Israel weighs its Gaza options

JERUSALEM —  Israel’s assault on the Gaza Strip began with a simply stated goal shared by the senior leadership: cripple Hamas’ ability, and break its will, to fire rockets across the border.

Seventeen days later, the goal remains elusive, the military operation has slowed, and the political consensus behind it is fraying.

After hundreds of airstrikes and a thundering ground invasion, a Palestinian death toll nearing 1,000 and international outcry over the bloodshed, Israeli leaders are furiously debating how and when the offensive should end.

None of the options offers guaranteed quiet on the Gaza front. They range from a unilateral withdrawal to a full-scale, bloody reoccupation of the Palestinian enclave that Israelis thought they had left behind more than three years ago.

The choices are complicated by bickering among the three officials -- Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni and Defense Minister Ehud Barak -- who ordered the offensive. Their relationship is strained by an election in which Livni and Barak are competing to replace Olmert.

Livni wants Israel to stop indirect cease-fire negotiations with Hamas and withdraw from Gaza. Olmert and Barak want a cease-fire deal but are divided over how much military force to apply to get it. Hovering over the conflict like a timekeeper is Barack Obama, whose inauguration a week from today is viewed in Israel as a deadline for ending the fight and avoiding friction with the new U.S. administration.

Olmert suggested Sunday that Hamas was on the verge of collapse and said “more patience, determination and effort” was needed to subdue the Islamic militant group, which continued to fire rockets into Israel, although at a much reduced rate.

Thousands of Israeli troops surrounding Gaza City are awaiting a political decision on whether to retreat or charge into Hamas’ urban stronghold.

A front-page headline Monday in the Israeli newspaper Haaretz asked what many Israelis are thinking and Olmert’s government itself is debating: “Quit while we’re ahead?”

Among Israel’s options:

Withdraw unilaterally

Some officials are sounding triumphant, saying the offensive has weakened Hamas and achieved deterrence. Livni said she wants to end the offensive, while threatening to repeat it, “should Hamas dare lift its head and hurt Israel again.”

Advocates of this course say Israel must respond to concerns across the world over civilian deaths in Gaza and the United Nations Security Council’s call for a cease-fire. They worry that an ongoing offensive would pressure Israel to reach a formal cease-fire and tie its hands from fighting Hamas again. And they say such a deal would give legitimacy to Hamas, which advocates the Jewish state’s destruction.

Seize the Gaza-Egypt border

The offensive would be expanded by sending troops to occupy the sandy stretch of no man’s land along Gaza’s 9-mile-long border with Egypt and choke off Hamas’ weapons-smuggling pipeline.

A ground operation in the so-called Philadelphi corridor would allow Israel to use bulldozers and sonar equipment to root out smuggling tunnels under the border that have yet to be destroyed by airstrikes.

But Israeli troops would face attacks by Hamas militants in Rafah, a city bisected by the border and the center of the smuggling trade. The capture of a single soldier or a rocket that killed many could undermine support in Israel for the operation.

Reoccupy the entire Gaza Strip

Tens of thousands of Israeli army reservists would enter the 140-square-mile Palestinian enclave, escalating the offensive into full-scale war.

When Israel unilaterally withdrew its military bases and settlers from Gaza in 2005, it hoped the autonomous Palestinian government would build a peaceful ministate. But Hamas kept up its rocket attacks after winning the 2006 elections, and Israel tightened a blockade of the territory after Hamas forces ousted their more moderate Fatah rivals in 2007, ending their power-sharing government.

Debate over reoccupying the strip has gained momentum since the offensive began. Several high-ranking Israeli officials argue that the real aim of the offensive should be to remove Hamas from power.

But all-out war could bring months or years of combat between Israel’s army and a 15,000-man paramilitary force in Gaza’s densely populated cities, with steep casualties on both sides and an uncertain outcome.

Few Israelis relish such a scenario or consider it realistic. Even if Hamas were beaten, Israel could hardly count on reinstating the Palestinian Authority, led by Fatah leader Mahmoud Abbas, to take effective control of a territory where Fatah is weak and unpopular.

Yet some Israeli leaders talk as if it’s a real possibility.

“Yes, Israel has achieved deterrence, but the problem is that against Hamas it always seems to be temporary,” said Tzachi Hanegbi, chairman of parliament’s security and foreign affairs committee.

“Only a permanent military solution can prevent the rockets.”

Hold the fort

The army could continue to stand pat, making only tentative advances while Israel seeks a cease-fire. But commanders are increasingly uncomfortable with this position and are pressing to expand the offensive.

“The army can’t go on like this forever,” said Giora Eiland, a retired major general and former head of Israel’s National Security Council. “We need to reach a decision in two or three days.”

Still, Olmert, Livni and Barak are deadlocked, torn by conflicting political interests as Israel’s Feb. 10 parliamentary elections approach.

Olmert is pressing for a broad escalation, to win better terms for a truce. The prime minister was stained by Israel’s demoralizing 34-day standoff against Lebanon’s Hezbollah militia in mid-2006 and wants to improve his legacy. Forced by a corruption scandal to call early elections and step down, he has little to lose politically.

Livni, the candidate of Olmert’s centrist Kadima Party, aspires to lead Israel to a peace agreement with Abbas’ moderate, secular administration in the West Bank. She wants to avoid an accord with Hamas that would undermine Abbas’ standing among Palestinians.

Barak, leader of the left-leaning Labor Party, is trying to regain the prime minister’s job he lost in 2001. He advocates a cease-fire pact and is said to be reluctant to expand the offensive.

Military gains in the Gaza operation have boosted his underdog odds in the election, but a prolonged fight with soaring Israeli casualties would hurt him politically.

Israel’s best option for ending the offensive is an Egyptian-brokered cease-fire that would constrain Hamas’ ability to rearm.

But Egypt’s truce proposal would also reopen Gaza’s borders for fuel and goods, ending a lengthy Israeli blockade that Egypt supports. Israeli leaders worry that ending Gaza’s isolation would boost Hamas’ prestige without breaking its motivation to fight another day.

For now, Egypt’s initiative is stuck. Hamas rejects its proposal to put European and Palestinian Authority border monitors inside Gaza and says it will stop firing rockets only if Israel withdraws its troops and the borders are reopened.

Israel says it won’t halt the offensive until Egypt tightens security at its border, with assistance from U.S. or European specialists.

“The border is the Achilles’ heel of this process, because Egypt has made the effort before but failed to stop the smuggling,” said Yossi Alpher, a former Israeli negotiator.

“There isn’t much time to work things out,” he added.

“Everyone in the [Israeli] government wants to make sure that an ongoing war in Gaza is not on Obama’s agenda. On the other hand, I don’t see it stopping the war on Jan. 20 unless its conditions are met.”

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boudreaux@latimes.com