In the wake of the eruption of violence in the south, MK Moti Yogev (Habayit Hayehudi), a member of the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee who used to serve as chief of staff of the IDF former Gaza division, has called for the assassination of Hamas leaders.
“In the face of the escalation in Gaza, we must simply deliver a decisive blow,” MK Yogev said, suggesting this can be done by occupying the entire Gaza Strip and going about the elimination of Hamas leaders.
“They are the ones who give orders and they are the ones who are responsible,” he explained, “They give instructions for shooting and marching on the fence, there is no need to continue the unnecessary exchanges of fire, but to begin kill Hamas leaders.”
MK Yogev sees expects a calmer future should his suggested operation be carried out, and claims that “this may lead to a temporary escalation,” but in the end “this is the most daunting action that would bring security and quiet to the Gaza Strip.”
Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman tweeted on Tuesday afternoon: “Today we attacked terrorist infrastructures, including another tunnel, in Gaza, in a massive and powerful manner,” and added that “Hamas and Islamic Jihad are already paying a heavy price and the bill was only just submitted to them. We have no intention to ignore their actions nor contain the events.”
But so far it has been Hamas which decided when the ceasefire with Israel would be enforced, leaving Liberman’s security apparatus in a reactive posture, essentially containing the terrorists.
There was one clear sign that the IDF, despite its announcements about 65 successful hits throughout the Gaza Strip, has been thinking containment rather than a decisive victory: no terrorist died in those attacks. Which means that Hamas had been prepared for the attacks, could guess accurately where they would take place, and kept its people out of there.
No doubt, MK Yogev’s alternative would be costly in terms of international politics, but Israel can’t expect more favorable conditions to go in earnest after the Hamas war criminals.
Ruining their rocket workshops or blowing up another one of their tunnels – which the IDF knows about and keeps handy for just these occasions – is not victory. It’s containment. And containing terrorists, like containing scorpions in a jar, eventually end up with broken glass and runaway scorpions.
