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| By Israel Insider staff March 3, 2008 |
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Upon returning from Japan, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert abruptly ended Israel's "Warm Winter" anti-missile campaign. Shortly after Israel?s withdrawal on Monday, the Palestinians stepped up their missile and rocket attacks. One of three Katyusha rockets fired from Gaza at Ashkelon hit a seven-story building, sending a dozen people into shock and creating widespread panic in the city of 120,000. Eight missiles exploded in Sderot, 2 in Sha'ar Hanegev and 4 in farmland south of Sderot.
Olmert suddenly decided on the pullback of Israeli ground and armored units from northern Gaza before dawn Monday. without allowing them to make further progress in their mission to halt or at least push back Palestinian fire.
Olmert was criticized by members of the Knesset foreign affairs and defense committee for abruptly aborting the operation after solemn pledges that he and defense minister Ehud Barak made Sunday. Both had vowed that military ground action would continue until the Hamas rocket offensive against Israeli civilians was crushed.
The three-day Israeli infantry, tank and air incursion left more than 110 Palestinians dead, a reported 90% of whom were Hamas combatants. Two Israeli soldiers were killed.
Olmert?s order to the Israeli ground force to turn around and withdraw in mid-offensive caught senior military officials by surprise. Hamas was delighted, staging a victory march in Gaza attended by tens of thousands of supporters.
It is believed that Olmert was looking ahead to the upcoming visit of US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, who had threatened to call off her visit tomorrow, laying the blame on Israel for the breakdown of peace talks with the Palestinians, even though it was Mahmoud Abbas who suspended all contacts with Israel. She accused Israel of undermining the Bush administration?s Middle East strategy. Olmert, as usual, gave in to the pressure.
Olmert was being criticized even from within his own government and his own party by security minded Avi Dichter, internal security minister and former Shin Bet chief, and Shaul Mofaz, transport ministers, and a former defense minister and chief of staff. Both publicly urged a stepped-up ground offensive to crush Hamas and oust its rule of Gaza, arguing that all other tactics had failed.
Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak on Sunday left open the possibility of a broader Israeli ground operation. "It's clearly something real and tangible that could await us down the stream," he said.
On Sunday, Barak said the Israeli military tried to avoid civilians in its attacks, but called civilian deaths "the price of war." He said: "When we are identifying people on the way to launch a rocket against our own civilians, we have to attack them. We try to see what extent the area is empty from innocent people, but sometimes it doesn't work."
Opposition leader and Likud Chairman Benjamin Netanyahu, far ahead of Olmert in opinion polls, made hay on Olmert's weakness, stressing the need for decisive victory rather than "attrition" and calling for the eradication of the rockets terrorizing Israeli civilians. |
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