Snubbed in Cairo, Hamas opts for attrition

ToI’s Avi Issacharoff analyzes Hamas’s decision to resume fire on southern Israel, and Israel’s tempered response:

“While issuing threats since it ended the truce on Friday morning, Hamas has also, through its actions, been indicating that it is not seeking a dramatic re-escalation of the conflict. Its fire on Israel has been relatively limited. That is to say, fewer rockets than at the height of the fighting, and with the salvos concentrated on the Gaza envelope. Only once, on Friday, was there fire on Beersheba. Also, it’s not actually Hamas that is firing. Hamas is allowing Islamic Jihad and the Popular Resistance Committees to fire but isn’t actually participating itself.

“For its part, the IDF isn’t going wild, either, in its response to the drip-drip of rocket fire on the south. There is no ground force activity, and the airstrikes are more pinpointed — focused on rocket-launch cells and on the hideouts where Hamas stores its rockets, such as the mosque in Nuseirat that was hit on Saturday.

“For now, at least, Hamas wants to be seen as refusing to capitulate. Hence its decision to fire — or allow others to fire — a smattering of rockets and simultaneously hold negotiations. It agreed to those 72 hours of a truce, but was actually slammed by some of the Gazan public for halting the fire while getting nothing in return. It knows Israel is not planning to smash it; hence its attempt to steer toward attrition: shooting, but not too much shooting.”

Read the full piece here.