Note: This article was first posted in July 2014. Almost word for word.
My wife and I live on our own in a townhouse a few miles west of Jerusalem, within range of the rockets from Gaza. Several times over the last few days the alarm was sounded. We react by leaving the living room, which has glass doors facing the garden. Should a rocket explode nearby, then flying shards will cut us to ribbons. So we move into the stairwell which, made of reinforced concrete, offers good protection. We are lucky to have it, for my wife has had her knee operated on and could not run if her life depended on it. I suppose something similar would apply to hundreds of thousands of others both in Israel and in Gaza. We wait until the sirens stop wailing—a hateful sound—and we have heard a few booms. Then we check, on the news, whether the booms originated in rockets being intercepted by Iron Dome or in such as have not been intercepted hitting the earth. A few telephone calls to or from our children, and everything returns to normal until the next time.
And so it goes. One gets up each morning, sees that the surroundings look much as usual, heaves a sigh of relief, and prepares for the coming day. Yet for several days now, much of Israel has been under fire. That is especially true of the southern part of the country. Over there ranges are short and incoming rockets smaller, harder to intercept, and much more numerous. There are several dozen wounded—most of them hurt not by incoming rockets but while in a hurry to find shelter. As of the evening of Tuesday, 19 July [2014], following eight days of fighting, just one Israeli, a civilian, has been killed by Hamas fire.
Several factors explain the low number of casualties. First, the rockets coming from Gaza are enormously inaccurate. They hit targets, if they do, almost at random. Second, the Iron Dome anti-missile defense system works better than anyone had expected. The system has the inestimable advantage in that it can calculate the places where the rockets will land. Consequently it only goes into action against those—approximately one in five or six—that are clearly about to hit an inhabited area. The outcome is vast savings; in some cases, realizing that the incoming rockets are not going to hit anybody or anything, the authorities do not even bother to sound the alarm. Third, civil defense seems to be working well; people obey instructions and are, in any case, getting used to this kind of thing. Fourth, as always in war, one needs luck.
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Israel’s lucky run will not last forever. Sooner or later, a Hamas rocket that for one reason or another has not been intercepted is bound to hit a real target in Israel and cause real damage. Imagine a school or kindergarten being hit, resulting in numerous deaths. In that case public pressure on the government and the Israel Defense Forces “to do something” will mount until it becomes intolerable.
What can the IDF do? Not much, it would seem. It can give up some restraints and kill more—far more—people in Gaza in the hope of terrorizing Hamas into surrender. However, such a solution, if that is the proper term, will not necessarily yield results while certainly drawing the ire of much of the world. It can send in ground troops to tackle the kind of targets, such as tunnels, that cannot be reached from the air. However, doing so will almost certainly lead to just the kind of friendly casualties that the IDF, by striking from the air, has sought to avoid.
Whether a ground operation can kill or capture sufficient Hamas members to break the backbone of the organization is also doubtful. Even supposing it can do so, the outcome may well be the kind of political vacuum in which other, perhaps more extreme, organizations such as the Islamic Jihad will flourish. Either way, how long will such an operation last? And how are the forces ever going to withdraw, given the likelihood that, by doing so, they will only be preparing for the next round?
And so the most likely outcome is a struggle of attrition. It may last for weeks, perhaps more. Humanitarian efforts to help the population of Gaza, however well meant, may just prolong the agony. In such a struggle the stakes would hardly be symmetrical. On one hand there are the inhabitants of Gaza. Increasingly they have their lives turned upside down by the constant alarms, strikes, and people who are wounded or killed. On the other are those of Israel who, though their lives have also been affected, have so far remained remarkably calm and resilient under fire. Though some areas are badly affected, the Israeli economy has also been holding up well.
Perhaps because the number of Gazans killed and wounded is fairly small, international reaction, which is always hostile to Israel, has been relatively muted. One reason for this appears to be that no outsiders have what it takes to push either side towards a ceasefire. In a struggle of attrition it is the last ounce of willpower on both sides that will decide the issue. So far, it does not seem that the willpower in question has been exhausted on either side.