9. HAMAS’S CHANCES

This chapter was updated in September 2016.

0.     For the 2012 cease-fire agreement, see “Text: Cease-fire Agreement Between Israel and Hamas,” Reuters, November 21, 2012.

0.     For the Shin Bet report that recorded only a single attack, see “Monthly Summary—December 2012,” Israel Security Agency, accessed May 24, 2016, https://www.shabak.gov.il/SiteCollectionImages/english/TerrorInfo/reports/Dec12report-en.pdf. For the regular incursions into Gaza, the firing at farmers and boats, and the restrictions on fisherman, see International Crisis Group, “The Next Round in Gaza,” Middle East Report, no. 149, March 25, 2014.

0.     For more on crossings, buffer zones, imports, exports, and exit permits, see “The Next Round in Gaza.”

0.     For quotes from Israeli officials explaining the delays in holding substantive Hamas-Israel negotiations over implementing the cease-fire (as distinct from regular Israel-Egypt discussions about Gaza that took place before and after the war), see “The Next Round in Gaza,” p. 5. A few press reports indicated that there may have been preliminary preparations for indirect Hamas-Israel talks; in February 2013, the Israeli media, without quoting any officials, stated that some indirect discussions had reportedly taken place in Cairo, and the Egyptian press reported that an Israeli defense delegation met with senior Egyptian intelligence officials to discuss regional issues, including Syria, Hezbollah, Sinai, Palestinian reconciliation, and regional peace talks, but there was no mention of Gaza. See “Israel and Hamas Said to Hold Indirect Talks in Cairo,” The Times of Israel, February 15, 2013. This report was contradicted by Israeli officials who subsequently stated that indirect talks had been repeatedly delayed; see “The Next Round in Gaza.”

0.     For Egypt’s blame of Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood and its convictions against members of the latter, see Patrick Kingsley, “Muslim Brotherhood Banned by Egyptian Court,” The Guardian, September 23, 2013; “Egypt Court Bans Palestinian Hamas Group,” Al-Jazeera, March 5, 2014; Kashmira Gander, “Egypt Mass Deaths: Muslim Brotherhood Leader Badie Among Hundreds Sentenced to Death,” The Independent, April 28, 2014. For the number of Gaza civil servants on the Hamas payroll (in 2014, there were about 40,000, not including 7,000 on short-term contracts), see International Crisis Group, “No Exit? Gaza & Israel Between Wars,” Middle East Report, no. 162, August 26, 2015, p. 25; “The Next Round in Gaza.”

0.     For more details on electricity shortages, see UN OCHA, “The Humanitarian Impact of Gaza’s Electricity and Fuel Crisis,” July 2015; see also chapter 10. In the period preceding the 2014 war, electricity was typically on only half the time (eight hours on, followed by eight hours off). But in some parts of Gaza, particularly the eastern neighborhoods close to the Israeli border, electricity was off for as much as eighteen hours per day. And there were times, such as November–December 2013, when I experienced blackouts of fifteen to eighteen hours per day in Gaza City. For Gaza’s contaminated aquifer, see B’Tselem, “Over 90% of Water in Gaza Strip Unfit for Drinking,” February 9, 2014.

0.     For the April 2014 agreement, available only in Arabic, see “Hamas and Fatah Are Putting an End to the Split,” Ma’an News Agency, April 23, 2014; “Towards Palestinian National Reconciliation,” Geneva Centre for the Democratic Control of Armed Forces, 2011, pp. 58–59. The agreement, signed at Gaza’s Shati (Beach) refugee camp, is a short seven-point document that is in essence an accord to implement a previous, more detailed reconciliation pact, signed in Cairo in May 2011. The 2011 Cairo agreement states that the government’s role would be largely apolitical, limited to the following tasks: preparing for elections, unifying institutions, solving problems caused by the division, reconstructing Gaza property damaged during the 2008–2009 war, and reopening NGOs and charities.

0.     For the statements from Israeli security officials, see Isabel Kershner, “New Light on Hamas Role in Killings of Teenagers That Fueled Gaza War,” The New York Times, September 4, 2014.

0.     For the commitments Israel made in the Shalit deal, see “Egyptian Official: Shalit Deal Includes Improvement of Prison Conditions,” Ynet, October 17, 2011. For a detailed assessment of the Shalit deal, see Yoram Schweitzer, “A Mixed Blessing: Hamas, Israel, and the Recent Prisoner Exchange,” INSS Strategic Assessment 14, no. 4 (January 2012): 23–40.

0.   For the assault and censure of allies of Abbas, see “Video: Habbash Expelled from al-Aqsa,” As-Sabeel [Arabic], June 28, 2014; Amira Hass, “Abbas’ Cooperation with Israel Sinking Him at Home,” Haaretz, July 8, 2014; Asmaa al-Ghoul, “Palestinian Press Losing Media War in Current Crisis,” Al-Monitor, July 8, 2014; see also chapter 8, n. 18.

0.   For Israel’s killing of nine militants, seven of them from Hamas, see “Hamas Vows Revenge on Israel After Seven Members Die in Air Strike,” Associated Press, July 7, 2014. Operation Protective Edge is the Israeli government’s translation of the Hebrew “Tsuk Eitan” (literally “Operation Firm Cliff”).

0.   For the July 2014 US cease-fire proposal, which called for the “transfer [of] funds to Gaza for the payment of salaries of public employees,” see Barak Ravid, “Kerry’s Cease-Fire Draft Revealed: U.S. Plan Would Let Hamas Keep Its Rockets,” Haaretz, July 28, 2014. For the July 21, 2014, statement by Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon to the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee that Israel wished to see PA forces take control of Gaza’s border crossings, see “UN Chief Due in Israel to Press for Cease-fire,” Haaretz, July 22, 2014. For the payment to employees in Gaza and an Israeli security official explaining the “miscalculation” that led to the war (“when you have somebody by the throat, you shouldn’t be surprised when they knee you in the groin. We knew after closing the tunnels that the cage [around Gaza] had to have some more room, within limits of course. But we underestimated it”), see International Crisis Group, “Toward a Lasting Ceasefire in Gaza,” Middle East Briefing, no. 42, October 23, 2014.

0.   For the reclassification of the two soldiers, see Gili Cohen and Noa Shpigel, “Two Fallen IDF Soldiers Recognized as ‘Missing in Action or Captive,’” Haaretz, June 10, 2016.

0.   For the shift in rhetoric of Ramallah leaders, see Orouba Othman, “Fatah’s Sudden Volte-Face,” al-Akhbar, July 23, 2014. For the Qalandiya demonstration, see “2 Killed as Tens of Thousands Protest Israeli Assault Across West Bank,” Ma’an News Agency, July 25, 2014; Noa Yachot, “The Largest West Bank Protest in Decades,” +972 July 25, 2014; Adiv Sterman, “Six Palestinians Killed in Rising West Bank Violence,” The Times of Israel, July 26, 2014.

0.   For a Shin Bet list of “the main attacks executed via tunnels” prior to the IDF withdrawal from Gaza, see “Hamas Use of Gaza Strip-based Subterranean Route,” Israel Security Agency, accessed September 14, 2016: “a. On September 26 2001, IED explosion under Termit post on the Israel-Egypt border resulted in the collapse of the northern part of the post. Three IDF soldiers were injured. b. On June 27 2004, Explosion of Orhan Post in central Gaza Strip resulted in the collapse of the post. One Israeli soldier was killed and 7 were injured. c. On December 12 2004, an offensive tunnel exploded under the JVT post close to Rafah Border Crossing. As a result, 5 IDF soldiers were killed and 6 injured,” https://www.shabak.gov.il/English/EnTerrorData/Reviews/Pages/hamas-tunnel.aspx. On the third of these attacks, see “Attack Kills 5 Israeli Soldiers at Gaza Checkpoint,” CNN, December 13, 2014, http://edition.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/meast/12/12/gaza.explosion/.

0.   For the 10 members of the Israeli security forces killed during the 2008–2009 Gaza war, 4 of whom died from friendly fire, see B’Tselem, “Investigation of Fatalities in Operation Cast Lead,” accessed October 25, 2016, https://www.btselem.org/download/20090909_cast_lead_fatalities_eng.pdf. For the 66 soldiers, 2 of whom—Oron Shaul and Hadar Goldin—were initially declared dead by Israel and later reclassified as missing in action or captive, see UN OCHA, “Occupied Palestinian Territory: Gaza Emergency,” September 2014; 6 civilians, 5 of them Israeli citizens, were also killed during the war.

0.   Video footage of armed drones that Hamas operated during the war is available on the Hamas military wing’s website [Arabic]: http://www.alqassam.ps/arabic/videos/index/648. Other footage can be found in news reports uploaded to YouTube [Arabic]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b6_f_pfVMGU. For admissions by the IDF that it had not removed all the tunnels penetrating Israel, see Ari Yashar, “IDF Commander Says Hamas Terror Tunnels Still Remain,” Israel National News, October 16, 2014. For an estimate by the Israeli defense minister that direct military expenditure on the war had totaled $2.5 billion, see “Gaza war cost $2.5 billion, Ya’alon says,” The Times of Israel, September 3, 2014. For an estimate by the head of the Israel Tax Authority, made weeks before the fighting had ended, that the war had cost the economy an additional $2 billion, not including direct expenditures, see Zvi Zrahiya, “As Fighting Eases, Gaza Conflict Costs Seen Totaling $8 Billion,” Haaretz, August 6, 2014.

0.   For figures from a UN commission of inquiry into the Gaza war—which found that of the 2,251 Palestinians who died, 1,462 were civilians, of whom 299 were women and 551 were children—see “Report of the Detailed Findings of the Independent Commission of Inquiry Established Pursuant to Human Rights Council Resolution S-21/1,” UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, June 24, 2015, p. 153.