Israel declared a unilateral cease-fire Saturday in its 22-day offensive that turned Gaza neighborhoods into battlegrounds and dealt a stinging blow to the Islamic militants of Hamas. But Israeli troops will stay in the Palestinian territory for now and Hamas threatened to keep fighting until they leave.
In announcing the cease-fire, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said Israel had achieved its goals, and more.
"Hamas was hit hard, in its military arms and in its government institutions," Olmert said.
If I had to guess, I'd say Hamas won't be able to keep themselves quiet while Israelis are inside Gaza. Hamas will do something to violate the ceasefire. And to be fair, it is a unilateral ceasefire so is Hamas violating it if they shoot?
Still, it will be a stupid move for Hamas to start shooting after Israel says they'll stop. The Israelis will be able to move about inside Gaza acting on new intelligence to further gut Hamas whenever Hamas opens fire.
And Israel won't pull out until the tunnels to Gaza are knocked out. And maybe until Fatah sends security forces in.
It's a sad day when Fatah is your preferred governing force, but there you go.
The war probably isn't over.
UPDATE: Strategypage notes the dramatic improvement in Israeli ground combat proficiency displayed in this war:
The new Israeli combat tactics in Gaza were a great success. Between January 3rd, when Israeli ground forces first entered Gaza, until Israel declared a unilateral ceasefire on January 18th, Hamas fighters were useless against Israeli ground troops. So far, 13 Israelis and 1300 Palestinians have died in the fighting. Hamas combat units tended to be quickly wiped out. The Israelis were much more aggressive than they were two years ago in southern Lebanon, and this was largely the result of a training course all Israeli troops had to go through before entering Gaza, and growing anger at the ceaseless Hamas rocket attacks on Israel.
I figured the Israelis would learn from Lebanon. They proved they did. All the talk of Hamas sucking Israel into a killing field was way off--Hamas was the one knocked apart.
