Hamas responded with missiles against Ashkelon, the closest israeli city, and a few hundred thousand israelis were ordered into shelters. Very large israeli pansarstyrkor have the latest day set up along the border. By all accounts their purpose is to impress on Hamas that prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, despite his well-known aversion to ground operations in the Gaza strip this time mean business. Netanyahu, who for some time also the minister of defense, taking alone all of the tactical decisions and summons are not the so-called säkerhetskabinettet, which brought protests from several of its members.

The israeli extremnationalisterna and their leaders dismiss the bombings against Hamas as ”mosquito bites” and calls on Netanyahu to strike at the Hamas movement’s leader, as Israel did in 2004. But the time was Hamas the opportunity to provide a response limited. In the day, its missiles to reach most places in Israel, paralyze the civilian air traffic and disrupt the economy seriously.

the drama is equal parts reality and theatre. Prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who returned from the united states on Tuesday afternoon, and his closest advocates, proclaiming that Hamas inflicted a historic defeat in the last night of israeli air raids. The summation of the devastation speaks a different language: Both Israel and Hamas made an effort, and looks to have managed to avoid the carnage on the other side. The israeli plan, fired the Hamas bases that had been cleared out in good time and the palestinian rockets against Israel was directed in most cases towards the unoccupied goal.

Netanyahu wants to avoid at all costs an escalation of the chronic the gaza conflict. He knows that it would cost Israel a couple of hundred of soldiers to overthrow Hamas from power in Gaza, and he knows that nothing stands to win in the Hamas case. On the contrary, without Hamas would be Gaza’s more extreme factions, the ICE and the Iran-controlled Islamic Jihad, to be able to take much greater liberties than today.

After a night of intense rocket and missildueller between Israel and Hamas blew both sides of the action on Tuesday morning. Photo: APAImages/REX/Shutterstock

Hamas chose to surprise on Monday, with one rocket towards a village in the northwest of Tel Aviv. If the movement believe that Netayahu is more amenable during the election campaign takes the wrong: most of Hamas’s demands, money and other things, Netanyahu discuss after the elections on 9 april. But now, his rivals are cashing in by the slightest concession. Is Hamas when looking to influence the israeli election results? Its rocket attacks can only strengthen the israeli extremists, those making the case for an invasion of the strip. Netanyahu should be idealmotståndaren for Hamas’s part; he speaks extremnationalismens language but take care not to push on towards another war, and he is ever ready to negotiate and kohandla on matters large and small.

the Demonstrations in Gaza against the Hamas regime has abated, after the few palestinian journalists who guarded them been silenced brutally. A couple of them have been to the west bank for hospital treatment. But the demonstrations against Netanyahu and the government continues in the israeli communities closest to Gaza. They argue, rightly, that when they are hit by Hamas rockets or explosive charges carried by balloons, so take the official Israel as a part of everyday life. But if Tel Aviv is hit, it becomes another sound in the bell, retaliation, diplomacy, the headlines. The protests from these residents is extremely troublesome for the ruling party, Likud, whose most candidates will avoid to show themselves in the field.

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