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<h1 class="gmail-reader-title">Where was Hamas during Israel's latest bombardment of Gaza?</h1>
<div class="gmail-credits gmail-reader-credits">Motasem A Dallou - August 8, 2022</div></div>
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<img src="cid:ii_l6l4wi9q0" alt="image.png" width="458" height="290"><br><p>Israel launched a wide-scale offensive against the Palestinians in
the besieged Gaza Strip on Friday afternoon. Its stated target was
senior Islamic Jihad commander Tayseer Al-Jaabari in his apartment in a
high-rise residential building in Al-Remal area of Gaza City. He was
killed along with several civilians, including five-year-old Alaa
Qaddoum and her father, who lived in the apartment next to Al-Jaabari's.
The Israeli occupation authorities claimed that they had carried out a
pre-emptive strike to thwart attacks on Israel planned by Al-Jaabari.</p>
<p>The Israeli aggression prompted a response from Islamic Jihad, which
fired rockets towards Israeli settlements and cities near the Gaza
Strip. Smaller Palestinian factions also fired rockets towards the
occupation state, but the main and largest Palestinian resistance
movement, Hamas, did not claim to have fired anything, despite the fact
that the Israeli bombardment was intense and deadly.</p>
<p>Why did Hamas take this position and where it was during the latest
Israeli offensive? When Israeli officials first claimed that Islamic
Jihad was planning attacks, they said that they would blame Hamas, which
runs the de facto government in the Gaza Strip, for rockets fired from
the coastal enclave. The Israelis then changed their position and said
that they had nothing to do with Hamas.</p>
<p>This surprising change suggests that the Israeli bombing campaign had
less to do with security and more to do with the upcoming General
Election. Israeli Prime Minister Yair Lapid claimed that Islamic Jihad
planned to carry out attacks in retaliation for last week's detention of
its senior figure in Jenin, Bassam Al-Saadi. Ministers and officials
echoed his claim, but renowned Israeli journalist Gideon Levy told <i>Al Jazeera</i> that he suspected that it was all to do with the election.</p>
<p><strong>READ: <a title="Israel targeted Palestinian Islamic Jihad due to its closeness to Iran" href="https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20220808-israel-targeted-palestinian-islamic-jihad-due-to-its-closeness-to-iran/">Israel targeted Palestinian Islamic Jihad due to its closeness to Iran</a></strong></p>
<p>"Any prime minister needs to prove himself, especially if he comes
from the centre-left in Israel," he explained. "And we have a new prime
minister, and he wants to show that he's macho like all the former prime
ministers. All those are very poor excuses to go for another round in
Gaza."</p>
<p>According to Israeli journalist Meron Rapoport, "One possibility is
that Lapid wants to establish his position as a 'strong' prime minister,
less than three months before the General Election, while the
[opposition] Benjamin Netanyahu bloc is gaining strength in the polls."</p>
<p>One Palestinian member of the Israeli parliament, Sami Abu Shehadeh, told <i>Middle East Eye</i>:
"Israel's latest aggression in Gaza shows the will of Lapid and Gantz
and their coalition to do anything to stay in power, including the
killing of a five-year-old girl. This new war crime is part of an
immoral electoral campaign to show that they can be as criminal as
Benjamin Netanyahu."</p>
<p>This was one of the reasons why Hamas did not respond to this round
of Israeli violence. It recognised the election factor and believed that
its involvement would extend the offensive. The movement opted to deny
any electoral leverage to Lapid at the expense of Palestinian blood.</p>
<p>Moreover, Hamas knew that Israel was well prepared for the offensive,
having covered all avenues through which the Palestinian resistance
could have made any gains. It mobilised 25,000 reservists, entrenched
tanks and artillery so that they would not be targeted easily by the
Palestinian resistance groups, and put the Israeli settler community
near the nominal border with Gaza in secure locations. After weighing up
the situation from a military perspective, Hamas decided that it would
not gain anything from being involved.</p>
<p><strong>READ: <a title="Gaza healthcare system on verge of collapse" href="https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20220808-gaza-healthcare-system-on-verge-of-collapse/">Gaza healthcare system on verge of collapse</a></strong></p>
<p>The Israelis then spun a hypothesis for this offensive and linked it
to the "planned attacks" in response to Al-Saadi's detention last week.
The Islamic Jihad leadership in exile wanted to respond from Gaza, but
Hamas and the other Palestinian factions, including Islamic Jihad in
Gaza, disagreed. They wanted the response to be from the West Bank,
where Al-Saadi lives and was detained, so that it would trigger a wider
confrontation with the occupation authorities in order to stop their
daily violations of Palestinian rights, homes and farms. Such a response
could also deter state-backed illegal Israeli settler attacks on the
Palestinians and their property.</p>
<p>However, when the occupation state declared its offensive on Gaza and
called it "Breaking Dawn" Hamas did not stay silent. It exploited the
Israeli plan to "divide and rule" and ran the response from behind the
scenes.</p>
<p>In order not to damage his reputation, Lapid did not want to see body
bags coming back into Israel, which would hurt his electoral campaign.
That's why he did his best to make the confrontation with Islamic Jihad
alone, knowing its limited capability to inflict damage on the Israeli
army and people. He forgot, though, that most Palestinians, despite
their political and religious differences, are actually united.</p>
<div id="gmail-attachment_572062" class="gmail-wp-caption"><p><img src="https://i0.wp.com/www.middleeastmonitor.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/45-1-scaled.jpg?fit=933%2C579&quality=85&strip=all&zoom=1&ssl=1" alt="Israel forces carry out strike in Gaza - Cartoon [Sabaaneh/Middle East Monitor]" class="gmail-moz-reader-block-img" style="margin-right: 0px;" width="458" height="285"></p><p class="gmail-wp-caption-text"><font size="1">Israel forces carry out strike in Gaza – Cartoon [Sabaaneh/Middle East Monitor]</font></p></div><p>According to <i>Yedioth Ahronoth</i>, Israel succeeded in imposing a "divide and rule" policy as it kept Hamas "neutral" during the offensive, but Amos Harel of <i>Haaretz</i>
said that, "Hamas will decide the duration and intensity of the
conflict… If the operation does not end soon, things could get out of
hand and Lapid could become another Olmert." This was a reference to
former Prime Minister Ehud Olmert who was in office during the 2008/9
war on Gaza.</p>
<p>The military correspondent for <i>Yedioth Ahronoth</i>, Yoav Zeitoun,
said that Israel faced a dilemma when it decided to neutralise Hamas,
because the state was involved in a battle in Gaza without knowing the
hands which hit back. "The military tactics in Gaza proved that there
was a military power moving in the dark," he added.</p>
<p>Israel committed a big mistake by excluding Hamas from the battle,
said military analyst Gal Burger. "Hamas invested in this mistake and
ran the battle from behind closed doors," he explained. "All of them
[the factions] hit back in the name of Islamic Jihad. Yair Lapid is the
reason for this."</p>
<p>During the offensive, Hamas said clearly that it supported Islamic
Jihad in its response to the Israeli aggression. Islamic Jihad itself
said that it was the Joint Operations Room formed by the military wings
of all of the Palestinian factions which ran the battle.</p>
<p>I think that the large barrages of long-range rockets fired towards
Israel were launched by the military wing of Hamas, Al-Qassam Brigades.
Even Israeli military analysts said that these barrages were not from
Islamic Jihad, and they believe that Lapid committed a mistake when the
prime minister sought to "neutralise" Hamas.</p>
<p>The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not
necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Monitor.</p>
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