Israeli Air Strikes Likely Aimed at Getting Hamas Back to Negotiating Table — Or May Indicate a Wider Ground War

For now, Israel’s renewed air strikes on Gaza seem designed to pressure Hamas into resuming negotiations over the release of hostages. Yet, the condensed Tuesday morning operation eliminated some top and mid-level terrorist leaders, indicating it could lead to a wider ground war.“From now on, Israel will intensify the war on Hamas, and from now on negotiations will take place only under fire,” Prime Minister Netanyahu said in a pre-recorded televised message to the country. As family members of hostages were protesting against him at Tel Aviv, Mr. Netanyahu noted that the decision to renew the fighting was approved by all the security agencies. Southern Israelis were rushed to shelter Tuesday as the Houthis launched a ballistic missile from Yemen, vowing solidarity with the people of Gaza. The missile was intercepted before it reached Israel’s air space. Sustained American attacks against the Houthis “ought to inform as to where we stand with regard to terrorism and our tolerance level for terrorist actions,” President Trump’s envoy, Steve Witkoff, told CNN Sunday. “I would encourage Hamas to get much more sensible than how they have been.”Hamas has rejected Mr. Witkoff’s recent proposal to release five living Israeli hostages and a number of bodies in return for an eight-week extension of the Gaza cease-fire. “For the past two and a half weeks, we have reached a dead end — there is neither fighting nor the return of the hostages,” the foreign minister, Gideon Saar, said. “Israel cannot accept this. If we had continued to wait, the negotiations would have continued to stall.”The overnight surprise strike by the Israel Defense Force lasted a mere 10 minutes. The object is “to return Hamas to the negotiation table,” a well-connected military analyst at Israel Channel 12, Nir Dvori, says. “We are not yet operating to demolish Hamas, although that could come next.”Israeli officials say they are now detecting renewed Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad preparations to resume attacks on southern Israeli communities. Imminent attacks hastened IDF plans to hit targets in Gaza, according to military sources widely quoted in the Israeli press.“In the last few days we were informed that the military capabilities of Hamas have been rehabilitated,” a top opposition leader and member of the Knesset’s foreign and defense committee, Gadi Eizenkott, wrote prior to the Tuesday morning strike. “Hamas now has more than 25,000, and the PIJ more than 5000 armed terrorists.” While Hamas spokesmen were quick to announce that at least 400 people were killed in the Tuesday morning strikes, Israel listed a number of Hamas and Jihad operatives who were targeted based on meticulous intelligence gathering during the weeks-long cease-fire. Military commanders, including Hamas’s most senior leader in Gaza, Mohammed Sinwar, were not targeted for fear of harming the hostages they hold. Among the more than a dozen leaders killed were Hamas civilian operators who have used the lull in Gaza fighting to revive Hamas’s control over Gaza and its residents. Documented beatings and killings of dissidents and Gazans seeking food outside of Hamas controls flood social networks. A top Hamas administrator, Essam al-Da’alis, was confirmed killed, as were several others whose roles had been to coordinate the terrorist group’s reassertion of control over Gaza. Another high-profile target whose death has been confirmed by family members was the Islamic Jihad’s ever-present spokesman, known as Abu Hamza. He has long taunted Israeli families with video documentation of hostage ill-treatment. Israeli officials say that the air strikes were planned to carefully avoid places where hostages are being held. Following recent releases of hostages that have been held in Gaza, “we now have much better intelligence on the location of remaining hostages” than in previous rounds of fighting, a former IDF navy commander, Admiral Eliezer Marom, said on Channel 12. Critics have said that Israel, rather than Hamas, has violated the cease-fire agreement by refusing to negotiate a second phase of a deal proposed last summer by President Biden’s envoys. That deal became a basis for Mr. Witkoff’s initial diplomacy, which led to the release of dozens of hostages in return for hundreds of prisoners in Israeli jails.That second phase was supposed to include the release of all remaining hostages, an official ending of the war, and the rehabilitation of Gaza. Israel argues that an end to war now would leave Hamas in power, allowing it to plot new attacks similar to those of October 7, 2023. Mr. Witkoff proposed instead a new course that would release more hostages and extend the cease-fire. “We agreed to several proposals,” including that of Mr. Witkoff, Mr. Netanyahu said. “Hamas, on the other hand, has rejected one proposal after another.” He stressed that Israel remains committed to the war’s three goals: “Release all our hostages, destroy Hamas, and fulfill the promise that Gaza will never again threaten Israel.”

Israeli Air Strikes Likely Aimed at Getting Hamas Back to Negotiating Table — Or May Indicate a Wider Ground War

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