Rocket bombardment continues; Barak says not for much longer

I’ve been reading reports in various Israeli newspapers and other sources about the upcoming Gaza operation. They all seem to have the same background: The IDF will go in, but not in great force. Pinpoint operations to take out the terror infrastructure. If that’s the case, the operation will fail. The IDF went in to do just that months ago, after the bombardment of Sderot and southern Israel increased to fifty-plus rockets per day. The result is what you see now: Hamas and its proxies fire rockets wherever, whenever they want. They lose a crew here or there, but the rockets just keep coming.

“You need to grit your teeth, but not for many more months,” Barak told the residents of Ashkelon during a tour of the scene together with Deputy Defense Minister Matan Vilna’i and OC Home Front Command Maj.-Gen. Yair Golan. “We won’t allow this to continue for much longer. I am not talking about years or many months. We will do what needs to be done.”

Throughout the day a number of rockets were fired into Israel, including a Grad-model Katyusha that hit a field outside Netivot without causing injuries. Two Hamas gunmen were killed when IAF aircraft bombed a terrorist observation post in Gaza City before dawn.

Calev Ben-David of the JPost had this analysis:

Defense Minister Ehud Barak, speaking at the Facing Tomorrow conference Thursday night after returning straight from a visit to Ashkelon, made clear that from his viewpoint a military operation is only a matter of time. If Israel’s luck runs out, and a Hamas rocket attack results in multiple fatalities rather than the individual deaths of the past week, the government will politically have no choice but to mount that response sooner rather than later.

Olmert and Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, still strongly committed to a negotiating process with the Palestinian Authority that would stop dead in its tracks in the event of such an operation, would clearly prefer to put off that option as long as possible.

And the news article quotes “senior defense officials”—the ones who have been talking about a major operation to other news sources as well:

The IDF plans to escalate its operations against Hamas in the Gaza Strip after US President George W. Bush leaves Israel on Friday, senior defense officials said Thursday.

If they’re not willing to go all-out, then nothing will change. Go back just a couple of months, when Grad rockets were raining down on Ashkelon. The IDF went in, killed a lot of Palestinian terrorists (and a fair number of civilians as well), the world freaked out, the IDF left, and what have you got? Nothing changed.

If Barak thinks that “pinpoint” strikes are going to accomplish anything, he’s mistaken. Unless he kills the Hamas leadership, the war continues. It has ever only stopped when Israel has them on the run 24/7.

“You are mistaken if you thought that targeting buildings, ministries and police stations is going to stop our work,” Haniyeh said, directing his comments at Israel. “We will work under trees, in tents and in the streets.”

Expect world condemnation the moment Israel moves. Say, you know, a thought occurred to me: Two Israeli civilians were killed by terrorist rocket fire in the last week. When Palestinians are killed during IDF operations, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon is pretty quick to condemn the violence “on both sides” and urge Israel to stop firing in civilian areas. So this is right up his alley, right? He should have issued a statement condemning the deliberate targeting of civilians right? Right? Right?

Wrong.

Not a word. Not a single, solitary word. But watch how much he says when the IDF crosses into Gaza.

I hope they do it right this time. And while they’re at it, send a Hellfire up Meshaal’s ass. If they could find Mugniyeh, they can find Meshaal.