Hamas has realized it will never achieve a "right of return" for Palestinians, so it decided to challenge Israel on the right to gather along the fence.
This idea is nothing original. Over 50 years ago, Naj Aloush, a Palestinian intellectual and Fatah member, came up with this idea: One morning, he wrote, a million Palestinian refugees would gather on the borders of Israel and then march forward, "into the occupied land."
The calculation is simple. Israel has enough military might to repel any military threat to its borders and sovereignty. But it won't dare slaughter civilians en masse – women and children who are trying to "return to their homes in Haifa, Acre and Ashkelon." And if, heaven forbid, it did, it would be immediately condemned by the international community and accused of harming innocent civilians and of crimes against humanity.
The exact same reasoning guided the Hamas leadership in the meticulous planning that went into organizing the March of Return along the Gaza border fence. About 250 buses brought some 30,000 people to the border area. Some are relatives of Hamas operatives and public officials. Not everyone participated willingly. Some were forced.
This was no peaceful, popular demonstration, as the organizers promised it would be. This was incitement. Rocks were thrown. Attempts were made to vandalize the border fence, and the demonstrators were used as cover for an attempted attack against IDF forces. When these attempts failed, and 17 people had been killed – including 10 known terrorists – Israel was accused of perpetrating a mass slaughter.
In this sense, Hamas' tactics during Operation Protective Edge in the summer of 2014, in which it located terrorist headquarters and weapons caches in civilian homes, didn't differ much from the events on Friday. In both cases, civilians were forced to serve as human shields.
An initial review of what happened Friday chalks up some significant achievements for Hamas. It succeeded in putting the Palestinian issue back on the international agenda. It turned the area around the border into a violent one, while blaming Israel for the violence and forcing the IDF to keep a heavy contingent of forces on duty on the eve of Passover.
Israel can take comfort in that it managed to prevent the protesters from crossing the border and penetrating our territory, as well as keeping the number of wounded Palestinian civilians to a minimum and making an effort not to harm women or children.
Both sides will need to draw conclusions ahead of two upcoming events: Palestinians Prisoners Day on April 17 and Nakba Day on May 15, an event that is expected to mark the height of the March of Return. Israel knows how to prevent any violation of its sovereignty but will need to do everything in its power to convince all that it is working to ease the distress of civilians in the Gaza Strip, who are under the control of Hamas.
