A flare-up of violence in the Middle East

ISRAELIS FLOCKED TO the cool green woods of the Galilee on April 6th, the first full day of the Passover festival. But at 2:30pm white streaks and puffs of smoke filled the sky, as a barrage of 34 rockets launched from Lebanon began falling in the biggest such attack on northern Israel since the second Lebanon war, almost 17 years ago. Most were intercepted by the Iron Dome missile-defence system. Three Israelis were lightly wounded.

No organisation claimed responsibility for the rockets. But there is little doubt the attack was carried out by members of Hamas, a Palestinian Islamist militant movement; the launches were detected by Israel from sites where Hamas is active. On the two previous evenings Palestinians had fired salvoes of rockets from the Gaza strip at communities in southern Israel, including during the traditional Seder night dinner that marks the start of Passover.

Passover and the holy Muslim month of Ramadan coincide this year. But the two nations that have been at war in this sliver of land for over a century do not seem inclined towards a festive truce. Earlier this week, reports that tiny groups of Jewish zealots were intent on re-enacting the ancient “Passover sacrifice” on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem had caused a stir among Muslims. Many saw it as undermining a prohibition against Jews praying on top of the mount that was agreed to in 1967, when Israeli forces captured it from Jordan. The site, which contains the al-Aqsa mosque, is holy to both Muslims and Jews, and has often been a flashpoint of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Israeli police were on hand to apprehend the zealots, some of whom were carrying kid goats, before they could reach the Temple Mount.

But Hamas used the moment of tension to call on hundreds of young Palestinians to “protect” the mosque. Many arrived armed with rocks and fireworks that could have been used to attack Jews praying at the Western Wall, which is at the base of one of the retaining walls of the Temple Mount. Israeli riot police entered al-Aqsa and clashed with the youngsters, in violent scenes that spread quickly on social media, inflaming tensions and triggering the rocket attacks.

The sequence of events was ominously reminiscent of Ramadan two years earlier. Back then, riots in Jerusalem spread to other Israeli cities with mixed Jewish and Muslim populations. They also sparked rocket fire from Gaza, where Hamas and Israel waged an 11-day war that resulted in more than 300 deaths, most of them Palestinian.

This time Israel appears to have tried to avoid escalation. Its response to the rocket attacks was a short series of air strikes on unoccupied Hamas military sites in Gaza and near the city of Tyre in southern Lebanon. There are no reports of casualties. Binyamin Netanyahu, the prime minister, said the strikes extracted “a significant price from our enemies”. But it was clear that restraint, rather than revenge, was the main aim.

One reason may be that Mr Netanyahu’s hands are partly tied. A political crisis has engulfed Israel over his government’s efforts to weaken and politicise the Supreme Court. In late March protests and strikes forced Mr Netanyahu to pause his legislation until the next session of the Knesset (parliament), which starts in about three weeks.

Yet the imbroglio has left its mark. On March 26th Mr Netanyahu said he had fired Yoav Gallant, the defence minister,  who had dared to warn in public that the judicial overhaul was compromising Israel’s national security. (Thousands of army and air-force reservists had threatened to refuse to report for duty in protest.) Although Mr Netanyahu has yet to either formally dismiss Mr Gallant or to rescind his firing, Mr Gallant is still in office as the defence minister and is handling the security crisis. Facing plummeting polls and a suspicious defence establishment, the last thing Mr Netanyahu needs is prolonged fighting that will overshadow Passover, and celebrations of the 75th anniversary of Israel’s independence later in April.

The situation on the Palestinian side is even less stable. Hamas and other radical armed groups have been calling the shots, while the semi-autonomous Palestinian Authority remains on the sidelines. Mahmoud Abbas, the 87-year-old president, is now in the 19th year of what was meant to be a four-year term. Discredited and ineffectual, his security forces have lost control of major West Bank cities; Nablus and Jenin have become battlegrounds between new militant groups and Israeli security forces. They have also witnessed shooting attacks on Israeli citizens. On April 7th two young Israeli women were murdered, and their mother critically injured, in the Jordan Valley. Israeli intelligence officials believe the attack was carried out by one of these new groups. On the same day a car rammed into a group of people in Tel Aviv, killing an Italian tourist.

Nor does Lebanon look particularly stable. Hizbullah, an Iran-backed Shia militia that is the dominant force, would almost certainly have acquiesced to Hamas using southern Lebanon as a launchpad for rocket attacks against Israel. The violence serves as a reminder that the Lebanese state is unable to rein in armed groups in the south, an obligation it accepted under a UN resolution that ended the second Lebanon war in 2006.

For now, there is some hope for de-escalation. Both sides may feel they have made their points. On April 7th the midday prayers of the third Friday of Ramadan ended relatively peacefully at the al-Aqsa mosque. Muslims and Jews may get a few days to enjoy their festivals. Still, there is no real ceasefire, and a proliferation of rogue elements on both sides—including Jewish supremacists who are now part of Israel’s coalition government. Any respite is likely to be brief. ■