Kerry walks tightrope

ENDING the blockade of Gaza is key to ending the fighting.

Palestinian families who fled their homes from east of Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip ride on a car in their way to the city of Khan Younis on Wednesday, July 23, 2014. Israeli troops battled Hamas militants on Wednesday near a southern Gaza Strip town as the top U.S. diplomat reported progress in efforts to broker a truce in a war that has so far killed hundreds of Palestinians and tens of Israelis. (AP Photo/Hatem Ali)

THE first Israeli tank shell blasted through Al Aqsa Hospital’s eastern wall. It destroyed beds, melted medical machines and killed four Palestinians in the intensive care unit.

Then came more tank fire — witnesses said it went on for 2½ hours. An empty lot adjacent to the hospital was also hit. Israel said the target of Monday’s attack wasn’t the hospital in the central Gaza town of Deir El-Balah but rockets stored on the adjacent lot. Israel said fighters from Hamas, the militant group it has been targeting, were storing anti-tank missiles “in the immediate vicinity”.

The shelling of the hospital, along with other attacks that have killed civilians in Gaza, have raised both international alarm and questions over Israeli claims of precision in targeting militants and their weapons.

As the death toll mounted after Israel launched a ground invasion a week ago, US Secretary of State John Kerry made comments that appeared to mock Israel’s claims of “pinpoint” operations. He was speaking before an interview with Fox News and apparently didn’t know his microphone was on and being recorded.

“I reacted obviously in a way anybody does in respect to young children and civilians,” he later said, adding that he supported ­Israel’s right to destroy rockets and tunnels that militants increasingly were using for cross-border attacks.

The top US diplomat is working to form a consensus among the Arab states, Turkey and Israel about terms of a deal to end more than two weeks of fighting in Gaza, by refashioning an Egyptian ceasefire proposal to assure Hamas that Gaza’s economic interests would be addressed if the Islamist group stops its attacks.

“Right now our focus is on stopping the rocket fire so that we can begin a serious negotiation on the key issues,” said a State Department official. “There are a range of options under consideration for a ceasefire.”

Diplomats from the Obama administration, Israel and other Middle East allies outlined a two-stage plan as the 16th day of ­Israel’s military offensive brought intense fighting to southern Gaza, raising the Palestinian death toll to nearly 700 and the Israeli toll to 35 in a conflict in which Hamas’s military wing has shown surprising strength.

Under the plan, Israel and Hamas would agree to stop military operations in the coming days. And the US and the international community would then move quickly to begin talks on a longer-term recovery program for the impoverished coastal enclave.

Kerry outlined the emerging proposal during more than two hours of discussions with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Tel Aviv on Wednesday and a separate hour-long meeting with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas in the West Bank.

Hamas, which rules Gaza, rejected a ceasefire proposal put forward by Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi last week, saying it wasn’t consulted and that the offer didn’t go far enough to lift Egypt’s and Israel’s economic siege of Gaza or free Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails.

Offering Hamas incentives, such as economic aid and freer movement of goods into Gaza and relaxing restrictions on movement, could meet with Israeli resistance unless it can be monitored to keep out weapons or Hamas is disarmed.

Israel launched its military operations in Gaza to degrade Hamas’s rocket arsenal and the network of tunnels Hamas fighters increasingly are using to carry out attacks against Israelis.

US officials have argued to Netanyahu that Israel’s military has gone a long way towards achieving those aims since the offensive began.

Hamas’s political chief, Khaled Meshaal, said in Qatar on Wednesday his movement was open to a “pause” in fighting, on humanitarian grounds, but demanded guarantees that Gaza’s economic interests would be addressed through the opening of trading routes into Gaza and the easing of financial restrictions that affected Hamas’s leaders.

Meshaal didn’t indicate whether the emerging proposal would be enough for Hamas to stop its rocket attacks.

“We will not accept any initiative that does not end the blockade on our people and that does not show respect to their sacrifices,” Meshaal said. “Everyone wants us to accept a ceasefire and then negotiate for our rights. We reject this.”

In Gaza’s streets, neither side appeared ready to back down.

Israeli forces battled heavily armed militants around the southern city of Khan Younis. People fleeing their homes described heavy tank shelling, air strikes and small-arms fire.

At Nasser Medical Centre, the main hospital in Khan Younis with a trauma centre, patients streamed in by ambulance and private car, many nursing gaping shrapnel wounds and broken limbs.

Israel said three of its soldiers died in Gaza on Wednesday, bringing to 32 the number killed since the army launched intensive aerial bombardments on July 8 and a ground assault that began Thursday last week. Three civilians have died in Israel — the latest a worker from Thailand who was killed when a rocket fired from Gaza struck an agricultural collective in Hof Ashkelon.

The Health Ministry in Gaza said the Palestinian death toll rose by 72 to 695 killed, with more than 4200 wounded. The dead include 166 children and 67 women, it says.

In Geneva, the UN Human Rights Council voted to open an inquiry into Israel’s military action. The US was alone on the 47-member council voting against the move.

Netanyahu’s office called the decision “a travesty”, reiterating that Hamas and its allies put Gaza’s civilians in harm’s way by operating among them.

Hamas’s surprising military strength has complicated ceasefire efforts by bolstering the group’s resolve to end Israel’s blockade of the Gaza Strip, its main demand.

Israeli military officials acknowledge the abilities of Hamas’s military wing were unexpected. Hamas fighters were better equipped and better trained than in previous clashes in 2009 and 2012, said an Israeli military officer who requested anonymity.

The militants are using a strategy of avoidance, relying on snipers and improvised explosive devices to hit Israeli forces rather than engaging in face-to-face fighting, where they would be at a big disadvantage. They have infiltrated Israel through five cross-border tunnels, even as the army moves to destroy others.

By standing up to the current Israeli offensive, Hamas has at least for the moment transformed simmering dissatisfaction among Gazans into anger at their neighbour, interviews with residents of the coastal strip suggest.

“God bless them for resisting,” says Tamer Abu Noquera, a 44-year-old municipal employee in Khan Younis, who describes himself as a critic of Hamas.

For Hamas and nearly all Palestinians living in Gaza, ending or softening the blockade of Gaza is key to ending the fighting, says Omar Shaban, a Palestinian political scientist from Gaza-based research group Palthink for Strategic Studies.

“They must be given something they can lose if there is a war,” Shaban says. “Imagine that the war ends without good conditions in the ceasefire. Then we can simply accept war in another two years.”

Additional reporting: Tamer El-Ghobashy; Asa Fitch

The Wall Street Journal