CAIRO/JERUSALEM
The Israeli ground operation in the Gaza Strip is only a bargaining chip Israel hopes to use in any negotiation for a ceasefire in the blockaded costal enclave, experts believe.
"The objective of this operation is to make some gains before negotiations start," Talaat Musalam, an Egyptian military expert, told Anadolu Agency.
Egypt announced on Thursday that it was intensifying diplomatic contacts with the aim of stopping the Israeli onslaught on the Gaza Strip.
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and the foreign ministers of France and Italy are scheduled to visit Cairo Friday.
They are expected to discuss latest developments in the Middle East region, the current crisis in Gaza and an Egyptian ceasefire initiative.
But a few hours before their arrival, Israel launched a ground operation, staging incursions into the southern and northern parts of the blockaded Palestinian coastal enclave.
Musalam, a retired general, said the latest Israeli escalation aims to achieve some gains before any talks to broker a Gaza ceasefire.
He dismissed the latest escalation as a strategic mistake, expecting Israel to stand at the loser's side when it comes to the negotiating table.
"Israel is only after a propagandist victory, not a real one," added the former army general.
"The objectives Israel set for the ground operation are unachievable," he said.
Israel said the aim of the ground operation was destroying "terror" tunnels and incapacitating Hamas' ability to launch rocket attacks into Israeli cities.
"Preventing these rocket attacks is almost impossible," Musalam said. "Rockets are not launched from a fixed place."
Negotiating table
Military expert Gamal Mazlum agrees with Musalam.
He believes that Israel's current military escalation only aims to force Hamas to come to the negotiation table.
Palestinian factions had rejected an Egyptian initiative for a ceasefire with Israel.
Mazlum said the scheduled visits of the foreign ministers of several major countries to Cairo indicate that diplomatic efforts are being made to bring about a ceasefire in Gaza.
"Israel stepped up its attacks only to scores some points before coming to the negotiating table," he added.
Israel's gains in the negotiation process will depend on the victories it achieves on the ground in Gaza, Mazlum said.
'Swamp'
Palestinian political analyst Hani al-Masri noted that after 11 days of aerial attacks, Israel was looking for a military victory on the ground.
"Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has resorted to the ground operation in order to force Hamas to accept a ceasefire," al-Masri, the director of the Palestinian Center for Media, Research and Studies, told AA.
He described the ground operation as a "swamp", noting that the Israeli army knows how to enter Gaza, but will find it very difficult getting out.
"Netanyahu seeks an achievement and so is Hamas," al-Masri said.
Israeli political analyst Avi Issacharoff has warned against the ground operation.
He said Israel does not want to reoccupy Gaza but once a war starts nobody knows how it will end.
Issacharoff, who works with the private Walla news website, said Netanyahu had no other option having tried to reach ceasefire through the Egyptian initiative, which was turned down by Hamas.
Israel's ground incursion comes hard on the heels of 11 days of aerial attacks on the Gaza Strip, killing 260 Palestinians and wounding more than 1980 others.
Gaza-based resistance factions, for their part, have continued to fire rockets at Israel – some of which have reached Tel Aviv – in response to the deadly airstrikes.
Israel's military operation, dubbed "Operation Protective Edge," is the self-proclaimed Jewish state's third major offensive against the embattled Gaza Strip – home to some 1.8 million Palestinians – in the last six years.
www.aa.com.tr/en
