The crisis shows the failure of Israeli policy towards Palestinians, says Shlomo Brom

Israel is facing an unprecedented crisis. The state that was founded to protect Jews from persecution failed miserably in protecting its citizens living near the Gaza Strip. It was completely surprised by a militarily inferior adversary. The small Israel Defence Forces (IDF) contingent deployed along Israel’s border with Gaza crumbled and could not prevent the butchering of almost a thousand people, most of them civilians, and the taking as hostages of scores of other citizens by Palestinian terrorists from Hamas.

Nobody knows how the situation will develop. The fighting has only just started. The IDF is reorganising its forces along the border and mopping up Hamas forces that crossed from Gaza into Israeli territory. At the same time it is bombing targets in Gaza linked to Hamas and Islamic Jihad, another Palestinian militant group. The aim is to destroy their military capabilities and to make them pay a high cost for the recent atrocities without recourse to ground operations. Israel’s civilian population, meanwhile, fears further rocket attacks from the Palestinian organisations after a barrage at the weekend and more strikes on Monday.