Secretary of State John Kerry is in the wrong place
Last week he had already dragged Qatar, a Hamas backer, into the picture rather than support Egypt and Israel’s attempt for a no-conditions cease-fire. He then offered a proposal that in essence betrayed our ally Israel before jetting off to talk to European Union diplomats, presumably to attempt to foist his Hamas-friendly deal on Israel, The Post's reporter Jennifer Rubin writes.
Kerry is obsessed with brokering a permanent truce that would freeze the status quo. But that is an impossibility for Israel, as the Jerusalem Post reports: "Hamas built a network of tunnels that begin a few kilometers away from the Israeli border, and pass under the frontier, the source said, in a bid to enable dozens of terrorists to infiltrate the country. In response, the IDF has used a wide array of firepower and ground units to tackle the challenge, employing a rapid maneuver to “shatter the enemy and deny it freedom of operation in closed areas, where it is based,” he stated.
This is why during the humanitarian truce begun on Saturday, and then temporarily extended, Israel continued to track down and destroy these tunnels. Rather than work on a “truce.” Kerry should set his sights on a plan for demolishing the tunnels. The Israeli Defense Forces can do so without continuing combat, but only if Hamas permits soldiers complete access to all of Gaza. Israel has no interest in reoccupying Gaza, but only with destruction of the tunnels can hostilities end and reconstruction of Gaza continue.