At the end of Operation Cast Lead in January 2009 and after three weeks of Israel Defense Forces (IDF) attacks throughout the Gaza Strip, Palestinians had taken about 1,400 casualties, thousands more wounded and enormous damage to local infrastructure. The group responsible for this escalation, which is dragging Hamas and Israel into another bloody round of violence, is the same group that fired dozens of rockets on southern Israel March 12: Islamic Jihad.
About two weeks before the launch of Operation Cast Lead on Dec. 16, 2008, the IDF killed Jihad Nawahda, a senior member of the military wing of Islamic Jihad, in the West Bank village of Al-Yamoun. In response, the Al-Quds Brigades, the movement’s military wing, began firing a heavy barrage of rockets at Israel, destroying all efforts to bring about a cease-fire between Hamas and Israel.
Islamic Jihad did it again this week. One day after the IDF attacked a squad of Islamic Jihad militants, killing three Palestinian militants while they were firing a mortar right next to the border fence, the group has “succeeded” in dragging Hamas into an adventure that it hardly wants, and at the worst possible time. Islamic Jihad fired some 60 rockets at Israel, which responded by attacking dozens of targets in the Gaza Strip. The escalation continued on the morning of March 13.
It is interesting that Hamas has been unable to prevent Islamic Jihad militants from operating along the border with Israel, in an area that is supposed to be off limits to them. This, despite having recently stationed its Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades in the area to ensure that no rockets are fired from it. But what is actually stopping Hamas, a group that even Israel recognizes as the sovereign authority in the Gaza Strip, from disarming the Al-Quds Brigades? Who or what is preventing fighters from the al-Qassam Brigades, whose military strength is several orders of magnitude greater than Islamic Jihad’s military wing, the Al-Quds Brigades, to enforce their authority? And what made the Hamas slogan of “concentrating military power in one hand” so hollow and meaningless?
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