THE "INDESTRUCTIBLE CLIFF" OF CONTRADICTIONS

Quite recently - the beginning of June - Israeli President Shimon Peres and the Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas joined Pope Francis for a common prayer in the Vatican. Peres and Abbas asked God for peace. A month later the confrontation between the Israelis and the Palestinians again entered a "hot" phase.

Palestinian militants subjected Israel to massed shelling. Artillery rockets were aimed not just at regions adjacent to Gaza, but also Tel Aviv, Haifa, Eilat and Dimona, the site of a nuclear reactor. Thanks to its "Iron Dome" (anti-missile defence shield) the daily shelling causes practically no damage to the Israelis. The Israeli army has had new anti-missile systems since 2011, and although they have come in for some criticism for their low effectiveness and high cost (each intercept costs 50,000 dollars) they are so far doing their job quite well. In its response to the Palestinians Israel is making active use of its air force - various targets (rocket launchers, training camps and bases), including, for example, mosques where, it is claimed, there was a weapons and ammunition depot or a base for fighters of the "Islamic Jihad", are being bombed. However, the Palestinians, too, are at least trying to deploy drones - a Patriot missile shot down an unmanned aircraft launched, apparently, by the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades, over Ashdod, one of Israel's largest cities. 

Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu issued an order to begin Operation "Protective Edge" to knock out Hamas' infrastructure on 8 July. This was triggered by a report of the abduction on 12 June of three Israeli teenagers, whose bodies were found just a few weeks later. Searches led to mass arrests and no less than 300 people were detained, including over 10 Hamas MPs. There were clashes on the West Bank in which seven Palestinians were killed. Responsibility for the deaths of the teenagers was claimed by the Salafi group "Dawlat al-Islam", but Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu placed the blame for their deaths on Hamas. The opinion was expressed in Israel that after the exchange of the Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit for several hundred Palestinians, many of whom were suspected of preparing terrorist acts, Hamas decided to "get hold of" hostages "in exchange" for the release of their comrades.  As the Washington Post writes, Israeli officials are specifically pointing to a "mysterious Hamas leader", Saleh al-Aruri, who is suspected of abducting the Israelis. Al-Aruri spent many years in an Israeli prison, but this did not make him change his tactics, which are based on terror.

Meanwhile, at the beginning of July, the body of a 16-year old Palestinian, Mohammed Abu Khdeir, who had been burned to death, was found in Jerusalem. The chairman of the PA, Mahmoud Abbas, placed the blame for the boy's death on Israel, and Hamas began shelling Israeli territory.

Israeli Defence Minister Moshe Yaalon said that Operation Protective Edge is the beginning of a long offensive against Hamas. "This will be a large-scale operation and will continue until rockets no longer fall on our cities and peace is restored. Hamas leaves us no other choice than to extend and step up our military operation," Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu added.

However, the Palestinians do not see that they are to blame for what has happened. "The situation was calm until Netanyahu committed his terrorist acts. He attacked Palestinian reconciliation and turned his back on peace," Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal reacted to the charges from Qatar. Hamas is demanding that Israel release the Palestinian prisoners and, together with Egypt, lift the blockade of the Gaza Strip.

According to latest reports, over 200 people were killed in the Gaza Strip, 40 of them children, and over 1,600 injured. According to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, the majority of the dead in Gaza - 70 per cent - were civilians, of whom 30 per cent were children. From the Israeli side only one person was killed as a result of the rocket explosion on 15 July. The Palestinians claim that Israel's response was disproportionate because the IDF are attacking the civilian population and not fighters. For their part, Tel Aviv claims that the Israeli army is informing the residents of the Gaza Strip of their operations by telephone, but Hamas fighters are stubbornly setting up arms depots, digging tunnels and organizing headquarters near schools, hospitals and residential houses. As Suddeutsche Zeitung writes, Hamas is urging the people in the Gaza Strip to form "human shields" during Israeli air raids by climbing on to their roof tops. Besides this, the large number of fatalities on the Palestinian side can be explained by the high density of population in the Gaza Strip.

The international community is vainly calling for peace. Egypt has tried to broker a deal but failed. According to Egypt's plan, a cease-fire would be followed by negotiations between high-ranking delegations from both sides.

A restricted cabinet meeting convened by Netanyahu, including the power-wielding ministers, voted for a cease-fire but Hamas said that Egypt's proposal was tantamount to surrender.

And so, for all the direct negotiations and dialogues through mediators which have taken place in recent years, the collapse of Camp David and the hopes of Annapolis, the Arabs and the Palestinians, unfortunately, are still left with the same components of the conflict - the question of the return of territories, the question of the refugees, the problem of Jerusalem and hostilities, which as ever are ready to resume at the slightest provocation.

However, are the dead teenagers on both sides the real reason for the latest outbreak of violence between Israel and Palestine? The scale of the events in the region, plus certain other factors, at least give grounds for doubts about this. For example, La Repubblica writes that Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the leader of the extremely radical Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) group, which has dramatically raised its head in Iraq, is deliberately aggravating the situation in Gaza in order to take advantage of Israel's preoccupation with this and to grab the chance to consolidate its position in neighbouring Jordan. It needs this (along with a merger with the Syrian radicals) to realize its dream of a caliphate.

Some reports say that Hamas' present leaders are clearly losing their influence - new Jihadist groups are emerging which Khaled Meshaal, Ismail Haniya and Mohammed Deif did not decree. Egypt's President Elsisi's attitude to Hamas is the same as it is to the Muslim Brotherhood. "If Hamas is thinking about dragging the Arab world into this pointless war against Israel, which has already cost the blood of innocent Palestinians, then they are mistaken," an official spokesman for Egyptian state television said. AbdelFattah Elsisi has closed the majority of the tunnels under his border with Gaza, through which food and weapons were smuggled. Hamas' relations with Iran have also cooled considerably and Syrian President Bashar al-Assad is definitely not welcome in the Gaza Strip. Basically, only Qatar and some princes of the Saudi monarchy are helping Hamas. In addition, observers are saying, there is serious confusion between the leaders of the group. Generally speaking, Hamas' standing in the Arab world is falling because the civilian population is suffering on the brink of poverty whereas the leaders of the movement often do themselves proud. 

If you take all these factors into account, Hamas cannot have any interest in a war with Israel at present. It cannot be denied that the leaders of the movement have even entered into a reconciliation with Fatah and Mahmoud Abbas. At the same time, however, Hamas has become much stronger militarily. As experts testify, instead of antiquated Qassam rockets the group now has Grad, M-75 and M-302 rockets at its disposal.

But, when you think about it, this rocket war is not that beneficial to Israel, either, because its possible consequences are fairly serious - even greater radicalization, the start of a new Intifada, victims among IDF troops and even innocent civilians, and the diversion of the world's attention from Iran.

However, there is still another theory regarding "Protective Edge", expressed by the authoritative Guardian newspaper.  It concerns the 1.4 trillion cubic metres of gas discovered in 2000 off the shore of the Gaza Strip. The PA had a number of meetings with the British Gas Group on the development of the Gaza gas field, but apparently without Hamas. Talks were also held between Russia, Israel and Cairo. But Hamas is not entering into a gas deal and therefore the group must be neutralized as effectively as possible. So, Israel is trying not only to solve its energy problems - Tel Aviv, of course, still fears that the gas fields could alter the disposition of forces in Gaza by way of strengthening Hamas' political authority financially. At the moment the economic situation in the Gaza Strip, mainly because of the Israeli blockade, is constantly wavering on the brink of a humanitarian disaster.

To anyone superficially familiar with the situation in the Near East and the history of the Arab-Israeli confrontation, everything may appear fairly simple. The Israelis and the Arabs have no way of escaping from one another. Nor have the military operations, whether in Libya or the Gaza Strip, had any special effect. "Cast Lead", "Pillar of Cloud", "Protective Edge" - all fine names, but futile, leaving behind only suffering, destruction and dead children. However, the devil is in the detail, as they say. And they are the reason why one prayer of peace in a land of three religions is not enough.