Reading between Netanyahu’s lines

Diplomatic correspondent Raphael Ahren breaks down Netanyahu’s speech earlier in the night, when he vowed to continue the Gaza operation if need be, apparently fed up with trying to negotiate ceasefires with Hamas:

By beginning to withdraw troops from Gaza, without entering negotiations over a ceasefire, the prime minister is aiming to deny Hamas an immediate concrete achievement. In 2012, the ceasefire that ended Operation Pillar of Defense called for “opening the crossings [into Gaza] and facilitating the movement of people and transfer of goods, and refraining from restricting residents’ free movement.”

This time, Netanyahu is not sending a team to Cairo to discuss a ceasefire with Hamas at all. Hamas deliberately breached Friday’s UN- and US-brokered 72-hour truce, he said, with the “pre-planned” attack in which Goldin and two others were killed. Why bother trying to negotiate another deal with a terrorist group that cannot be trusted?

Israel was ready to negotiate with Hamas, via American and Egyptian mediators. But after the terrorist group time and again proved that it was not interested in holding its fire, Jerusalem lost patience. The Israeli leadership is now hoping to have created enough deterrence to keep Hamas from launching rockets… or raids through tunnels not located. It is hoping that 1.7 million Gazans will not take kindly to having Hamas bring down another round of devastation upon them.

Read the full analysis here