coup" by Fatah/Palestinian Authority, under cover of Israeli military operations, in January 2009.



1:10 a.m. UN Security Council meeting on possible resolution ongoing.

Al-Jazeera correspondent notes that it is serving  the interests of a number of UNSC meetings to delay acting: "It seems there is a lot of dragging of feet....Some people are wondering if there is Arab complicity here" in not pressing for immediate cease-fire

11:50 p.m. Here we go: Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, following his meeting with French President Nicolas Sarkozy, has proposed "an immediate ceasefire between Israel and the Palestinians in Gaza, to be followed by talks on long-term arrangements including an end to the blockade of Gaza".

This is only a first, tentative step. There is nothing in the proposal about security arrangements to monitor borders and the import of arms and no statement on the role Hamas would play in negotiations.

The next move will come from Tel Aviv: Sarkozy said Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert "will react soon" to the Mubarak proposal. This will probably include Israeli acceptance of talks with Egypt on border security.

11:09 p.m. French President Nicolas Sarkozy reads out Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak's role in the diplomatic play: Cairo invites Israel "without delay" to discuss Egypt-Gaza border security

11:05 p.m. Al Jazeera: Danish  Foreign Ministry has summoned the Israeli Ambassador to explain the bombing of three mobile clinics run by a Danish charity in Gaza

10:55 p.m. Forgive me for abandoning objectivity but Israeli authorities best produce some proof of their charges of Hamas using the Jabaliya UN school/shelter as a base for military operations. If they don't, their lying to cover up responsibility for civilian deaths --- which has happened in the past --- should be held up as an abandonment of their supposed "moral clarity".

The statement from the Israeli Consulate in New York:

These initial investigations indicate that Hamas used the UNRWA school to fire at IDF forces, indicating once again that Hamas is more than willing to sacrifice Gaza citizens to promote terrorism. International law recognizes that the presence of civilians in an area of conflict does not delegitimize a military target. Israel and the IDF will continue to abide by these laws and to make every effort to avoid harming civilians in conducting further operations. We urge the international community to strongly condemn Hamas’s cynical exploitation of its citizens and firing of rockets, which remain the most effective way to ensure peace for Gazans and Israelis alike.

9:50 p.m. Obama to Gazan population --- Can you wait another two weeks?

After Jan. 20 I'm going to have plenty to say about the issue.

9: 40 p.m. Israeli Defense Forces statement on shelling of Jabaliya school:

A number of mortar shells were fired at IDF forces from within the Jabalya school. In response to the incoming enemy fire, the forces returned mortar fire to the source. This is not the first time that Hamas has fired mortars and rockets from schools, in such a way deliberately using civilians as human shields in their acts of terror against Israel.

Flashback to the Israeli bombing of Qana in July 2006:

One Israeli military official raised the possibility that the building collapsed hours after the strike and that munitions had been stored in it.

9:35 p.m. Washington and European leaders are synchronising their statements: in last few hours: White House spokeswoman Dana Perino, German chancellor Angela Merkel, and British Prime Minister Gordon Brown have all called for a cease-fire based on closure of tunnels and cut-off of supply of arms to Hamas. The possible concession to Hamas is an arrangement for opening of border crossings.

9:10 p.m. A Gazan to an Israeli friend, quoted in Ha'aretz:

They're bombing us from the sea and from the east, they're bombing us from the air. When the telephone works, people tell us about relatives or friends who were killed. My wife cries all the time. At night she hugs the children and cries. It's cold and the windows are open; there's fire and smoke in open areas; at home there's no water, no electricity, no heating gas. And you [the Israelis] say there's no humanitarian crisis in Gaza. Tell me, are you normal?

8:55 p.m. White House spokeswoman Dana Perino on the Jabaliya school bombing: "We should not jump to conclusions on who is responsible."

Al Jazeera's Rob Reynolds: "The world's superpower is playing dumb on this."

8:40 p.m. 34 rockets fired into southern Israel today.

8:30 p.m. Excellent Timing Award. An Israeli blogging collective is circulating the quote from Golda Meir, Prime Minister of Israel from 1969 to 1974:

We can forgive the Arabs for killing our children. We cannot forgive them for forcing us to kill their children.

8:25 p.m. Al Jazeera is showing a guided tour of Al Shi'fa hospital by Dr Erik Fosse, one of the two Norwegian physicians who has brought the medical crisis to international prominence

8:10 p.m. Obama speaks! Says he is "deeply concerned" about the civilian casualties in Gaza....

8 p.m. Qana 2006 --- Jabiliya 2009?

Arguably it was the Israeli bombing of Qana and the killing of 28 civilians, or more specifically the international reaction to the horror of the incident,  that forced Tel Aviv to call a halt to its military operations 2 1/2 years ago. The building  response to the incident this afternoon, in which 40 Gazans died at a UN shelter/school, could be the symbolic ringing of time on Israel's current military mission. Every news organisation is headlining the bombing, and BBC Radio has just spent several hard-hitting minutes on the incident.

5:50 p.m. Nicolas Sarkozy to reporters in Lebanon, before heading to Egypt:

I'm convinced that there are solutions. We are not far from that. What is needed is simply for one of the players to start for things to go in the right direction.

5:25 p.m. More evidence that we're on the mark about a "grand design" for regime change, removing Hamas and bringing in the Palestinian Authority?

The Israeli Consulate has just distributed (and endorsed?) today's column by Bret Stephens in The Wall Street Journal:

Israel also has much to gain by avoiding a frontal assault on Gaza's urban areas in favor of the snatch-and-grab operations that have effectively suppressed Hamas's terrorist infrastructure in the West Bank. A long-term policy aimed squarely at killing or capturing Hamas's leaders, destroying arms caches and rocket factories, and cutting off supply and escape routes will not by itself destroy the group. But it can drive it out of government and cripple its ability to function as a fighting force. And this, in turn, could mean the return of Fatah, the closest thing Gaza has to a "legitimate" government.

5:15 p.m. CNN reports UN protest of Israeli attack on UN-run school/shelter but has not updated death toll.

Non-Contradiction of the Day: Hamas and Nazis

David Aaronovitch in The Times:

Ahistorical hyperbole is also the product of a kind of binary thinking, the belief that there can only be two kinds of anything, and two possible responses: there's the good and the bad; there's the victim and the murderer.

Several paragraphs later:

It has always seemed to me that the most awful question raised by the Holocaust is not about victimhood, but about being the perpetrator, and how that declension can take place. And in that context I want to ask Brian Eno, whether he has ever - in a recording break - watched Hamas TV and thought to compare it to the propaganda, much earlier, of [the German National Socialists] who later gave the Hannas their jobs?

Rolling Updates on the Invasion of Gaza (6 January)

Later Updates on the Israeli Invasion of Gaza (7 January)
Later post: International Crisis Group on "Ending the War in Gaza"
Later post: The Israel-Fatah Collaboration

5:15 p.m. Medical sources say up to 40 Gazans die from Israeli tank shelling of UN school in Jabaliya refugee camp.

4:25 p.m. US State Department says Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice going to United Nations "to help create a ceasefire" in Gaza



4:20 p.m. Further to the news of 13 members of a family dying in an Israeli air attack (3:45 p.m.), The New York Times has a detailed profile:

The Samouni family knew they were in danger. They had been calling the Red Cross for two days, they said, begging to be taken out of Zeitoun, a poor area in eastern Gaza City that is considered a stronghold of Hamas.

No rescuers came. Instead, Israeli soldiers entered their building late Sunday night and told them to evacuate to another building. They did. But at 6 a.m. on Monday, when a missile fired by an Israeli warplane struck the relatives’ house in which they had taken shelter, there was nowhere to run.

4:05 p.m. Diplomatic development: French President Nicolas Sarkozy in Damascus has urged Syrian President Bashir al-Assad "to throw all his weight to convince everyone to return to reason". Sarkozy said any ceasefire had to provide "serious guarantees" for the security of Israel and a halt of rocket fire by Hamas.

No rescuers came. Instead, Israeli soldiers entered their building late Sunday night and told them to evacuate to another building. They did. But at 6 a.m. on Monday, when a missile fired by an Israeli warplane struck the relatives’ house in which they had taken shelter, there was nowhere to run.

It seems, however, that Assad has rebuffed Sarkozy's gambit --- which parallels Tony Blair's media blitz today --- to put all the conditions for a cease-fire on Hamas. He responded that Israel had to agree to ease economic restrictions on Gaza: "The blockade is slow death. There will not be a ceasefire that holds if the blockade is not lifted." Assad also called for a cessation of Israeli "war crimes".

Immediate analysis? No breakthrough here --- this is increasingly looking like two rival diplomatic camps.

3:45 p.m. Al Jazeera reports 13 members of a single family killed in al Zaitoun, east of Gaza City, in air attack

3:35 p.m.  Further evidence of the "grand design", backed by US, Israel, and Egypt, of military and political action to topple Hamas and bring in the Palestinian Authority? The BBC's Jeremy Bowen has just assessed that European representatives will sit on their hands for now over a possible cease-fire. It's also notable that the French, who only 24 hours were supposed to be pushing a UN resolution, have gone very quiet.

Bowen adds the question, in line with our own post, of who will be able to succeed Hamas. Will it be anarchy and a Somalia-type situation?

2:55 p.m. Just posted what I think may be the critical background story of this week --- Israel-Fatah Collaboration in plan to install Palestinian Authority in power in Gaza

2 p.m. Former British Prime Minister and the envoy of the Middle Eastern Quarter, Tony Blair, confirms his clinging to relevancy with an interview with CNN's Christiane Amanpour. He lays out the condition for a cease-fire:

If...Israel feels it has achieved something -- namely the end of the smuggling of weapons and finance to Hamas -- then I think it is possible to resolve this reasonably quickly.

In other words, before any cease-fire is possible, Hamas has to make concessions. In far, it's more than that: countries accused of smuggling weapons and finance to Hamas, namely Iran and Syria, have to give assurances.

The proposal is a non-starter. And I doubt that Blair --- who met with Israel's Ehud Olmert and Ehud Barak on Sunday --- has any credibility left as an "impartial" broker of a temporary, let alone long-term, settlement.



1 p.m. Israeli officer reported killed in fighting in northern Gaza.

12:40 p.m. United Nations Relief and Works Agency official John Ging confirms that three people killed in UN school/shelter by Israeli missile. Speaking to Al Jazeera, Ging also describes "awful" situation at al-Shifa hospital.

12:05 p.m. Missing news: meeting French President Nicolas Sarkozy yesterday, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said: ""The results of the operation must be... that Hamas must not only stop firing but must no longer be able to fire."

But, given earlier French efforts to get a cease-fire and reported French attempts to get a UN resolution, what was Sarkozy's position/reaction? There is no evidence in the story by Agence France Presse, only the note that Olmert and he agreed that Sarkovy "would continue to push for a deal including Egypt".

12 noon: Israeli Defense Forces say more than 10 Hamas rockets have been launched on Tuesday. One landed in Gadera, 36 kilometres (23 miles) north of the Gaza border --- the further a rocket has flown into Israel.

11:55 a.m. Al Jazeera is reporting heavy Israeli air attacks, including strikes on a school (and now probably a shelter) run by the United Nations, killing at least three people, and a central market in Bureij, south of Gaza City. Israeli Defense Forces say there have been more than 40 airstrikes since midnight.

There are also reports of Israel violating Lebanese airspace.

10:25 a.m. Heavy fighting in Khan Yunis in southern Gaza and resistance to Israeli naval landing at Deir al-Balah.

10:20 a.m. Former British Prime Minister and current "Middle Eastern envoy" Tony Blair clings to relevance with 10-minute interview on BBC radio's Today programme. He frames situation as "good" Palestinian Authority v. "bad" Hamas and holds out against dialogue with the latter.

10 a.m. One day it might be called the "el-Haddad effect", and it might be seen as a major reason why the Israelis halt military operations before they achieve their objectives.

Moussa el-Haddad, the Gazan resident who came to international notice via his daughter Laila, a writer and blogger prominent on Twitter as "Gazamom", is now being featured regularly on CNN. He is also now the lead voice on the BBC's flagship radio programme Today. His eyewitness emphasis is on the destruction and humanitarian cost of the Israeli attack, overtaking the standard wartime narrative of Israeli forces v. Hamas forces.

Ironically, as Robert Fisk noted in The Independent yesterday, the Israeli exclusion of journalists from Gaza means that news services are scrambling to find an "authentic" account of events.  That in turn means they have moved to other means, such as Internet-based activity, for information and analysis. (The Guardian of London, which featured bloggers during the 2003 Iraq War, got a jump on other print outlets with its featuring of "local" stories, and broadcast media are now playing catch-up.)

As long as Moussa el-Haddad's phone and Internet service holds out, he may be an influence putting Israeli political and military forces may be in a race against time.

9:27 a.m. CNN is now summarising the Israeli and Hamas casualties we reported below.

There is an intriguing twist in the article, however:

Israel also stepped up its psychological campaign Monday, trying to turn Gazans against Hamas.

"Urgent message, warning to the citizens of Gaza," said a recorded phone call to Gaza resident Moussa El-Hadad. "Hamas is using you as human shields. Do not listen to them. Hamas has abandoned you and are hiding in their shelters."

The Israeli military also dropped leaflets into the streets of Gaza warning residents that the IDF will continue using "full force against Hamas."

The summary of a "psychological campaign", while not as strong as "political warfare", is a far different characterisation of the Israeli tactics than the earlier portrayal --- encouraged by Tel Aviv --- of the phone calls as concern for the civilian population.

9:10 a.m. The humanitarian-first approach to the conflict makes it to the top level of "mainstream" US news coverage. Mads Gilbert, one of the two Norwegian doctors setting out the scale of crisis at Gazan hospitals and the large number of civilian casualties, is given almost three minutes on CBS. His portrayal of events? "They are bombing one-and-a-half million people in a cage."

The clip is now circulating on YouTube.

9:00 a.m. Al Jazeera reports 18 Gazans killed overnight.

8:50 a.m. The International Crisis Group has released a briefing, "Ending the War in Gaza". We're reprinting in full as a separate item. The ICG concludes:

Sustainable calm can be achieved neither by ignoring Hamas and its constituents nor by harbouring the illusion that, pummelled into submission, it will accept what it heretofore has rejected. Palestinian reconciliation is a priority, more urgent but also harder than ever before; so, too, is the Islamists’ acceptance of basic international obligations. In the meantime, Hamas – if Israel does not take the perilous step of toppling it – will have to play a political and security role in Gaza and at the crossings. This might mean a “victory” for Hamas, but that is the inevitable cost for a wrongheaded embargo, and by helping end rocket fire and producing a more stable border regime, it would just as importantly be a victory for Israel – and, crucially, both peoples – as well.

8:35 a.m. Israeli Defense Forces claim 135 Hamas fighters killed.

8:20 a.m. In another sign of shifting media emphasis towards humanitarian issues, CNN website leads with story on psychological damage caused to Gazan children by the conflict, albeit with an emphasis on the creation of "extremists". (This was superseded an hour later by latest reports on military clashes.)

8:15 a.m. Israeli troops have surrounded Gaza City. Al Jazeera reports that Israeli forces have moved into Khan Yunis in southern Gazan strip

Three Israeli soldiers were killed and 24 wounded --- four severely --- in a "friendly fire" incident. Another eight soldiers were lightly wounded in fights with Hamas forces.

Forty rockets were launched into southern Israel on Monday, slightly down from 47 on Sunday.

Treatment of wounded in hospitals has been further hindered by Egyptian refusal to let medical personnel across its border into Gaza.

International Crisis Group: "Ending the War in Gaza"

The International Crisis Group is one of the leading non-partisan, non-governmental organisations on conflict prevention and resolution. It has just issued a report outlining the causes of the current Gaza crisis and the possible courses of development, concluding that resolution must involve "turning Hamas from militant to political organisation".

ENDING THE WAR IN GAZA

A war neither Israel nor Hamas truly wanted turned into a war both are willing to wage. The six-month ceasefire that expired on 19 December was far from ideal. Israel suffered through periodic rocket fire and the knowledge that its foe was amassing lethal firepower. Hamas endured a punishing economic blockade, undermining its hopes of ruling Gaza. A sensible compromise, entailing an end to rocket launches and an opening of the crossings should have been available. But without bilateral engagement, effective third party mediation or mutual trust, it inexorably came to this: a brutal military operation in which both feel they have something to gain.

As each day goes by, Israel hopes to further degrade Hamas’s military capacity and reduce the rocket risk; Hamas banks on boosting its domestic and regional prestige. Only urgent international action by parties viewed as credible and trustworthy by both sides can end this before the human and political toll escalates or before Israel’s land incursion – which was launched as this briefing went to press – turns into a venture of uncertain scope, undetermined consequence and all-too-familiar human cost.

From Hamas’s perspective, prolonging the ceasefire was appealing but only if that arrangement was modified. Relative calm had enabled it to consolidate power and cripple potential foes. But the siege never was lifted. Increasingly, Hamas leaders were in the uncomfortable position of appearing to want the truce for personal safety at the price of collective hardship. As the expiration date approached, rocket fire intensified, an unsubtle message that Hamas would use violence to force Israel to open the crossings. In the first days, Israel’s retaliatory air campaign shook Hamas’s Qassam fighters by its timing, intensity and scale. But it did not catch them unprepared.

Instead, the Islamist movement hopes to reap political benefit from material losses. It knows it is no military match for Israel, but it can claim victory by withstanding the unprecedented onslaught; for a movement that thrives on martyrdom and the image of steadfastness, that would be enough. Its domestic and regional standings, somewhat bruised by its harsh tactics in taking over Gaza and seeming indifference to national unity, would grow far beyond its actual military capability, while those of its domestic foes – President Mahmoud Abbas, the Ramallah-based Palestinian Authority (PA) and Fatah – are in peril. A ground invasion was expected and, in some Hamas quarters, hoped for. House-to-house guerrilla warfare, they surmise, is more favourable terrain. Should their rule be toppled, some claim to look forward to a return to pure armed struggle, untainted by the stain of governance.

From Israel’s perspective, six months of overall quiet had been welcome, if not without perpetual qualms. Hamas used it to amass a more powerful and longer-range arsenal; Corporal Gilad Shalit, captured in 2006, remained imprisoned; and sporadic rocket fire continued. All this it could withstand, but not the intensification of attacks immediately preceding and following the end of the truce. Then, even those most reluctant to escalate felt compelled to act massively.

Goals remain hazy. Military success could not be achieved through airpower alone; an end to the operation then, despite massive destruction, would have handed Hamas a political victory. So, while the land incursion might not have been inevitable, once the operation was launched it was virtually preordained. Unlike in Lebanon in 2006, Israel can carry it far: in contrast to Hizbollah, Hamas has neither strategic depth nor resupply ability. It has few allies. Israel can take Gaza and kill or capture most of the military and political leaders. Yet, with such expansive possibilities come risks of equal magnitude for there is no logical exit or end point. Israel might start by occupying areas in Gaza’s north to deal with the short-range rockets, but that would leave longer-range ones. Intensive ground operations can remove many rockets and launchers, but without profound, durable incursion into densely populated areas cannot prevent Hamas from firing.

A massive intervention that in effect topples Hamas is looking increasingly possible. But who will take over on the back of Israel’s occupation? How could a then discredited PA assume power? Even crushing military victory ultimately might not be that much, or that lasting, of a political win.

Fighting that began as a tug-of-war over terms of a new ceasefire has become a battle over terms of deterrence and the balance of power – with no easy way out. Israel in principle wants a ceasefire, but only after it brings Hamas to its knees, strips it of long-range capabilities and dispels any illusion of a fight among equals in which rocket fire has the same deterrent effect as airforce raids, all of which could take a long time. Hamas, too, has an interest in a ceasefire, but only in return for opening the crossings. In the meantime, it sees every day of conflict as testimony to its resistance credentials. Both inexorably will see more benefit in persevering with violent confrontation than in appearing to give in.

That leaves the international community. The impetus to conclude such an asymmetrical war can come one of two ways: for the parties to bloody each other sufficiently, or for the international community to assertively step in. In this, some world actors appear to have learned a useful lesson from the Lebanon war. There is more activism now, from the EU, individual European countries like France, which is seeking to renew its central Middle Eastern role and important regional actors, like Turkey – a nation whose involvement has become all the more critical given the breakdown of trust between Hamas and the traditional mediator, Egypt. Even Cairo, on 5 January, had invited Hamas for talks.

Still, as was the case two years ago, a swift, unconditional end to fighting is bumping up against the argument that this would leave in place ingredients that prompted the conflagration. True enough. The blanks in the defunct ceasefire must be filled. But, Washington’s unhelpful and perilous efforts to slow things down notwithstanding, the most urgent task must be stopping the fighting; already, the absence of effective mediation has contributed to the climb from unreliable ceasefire to long-range rocket fire and massive aerial bombardment to ground offensive. To protect civilians, limit political damage (regional polarisation and radicalisation, further discrediting of any “moderates” or “peace process”) and avoid a further catastrophe (massive loss of life in urban warfare in Gaza, a Hamas rocket hit on a vital Israeli installation), third parties should pressure both sides to immediately halt military action. In short, what is required is a Lebanon-type diplomatic outcome but without the Lebanon-type prolonged timetable.

To be sustainable, cessation of hostilities must be directly followed by steps addressing both sides’ core concerns:

* an indefinite ceasefire pursuant to which:
* Hamas would halt all rocket launches, keep armed militants at 500 metres from Israel’s border and make other armed organisations comply; and
* Israel would halt all military attacks on and withdraw all troops from Gaza;
* real efforts to end arms smuggling into Gaza, led by Egypt in coordination with regional and international actors;
* dispatch of a multinational monitoring presence to verify adherence to the ceasefire, serve as liaison between the two sides and defuse potential crises; countries like France, Turkey and Qatar, as well as organisations such as the UN, could play an important part in this; and
* opening of Gaza’s crossings with Israel and Egypt, together with:
* return of an EU presence at the Rafah crossing and its extension to Gaza’s crossings with Israel; and
* coordination between Hamas authorities and the (Ramallah-based) PA at the crossings.

That last point – Hamas’s role – is, of course, the rub, the unresolved dilemma that largely explains why the tragedy unfolded as it did. Gaza’s two-year story has been one of collective failure: by Hamas, which missed the opportunity to act as a responsible political actor; of Israel, which stuck to a shortsighted policy of isolating Gaza and seeking to undermine Hamas that neither helped it nor hurt them; of the PA leadership, which refused to accept the consequences of the Islamists’ electoral victory, sought to undo it and ended up looking like the leader of one segment of the Palestinian community against the other; and of the international community, many regional actors included, which demanded Hamas turn from militant to political organisation without giving it sufficient incentives to do so and only recognised the utility of Palestinian unity after spending years obstructing it.

This should change. Sustainable calm can be achieved neither by ignoring Hamas and its constituents nor by harbouring the illusion that, pummelled into submission, it will accept what it heretofore has rejected. Palestinian reconciliation is a priority, more urgent but also harder than ever before; so, too, is the Islamists’ acceptance of basic international obligations. In the meantime, Hamas – if Israel does not take the perilous step of toppling it – will have to play a political and security role in Gaza and at the crossings. This might mean a “victory” for Hamas, but that is the inevitable cost for a wrongheaded embargo, and by helping end rocket fire and producing a more stable border regime, it would just as importantly be a victory for Israel – and, crucially, both peoples – as well.