Search and Destroy in Gaza

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He may be right. The Israeli offensive sent a message not just to the militants holding Shalit but also to the Palestinian leadership, which Israel accuses of abetting rising violence against Israeli soldiers and citizens. A senior Israeli security official says some members of Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's government believe the crisis is an opportunity to smash the authority of Hamas, the militant organization that won control of the Palestinian Authority in elections earlier this year. That aim became evident when Israeli forces arrested eight Palestinian Cabinet ministers and 40 Hamas parliamentarians in the West Bank, who may be charged with membership in terrorist organizations, affiliation with terrorist leadership and other violations. Israeli Interior Minister Ronnie Bar-On tells TIME that the arrests had been planned for weeks and that the ministers would not be used as bargaining tools to win Shalit's release. But with one-third of the Hamas-led Cabinet in jail and much of the rest of it hiding from the threat of assassination by Israeli air strikes, the moves effectively rendered the Hamas government impotent--a reality Palestinian Prime Minister Ismail Haniya acknowledged in a public appearance in Gaza City last Friday. "They aim to topple the government," he said.

That strategy, though, carries dangers. Already Palestinian militants have retaliated for the Israeli assault--which, for all its ferocity, killed one Palestinian fighter in three days--by kidnapping and murdering an Israeli teenager. The fallout from the Shalit saga is only hardening attitudes on both sides, making the Bush Administration's goal of forging a Middle East peace deal and a Palestinian state more remote. To Israelis, the soldier's abduction and the Palestinians' initial failure to secure his release have highlighted the fecklessness of both Hamas and Abbas, until now the one Palestinian leader acceptable to Israel. Among the Palestinians, the perception that Israel has acted unlawfully by trying to undermine their elected leaders will probably strengthen Hamas, not weaken it. And by leaving the Gaza Strip in tatters, the Israelis risk planting even deeper seeds of hate. If the situation worsens, says Husseini, "the losers would be the Israelis as well [as the Palestinians] because they will not have peace. They will not even have the chance of peace."

Even before Shalit's kidnapping, it would have been a stretch to call the atmosphere placid. For months Gaza militants have fired homemade rockets at Israeli towns, usually missing but causing some injuries and great misery, and drawing Israeli artillery barrages in response. Tensions escalated early last month after seven members of a Palestinian family died in a Gaza beach explosion, which Palestinians blamed on an errant Israeli artillery shell. (Israel denied responsibility.) That prompted Hamas leaders to renounce a 16-month-old cease-fire with Israel, giving an array of Palestinian guerrilla groups the green light to stage a high-profile attack.