A passenger aircraft belonging to Israel's El Al national airline sits on the tarmac of Ben Gurion International Airport, near Tel Aviv, July 23.(GIL COHEN MAGEN/AFP/Getty Images)
Summary
The Federal Aviation Administration extended a ban July 23 on U.S. flights to Israel for another 24 hours. The ban was imposed, with Canadian and European airliners following suit, a day earlier after a rocket fell near Ben Gurion International Airport in Tel Aviv. As the economic cost of Operation Protective Edge grows in Israel, Hamas is seizing the opportunity to declare victory against Israel amid a flurry of cease-fire efforts. The reality is that the victory Hamas has proclaimed is just as elusive as the terms of a cease-fire, locking Israel and Gaza militants into a continuous cycle of warfare.
Analysis
Hamas essentially got lucky with the rocket that landed near the airport. It is unlikely that the group could replicate the attack to turn the conflict into an economic battle of attrition. Artillery rockets are crude weapon systems with limited accuracy. This has been demonstrated in Hamas' repeated attempts to hit Israeli population centers throughout the conflict. Most rockets have landed outside populated areas and have inflicted only a handful of casualties.
The inability of Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad to cause significant casualties through rocket attacks is revealing of the military weakness of Gaza militants. Militants have fired medium-range rockets in the direction of Tel Aviv for some time now, during both the current crisis and the one in 2012. Hamas even declared that it has been trying to hit Ben Gurion airport, but so far few rockets have even ended up in the general area of the airport.
The initial cancellation of flights into Tel Aviv was likely the result of standard safety procedures by airlines and national aviation authorities. They will now have to re-establish a baseline for their security assessments of Ben Gurion airport. The recent crash of Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17 over Ukraine is also probably a factor in the precautions.
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Israel is planning to open Ovda, a military airfield near Eilat, to civilian traffic to enable foreign airlines to continue operating in Israel. The airfield in Ovda, however, may not improve the security of foreign airlines. Not only does the airport have limited capacity, but it is also located near the Egyptian border in an area that militants in the Sinai Peninsula have previously targeted with artillery rockets. Jihadists who are already operating in Sinai or local Palestinian militants could attempt attacks from the peninsula. They could use shorter-range artillery rockets that would likely be more accurate and have a higher probability of hitting the intended target, or that at the very least would fall close enough to have a psychological impact. It will continue to be a challenge for militants of any brand to operate in southern Sinai along the Israeli border because it is heavily fortified. The closer militants get to Israel's border, the harder it will be for them to evade detection.
That a rocket struck within a kilometer or so of Ben Gurion airport is not a sign of an Israeli defensive failure. The Iron Dome air defense system is deployed to stop rockets, but it discriminates between rockets headed for an actual target that could be damaged and rockets headed for empty space. This particular rocket was estimated not to be a threat and therefore was not engaged. Nevertheless, Israel could improve the perceived security around Ben Gurion by either reprogramming the Iron Dome battery deployed there to engage more rockets, including those going to empty space, or by deploying additional Iron Dome batteries near the airport. If international traffic is rerouted through the military airfield near Eilat in the most southern part of Israel, the Israelis could also easily redeploy Iron Dome systems there to provide extra security.
With all sides of the conflict exhausted and negotiating terms for what they know will be an inconclusive cease-fire, Hamas is predictably making a last-ditch attempt ahead of Quds Day to establish a narrative in which Gaza militants declare victory by imposing intolerable economic pain on Israel. There is little doubt that Israel is feeling the economic repercussions of the conflict, with a major decline in tourism during peak season only extending the war's bill, which is believed to be nearing $3 billion. Even if Hamas' rockets are terribly inaccurate, they do disrupt economic activity and force Israel to go through the costly exercise of calling up reserves.
Israel will try to negotiate terms that break up the regularity of the conflict, likely proposing the demilitarization of Gaza. But this is all but impossible at the moment. Hamas will not be pressured to make such an extraordinary concession, and Israel is not politically prepared to reoccupy Gaza to achieve demilitarization by force. Likewise, Israel is not about to concede on Hamas' demand to end the blockade of Gaza when the weaponry that has fueled these conflicts continues to flow above and below ground. Even if both sides come to an Egyptian-mediated truce out of exhaustion, assuming that Israel does not forgo a cease-fire altogether this time, the core issues remain unresolved, essentially guaranteeing a repeat of this war in due time.
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