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Amid
Mixed Signals, Military Build-Up, Israel Delays Gaza Sweep
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Israel delayed the attack, still massing troops |
JERUSALEM,
May 11 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) – While Israeli military
build-up around Gaza continued Saturday, Israel decided to delay the
anticipated attack in the Gaza Strip, news agencies reported.
Israeli
public Radio reported an apparent freeze of a major military
offensive, moving instead toward preparing a limited operation with
allegedly specific targets.
Plans
of the attack were revised at a meeting late Friday between Defense
Minister Binyamin Ben Eliezer and senior military officials, reported
Agence France-Presse (AFP).
The
Israeli radio quoted senior Israeli sources in Jerusalem as saying
that the decision was based on purely military reasons, and stressed
that there had been no American or European intervention. The decision
had been reached, they said, after those militants (resistance
activists) who would have been targeted in the operation fled their
homes, reported Israeli daily paper, Ha’aretz.
The
initial go-ahead for the incursion - according to senior security
sources "a focused, time-limited operation" - came in
response to Tuesday's bomb attack in Rishon Letzion, in which 17
people were killed.
A
modified, more limited operation with specific targets and a reduced
number of ground forces was on the cards, according to security
sources.
Meanwhile,
Israeli military sources said the strategy was altered because the
Israeli military had lost the element of surprise.
Ben
Eliezer decided to defer the operation "because of leaks"
about the planning, a security official told AFP Friday on condition
of anonymity.
However,
Israeli ministers were given no details of the planned action but
authorized Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and Ben-Eliezer to work them
out. Sharon explicitly ordered Ben-Eliezer not to show the cabinet
maps or give them any details, according to Ha’aretz.
At
the meeting, Sharon allowed no discussion on expelling Palestinian
President Yasser Arafat, and also declined to report on his trip to
Washington. Both matters, he said, could be discussed in full cabinet
on Sunday.
One
participant later said: "I felt like I was in a Fellini film. No
one understood why we were summoned urgently to a midnight meeting or
what we were doing there, with no details about the operation or
diplomacy reported.”
Yet,
in a clear contradiction, Ben-Eliezer said Friday that he asked the
army to reevaluate its plans for the military incursion. Ben-Eliezer,
who met with senior military officials during the day, cited the
public discussion in recent days regarding details of the operations
as one of the reasons for his decision.
Israeli
Channel Two Television reported that Ben-Eliezer had actually decided
to delay the operation and that he accused government ministers of
leaking information about the planned incursion to the press.
Details
allegedly emerged from an emergency cabinet meeting Wednesday night
that Israeli forces were being readied for strikes on the Gaza Strip,
the bastion of Islamic resistance group Hamas.
The
Israeli army, however, kept massing tanks and troops around and close
to the Gaza Strip and continued mobilizing reservist soldiers.
According
to the Israeli press, Israel learned lessons from last month's blitz
across the West Bank, and is conscious of the risks to its soldiers
and the image of the country if Palestinian civilians suffer
disproportionate losses in fighting in over-populated areas of the
Gaza Strip.
Observers,
however, believe the Israeli delay of the Gaza operation is
‘strictly business’ and that Israel will strike at any minute,
mindless of a new ‘human tragedy’ that is sure to occur once the
planned sweep is carried out.
Israeli
Security sources, for their part, claimed that some reservists who
received an emergency call-up for the expected operations were
notified that they were likely to be released Sunday.
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