The Operation Guardian of the Walls launched by Israel is among the shortest such military expedition by the Jewish state against Hamas in Gaza—or even Hezbollah in Lebanon–in the last 15 years. It started on May 10, Jerusalem Day and ended early on May 21 after the two parties agreed to a cease-fire.
Since the Israelis agreed to truce only after 11 days of war several independent observers are of the view that the Benjamin Netanyahu government had to yield to the international and internal pressures simply because it could not achieve much of its objectives. The political purpose of the campaign was to seek the support of ultra-right parties as he is still unable to form the government. Israel has since April 2019 held four elections with no party coming to power. In fact, the number of seats Netanyahu’s Likud Party has won this time is less than the last time.
As Hamas has posed stiff resistance and showed enough fire-power Israel cancelled its plan to launch a full-fledged ground offensive even though it had deployed three brigades on the border. The maximum the two infantry and one armoured brigade did was to fire shells from its own territory. Similarly, Israeli naval boats too fired at Gaza. Thus, the entire operation was basically confined to aerial bombardments. The Israelis did not carry out ground offensive because they realised that Hamas would inflict huge casualties.
Unlike 11 days war this year, in 2014, the operation lasted between July 8 and August 26. It was named Operation Protective Edge.
On December 27, 2008 the Israeli Defence Forces launched Operation Cast Lead which lasted till January 18, 2009 after the unilateral cease-fire by Israel.
Earlier on February 29, 2008, the IDF launched another brief offensive which lasted till March 3, 2008. This was called as Operation Hot Winter. This was also known as Operation Warm Winter and was said to be the first such military campaign against Hamas, which came to power for the first time after election in Gaza in January 2006.
In the 132-member Palestine Legislative Council Hamas won 74 and the then ruling Fatah 45 seats.
Before this the Israelis had launched a big operation against Hezbollah between July 12 and August 14, 2006. This is also called the Second Lebanon War.
The IDF fought a full-fledged ground battle with Hezbollah and officially lost 120 of its soldiers against what it claimed killing 250 Hezbollah men. But the latter claimed that the number of Israeli soldiers killed by them were three to four times more. But hundreds of civilians, including women and children, were killed in the indiscriminate Israeli bombardment on Lebanon which lasted for 34 days.
Many experts questioned the Israeli version that this time it had lost only 12 of its people, including three foreigners—two Thais and an Indian woman. They take the Israeli version with a pinch of salt as how can the foreigners, who form a negligible proportion of the population, be one-fourth of the casualties. Thus, Israel is surely hiding something as accepting huge casualty would expose its weakness before Hamas which fired over 4,000 rockets. Thus, Hamas exposed the chink in the Iron Dome of Israel.
