The scenario that has the security establishment most concerned is of disengagement under fire, but, judging by the statements made recently by Palestinian Authority officials, it seems unlikely that they will be able to prevent that scenario from playing itself out. Palestinian officials say this stems from a severe shortage of guns and ammunition that will keep them from stopping Hamas and from ensuring a quiet Israeli pullout from Gaza.

“Our security organizations have 20% of the necessary equipment. The situation is even graver when we’re talking about ammunition,” said Tawfik Abu Husa, a spokesman for the Palestinian Interior Ministry, adding that the PA had already discussed this matter with Israel and the United States. He said Israel had offered no response on the matter, but the Palestinians believe that the Americans will understand their needs. Indeed, it seems as if the United States is applying pressure on Israel about permitting the Palestinians to acquire more weapons. Dov Weissglass, Prime Minister Sharon’s political adviser, has left for the US to reach an agreement with the administration about its demand that Israel permit the Palestinians to purchase ammunition and other equipment used in warfare. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice raised this issue insistently in the course of her most recent visit to the region last week.

Israeli officials said that the Americans have demanded that Israel increase the assistance it gives to PA Chairman Abu Mazen. The Israeli officials said they believed the Americans were afraid that Hamas might gain in strength at the expense of the moderate forces in the Palestinian Authority leadership.

The Americans are also displeased with the fact that Israel and the PA have failed thus far to coordinate disengagement, failing even to reach an agreement about the demolition of the settler homes. James Wolfensohn, the special envoy of the US administration and the Quartet for the implementation of disengagement, said yesterday in the course of a visit to Gaza and a meeting with Abu Mazen that a decision about razing the settler homes would be made in the next number of days.

Against the backdrop of Israel’s concerns about possible terrorism in the course of the evacuation process, high-ranking IDF Intelligence Branch officials said this weekend that they believed Hamas had decided to hold its fire in the Gaza Strip and to allow, for the time being, for the disengagement process to be coordinated. According to the IDF Intelligence Branch situation assessment, the Hamas leadership realized that if they continue to attack Israel in the pre-disengagement period, as they did up until last week, Israel would be forced to launch a large-scale ground operation in the Gaza Strip and to seize control of large swaths of territory in Palestinian cities.

Israeli officials believe that Hamas’s decision stems from their fear that the Palestinian public will perceive Hamas’s continued vigilante operations as a gratuitous act of provocation that will slow down the pace of the Israeli withdrawal and will damage the eased restrictions on the Palestinians. This situation assessment has given rise to the decision not to launch a major ground operation in the Palestinian cities in the near future.

This piece ran in Maariv on July 31, 2005

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