Efforts to negotiate a cease-fire in the Gaza conflict were set to approach yet another critical junction on Friday. Hamas is being required to decide whether to adopt the international initiative calling for a one-week humanitarian cease-fire. Israel's decision will follow. If the offer is accepted, military forces in the field will freeze their activities. The IDF will remain in the positions it now holds in the Gaza Strip without further pursuing Hamas targets, while Hamas will halt the rocket fire at Israel and its own military activities across Gaza. The lull is meant to facilitate further negotiations in Cairo, where the parties' respective demands would be discussed. Hamas demands the opening of the Rafah crossing (between the Gaza Strip and Egypt), and wants the Palestinian Authority to transfer the funds necessary to pay its employees, and later on, the ability to establish air and sea ports in Gaza; and Israel is demanding the full demilitarization of the Gaza Strip, and concrete guarantees that Hamas will not resume its armament efforts and that it will halt the tunnel enterprise. The tunnels are expected to be the only operational exception to the humanitarian cease-fire, as Israel demands that the IDF be allowed to continue its counter-tunnel activities during the lull, to further neutralize their threat. The U.S., which is heading the cease-fire efforts via Egypt, backs the Israeli demand, and has offered Hamas a promise that its other civilian and financial demands would be discussed at a later date. The temptation for Hamas is significant, as this represents not only the potential, partial end to the siege imposed on Gaza, but a formal link to the U.S. Israel has so far refrained from accepting the humanitarian cease-fire offer, and it is officially waiting for Hamas' decision on the matter, but Jerusalem is likely to agree to the lull, as it has to every other cease-fire proposal so far. The one procrastinating is Hamas political leader Khaled Mashaal, whose radical speech in Qatar on Wednesday may have left little room for discussion, but also attested to how detached he is from the situation on the ground in the Gaza Strip. As far as he is concerned, Gaza can keep bleeding and the Palestinians seeking some peace and quiet once the month of Ramadan is over can go to hell. IDF sources said Thursday that this bleeding, which also affects Hamas' military wing, the Izzedine al-Qassam Brigades, is heavier than it seems, and that Israel's military achievements are greater than the public has been led to believe. Even if this is a way of preparing public opinion to the day after Operation Protective Edge is completed, much of it is still true. Hamas' achievements are more limited than its leaders had hoped for and even its biggest accomplishment so far -- crippling air traffic to and from Israel -- has come and gone within a day, as Ben-Gurion International Airport resumed full operations on Thursday. Meanwhile, the IDF is preparing to forge ahead in case the lull efforts fail, or if fighting resumes once the lull ends. Units that have completed the search and destroy mission for tunnels in their sectors have moved on to raids targeting Hamas command posts, rocket launchers and terrorists. This is a limited and localized operation, which Israel prefers at this time over ordering a significant call-up of the reserves, to the tune of several divisions that would be ordered to march into Gaza and carry out significant maneuvers opposite Hamas. This option has been presented to the cabinet on Wednesday, but the ministers have so far refrained from putting it into action, as Israel is seeking to preserve Operation Protective Edge's core strategy, namely reinstating peace and quiet in southern Israel and debilitating Hamas without toppling its regime. Israel knows that it is walking a tightrope that could be easily torn. As it is, the Gaza campaign has exceeded the initial scope of a short, limited aerial operation meant to restore deterrence and with it peace and quiet to the south. After almost three weeks of Operation Protective Edge, it is clear that the time for a crucial decision in nearing. Israel has to decide whether it is prepared to end the operation; and if not, it must order its expansion and redefine its purpose -- war.
