In January, the Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh visited Iran after promising the Egyptian government that he would not. Cairo responded by cutting exports of cooking gas and tires to the Gaza Strip. Facing a possible domestic crisis, the terrorist group recently resumed sending balloon-borne explosives into Israel, and allowed other jihadists to fire rockets. The move succeeded, despite retaliatory strikes by the IDF, writes Elior Levy:
[Hamas] sought to create an atmosphere of confrontation with Israel, until both Cairo and Jerusalem understood that the situation was not sustainable. It is also safe to assume that Hamas knew that since Israel isn’t looking for a full-scale military conflict so close to elections, the country’s response would be moderate.
A few days have passed, and Egypt has resumed imports of gas into the Strip, while Israel also offered to supply Gaza with huge amounts of gas . . . to appease Hamas and prevent any further escalation. . . . The attempts to appease Hamas didn’t end [there], as just after the escalation on the Strip started, Israel had approved a few precautionary measures for Gaza after years of refusal. For example, Israel has decided to allow the import of tires into the Strip, which it had banned since they are frequently set alight during riots. Israel has even allowed 6,000 tires into Gaza in January, despite unceasing incendiary-balloon attacks.
This is how, in the span of a mere five weeks of attrition, with a few well-placed rocket launches, hundreds of balloon clusters, and tensions with Cairo, Hamas managed to blackmail Israel into giving it a string of unprecedented measures of relief not seen in years.
Read more on Ynet: https://www.ynetnews.com/article/ByQnAJjXI