Jerusalem – Hamas dealt Israel its first combat death in nine months Thursday during an Israeli army raid on a stronghold of the movement’s military wing in the Gaza Strip.
The clash occurred a year after the start of Israel’s 34-day cross-border war with Hezbollah guerrillas in Lebanon, and underscored the Jewish state’s difficulties in confronting Islamic adversaries on its doorstep.
Hamas took a lesson from that war – how to use rockets against Israeli civilians to undermine Israeli self-confidence. But Israel has felt constrained in Gaza by the same limits it met in Lebanon last summer, when it failed to crush Hezbollah or bring back two captured soldiers.
Since then Israeli leaders have been wary of Gaza: A full-scale occupation of the coastal territory could leave the army bogged down in costly battles, as it was in Lebanon, while too much restraint might signal that its psychological defeat last summer eroded Israel’s deterrence capability.
Thursday’s pre-dawn raid in the Bureij refugee camp was an example of a middle-ground strategy Israel has adopted to try to blunt rocket fire from Gaza and what officials call a large-scale stockpiling of weapons smuggled by Hamas from Egypt.
The camp, near Gaza City, lies about 500 yards from the Israeli border, within range of the periodic but brief “pinpoint” incursions staged by Israeli ground troops. Like previous incursions, this one was backed by helicopters and fighter planes.
Hamas’ armed wing, Izzidin al-Qassam Brigades, said its fighters detonated two large mines and fired rocket-propelled grenades as Israeli troops neared the camp. The Israeli army said Staff Sgt. Arbel Raich, 21, was killed and two other soldiers wounded.
Israel detained dozens of Palestinians and seized weapons in house-to-house searches. Two Palestinians were reported wounded by Israeli aircraft fire.
A Hamas spokesman in Gaza, Sami Abu Zohri, said Palestinians had a right to defend themselves.
