In a joint appearance last Wednesday, late on the second day of Israel’s Operation Shield and Arrow against the terrorist group Islamic Jihad in Palestine in Gaza, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant announced that the main objectives of the operation had already been achieved — in fact, they were achieved in what Netanyahu called “the first two seconds.” [of the operation]in the middle of the night” when the IDF killed three Islamic Jihad commanders in three separate, simultaneous attacks.
“We have wiped out the leadership of Islamic Jihad,” Gallant confirmed.
And the first devastating attacks were followed by hundreds of attacks on sites used by Islamic Jihad for the manufacture and storage of weapons, on terrorist cells with anti-tank weapons, and on missile launch pits and the missiles therein ready for launch. Referring to Israel, the Minister of Defense further claimed: “The murderous organization had no answer.”
The intelligence information and missile capabilities that enabled the IDF to eliminate not only these first three main targets, but also several other Islamic Jihad commanders over the next few days, are undoubtedly a testament to the IDF’s prodigious capabilities in the relentless fight against the terrorist groups in the Gaza Strip .
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But the bitter fact is that despite the deaths of its key leaders, the blowing up of weapons caches, the destruction of anti-tank cells and the destruction of countless rocket launchers, the “murderous organization” managed to find an “answer” in four days of conflict, and was still firing volleys of rockets at Israel in the minutes before and after a ceasefire went into effect on Saturday night.
Hours before the ceasefire was agreed on Saturday, Israel’s national security adviser Tzachi Hanegbi also declared that Israel achieved its objectives “in the first seconds” of the operation, then admitted rather plaintively, “Everything that has happened since requires us.” “ to act because they are shooting at us.”
People take cover behind a wall as a building in Beit Lahiya in the northern Gaza Strip is hit by an Israeli airstrike on an Islamic Jihad commander May 12, 2023. (Bashar Taleb/AFP)
And Islamic Jihad, remember, is the nasty little Iranian-mobilized sister of the far larger, far better resourced, and far more powerful terror group Hamas that actually rules Gaza.
With a force estimated at “only” around 10,000 and relatively limited missile supplies constantly under attack from the powerful IDF, Islamic Jihad still managed to keep up to half of Israel near or in sealed rooms and bomb shelters for five days .
Rescuers check the damage to a building hit by a rocket fired from the Gaza Strip in Rehovot, near Tel Aviv, on May 11, 2023. An Israeli woman was killed in the attack. (AHMAD GHARABLI / AFP)
Orna Mizrahi, a former deputy leader of the National Security Council, claimed in an interview with Channel 12 on Saturday night that the debilitating setbacks Islamic Jihad suffered in the course of Operation Shield and Arrow helped strengthen Israeli deterrence – namely against the two terrorist groups in Gaza and people like Hezbollah across the northern border.
She argued that the effectiveness of the Israeli operation, launched at Israel’s opportune time, was a determined response to the more than 100 projectiles fired at Israel a week earlier, according to former Islamic Jihad spokesman Khader Adnan had to end his life on a hunger strike while facing terrorism charges in Israeli custody — has helped convince Israel’s enemies of the notion that Israel has been weakened by its internal divisions over the government’s currently suspended judicial reform plans.
All of this is certainly what the government and security establishment would like to believe. There are also those who see Hamas’ decision to stay out of this round of conflicts, as it has in previous rounds of conflicts involving Islamic Jihad, as evidence that Gaza rulers have since been eager to delay a confrontation with Israel for the time being avoid They want to prevent a new round of devastation from sweeping Gaza, increasing the poverty of Gaza residents and decreasing their popularity.
Apparently, Israel did its utmost not to draw Hamas into the conflict, focusing its airstrikes solely on Islamic Jihad targets and repeatedly stating publicly that it was targeting Islamic Jihad only and not Hamas.
At the same time, however, Gaza’s rulers have stayed out of a series of recent conflicts between Islamic Jihad and Israel – and Israel chose not to blame Hamas for the actions of its evil sister and not to target Hamas people or assets They were left free and undisturbed to quietly build their military assets to one day use against Israel.
During a Jerusalem Day march on May 10, 2021, after Palestinian terrorists in the Gaza Strip fired rockets at Israel, Israelis ran to emergency shelters as rocket warning sirens went off. (AP Photo/Ariel Shalit)
When will that day come? A test will be on Thursday, when the Jerusalem Day flag march is set to once again pass through the Old City’s Muslim Quarter – an event that Hamas specifically targeted two years ago, firing rockets at Jerusalem, causing the demolition of the March forced. and even disrupting the activities of the Knesset.
According to the Israeli security authorities, Thursday’s march is likely to proceed without a further escalation of violence from Gaza. Hence the repeated assurances from Jerusalem in recent days that the march will take place as planned through the Muslim Quarter.
Sooner or later, however, Hamas will decide the right moment for another direct confrontation with Israel. Their desire to destroy the State of Israel is their raison d’être. And leaving this murderous organization without an answer to Israel’s military capabilities, however outstanding, poses a far greater challenge than that posed by Islamic Jihad.