Collapse of Gaza truce threatens Israeli security

A new and potentially more destructive round of fighting in Gaza is looming following the collapse last weekend of the six-month truce between Israel and Hamas.

Israelis in vulnerable border towns like Sderot, battered repeatedly by rockets over the past few years, can expect to spend more time in their bomb shelters. Palestinians in Gaza City's teeming refugee camps will watch the sky apprehensively for air strikes that kill civilians and combatants alike.

And with tensions rising, political and military leaders in both camps are cranking up the bellicose rhetoric.

No sooner had the increasingly fragile truce finally expired than the two leading candidates for prime minister in Israel's February elections were competing to demonstrate their determination to crush Hamas.

Water and electricity services have virtually ceased to function in Gaza

Tzipi Livni, currently foreign minister and candidate for the ruling centrist party, promised that "toppling" Gaza's Islamist regime by any means would be top of her agenda. Israeli sources report that she is preparing a diplomatic offensive to lay the ground for a full-scale ground offensive in Gaza.

Her chief rival, Benjamin 'Bibi' Netanyahu, darling of Israel's hard-right and current front-runner in the polls, took himself (and the TV cameras) off to Sderot. Talking amid the smouldering ruins of a house that had been struck by a rocket, he made it clear that "conquering Gaza" was a live option for defeating Hamas.

But neither he nor Livni offered any view about what would happen in the event of a military takeover of Gaza, from which Israel withdrew unilaterally just three years ago.

Nor did they suggest how this would put an end to the rocket attacks that have persisted for years: the home-made Qassem missiles can be quickly assembled and fired, often from the back of a pick-up truck, and their crews are adept at making a quick getaway before Israel can retaliate.

Meanwhile, there was no sign that Israel is prepared to loosen its 18-month-long economic blockade of Gaza, which has inflicted severe suffering on the impoverished population. Although the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund and the European Union have all expressed grave concern to the Israeli government about the impact of the blockade, the situation continues to deteriorate.

Water and electricity services have virtually ceased to function, the sewage system no longer works and medical supplies have run so short that patients are being turned away from clinics and hospitals.

As Western diplomats readily acknowledge in private, such widespread misery does not appear to have seriously undermined support for Hamas in Gaza - and any fresh military onslaught by Israel would only cement the organisation's position as heroic defenders of the people.

Some insiders also believe that the failure of the Palestinian Authority, chosen negotiating partner of the US, to influence Israeli strategy is seriously undermining its support on the streets of the West Bank.

For its part, Hamas has vowed to continue the "holy Islamic resistance", recently distributing videos of its fighters training hard for a possible Israeli invasion. Ominously, the group has also hinted that such an onslaught could lead to a resumption of its devastating suicide bombing operations inside Israel.

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