Israel’s readiness to end the operation is understandable. Targeted attacks on Friday and Saturday killed two of the most dangerous leaders of the Iran-backed terror group. Several members of a cell that intended to fire anti-tank missiles at soldiers or civilians across the Gaza border were also killed. Ammunition caches, rocket launchers and other Islamic Jihad assets have been destroyed. The ever-upgrading Iron Dome missile defense system—how untenable Israel’s reality would be without it—has intercepted nearly all of the hundreds of rockets aimed at residential areas. Israelis in the firing line – in much of southern and central Israel – have dutifully followed instructions from Homefront Command to press fortified rooms and shelters, preventing loss of life. The death toll in Gaza is rising inexorably, but military officials reasonably claim that most of the dead are Islamic Jihad operatives. The death of seven Gazans, four of them children, in Jabaliya late Saturday — initially reported by Palestinian media as the result of an Israeli strike — was quickly and reliably proven by Israel, including via video, to be the result of a failed Islamic Jihad missile launch: Instead of soaring toward intended Israeli civilian targets, it plummeted and exploded inside the Strip, with tragically fatal results. However, the longer the conflict continues, the greater the likelihood that the IDF’s achievements will be undermined or reversed. Get The Times of Israel Daily Edition by email and never miss our top stories By signing up, you agree to the terms One or more misguided strikes in Gaza, with heavy Palestinian civilian casualties, would undermine the relatively stable diplomatic support Israel receives from many of its allies, led by the US, who were prepared in advance for Israel to resort to violence and considering the reasons for it. A “successful” rocket attack, with heavy Israeli civilian casualties, would prompt growing demands at home for a deeper operation against Gaza terrorists. Senior Palestinian Islamic Jihad commanders Khaled Mansour (right) and Tayseer Jabari (left) in an undated photo. The couple were killed in separate Israeli airstrikes on August 5 and 6, 2022. (Ashraf Amra/Courtesy) Whenever this round of conflict ends, as former IDF Chief of Military Intelligence Amos Yadlin summarized Saturday night, those many Israelis living near Gaza who spent days under semi-lockdowns last week — as Islamic Jihad prepared to strike , and the IDF, it turned out, was finalizing its plans to preempt — “will remain bitter” that Islamic Jihad, not to mention Hamas, will continue to pose almost as potent a threat after the operation as before. “But most of the [IDF] the achievements are already behind us,” Yadlin said. While Israel should not seek a ceasefire, he added, it should certainly be ready for a ceasefire. Ronen Bar, the head of the Shin Bet security agency, reportedly said much the same thing at Israel’s Security Council on Saturday night, telling ministers that the operation would soon begin to produce “diminishing returns.” Accepting a break sooner rather than later may be more palatable to the Israeli public because neither the government nor the security establishment have built up grandiose expectations for this umpteenth round of confrontation with Gaza terrorists. There was a “specific” threat of cross-border terrorism that needed to be prevented. It has been recognized that Islamic Jihad has strengthened its capabilities in both Gaza and the West Bank. and it was clear that Islamic Jihad was also trying to create an equation whereby the capture of the terror chief in the West Bank last week would be avenged by Gaza. Operation Breaking Dawn was launched to address these challenges, and has done so, including through continued arrests in the West Bank. But the Israeli leadership did not claim that it was going to destroy Islamic Jihad. He did not claim to stop rocket fire into Gaza. And he tried decisively to avoid drawing Hamas into the conflict. An Israeli soldier takes cover as an Iron Dome air defense system is fired to intercept a rocket fired from the Gaza Strip, in southern Israel, August 7, 2022. (AP Photo/Ariel Schalit) Which brings us to the highly complex process that would have to unfold to achieve a ceasefire. Iran, which hosts the leader of Islamic Jihad in Tehran, has no interest in stopping attacks on Israel and is completely unconcerned about the consequences for Gaza. Islamic Jihad will not want to defy its Iranian financiers, but it would not prefer Israel to kill more of its commanders. Hamas, which is perpetually committed to destroying Israel but also rules the Strip, may decide that further escalation, in a conflict sparked by a rival terrorist group, is not in its best interest just now. And yet Hamas may also see no compelling reason to rush to take Israel and Islamic Jihad out of the fray. Egypt and Qatar, with their respective spheres of influence, are working behind the scenes on a mechanism to end the fighting. But not only are there conflicts of interest, there are also logistical difficulties: The head of the IDF’s Directorate of Operations claimed on Saturday night that “the entire top brass of the PIJ” had been killed. With Iran fomenting further conflict between Islamic Jihad leaders abroad, and Gaza commanders either dead or under fire, it may be far from easy to finalize and effectively implement a truce, even if acceptable terms are found. Underscoring the complexity, an Egyptian attempt to negotiate a short-term humanitarian ceasefire on Saturday night proved unsuccessful. In this scenario from a video released by the IDF on August 7, 2022, a rocket launch from the Gaza Strip fails at the Jabaliya refugee camp. (Israel Defense Forces) If and when the rockets stop and the air force stops, Gaza will still be Gaza: an area where Israel has no political or military presence or claim, having violently withdrawn in 2005 to the pre-1967 lines. by a terrorist group that openly seeks the destruction of Israel. Hamas often initiates conflict with Israel. It did, indeed, as recently as 15 months ago, and managed to provoke violence in the West Bank, East Jerusalem and the mixed Arab-Jewish cities of Israel. But this time, in the usually surreal reality, it is to Hamas that Israel is now looking to help secure a ceasefire. You are a devoted reader We are really glad that you read X Times of Israel articles last month. That’s why we started the Times of Israel ten years ago – to provide discerning readers like you with the must-read coverage of Israel and the Jewish world. So now we have a request. Unlike other media, we have not set up a paywall. 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