While an increased IDF presence in Hamas-controlled Gaza is likely, it is abundantly clear that at present, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert is not sanctioning a major IDF incursion into the PA area.

With Pesach on the horizon, as well as the expected arrival of US National Security Advisor Stephen Hadley and US President George W. Bush next month, Israel does not appear likely to order any major long-term operation in Gaza.

Following Olmert’s failures of the Second Lebanon War, he will do everything possible to avoid ordering another major IDF offensive.

(Yechiel Spira – YWN Israel)