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One Month After the Gaza War
[JTA] Leslie Susser - A month after the Gaza war, Palestinians have fired nearly 50 rockets and mortars at civilian targets in the Gaza periphery. Defense Minister Ehud Barak says Hamas took a heavy beating in the war and that the Gaza-Israel border is on the verge of a long period of quiet. He sees the daily dribble of rocket fire as a pathetic attempt by Hamas to show it's still around, while Hamas keeps saying how close the sides are to a new 18-month lull. The view in the Israeli Cabinet and among the top brass of the Israel Defense Forces is that the war transformed Israeli deterrence vis-a-vis Hamas and in the region as a whole. In the war, Hamas' elaborate defense strategy against an Israeli incursion collapsed. The web of tunnels and booby-trapped buildings proved ineffectual, and in the fighting many Hamas fighters and field commanders were killed with minimal Israeli losses. The IDF estimate is that Hamas needs a long period of quiet to rebuild devastated military and civilian infrastructures.