Gaza: What next?

This article makes important points about the Israeli operation in Gaza, which are on everyone's minds:

By the end of Monday, the third day of Operation Cast Lead, Israel will be close to exhausting its target bank for aerial bombing. At that point, it will have to either launch a ground operation or bring the campaign to a speedy conclusion. Thus far, however, Israel has been sending conflicting messages about where the operation is headed.

 

On the one hand, despite its stated goal of a limited operation ending in a new and improved cease-fire, Israel has so far not sent Washington its outline of an acceptable formulation and asked it to begin mustering the requisite international support. And since that process is likely to take several days, if the goal were to end the fighting quickly, Israel's diplomatic initiative should have been ready to go at the same time as its military initiative.

 

This is especially the case because, unlike in the Lebanon war, it does not have the excuse of having been caught by surprise.

 

On the other hand, the military mobilization so far is not nearly enough for a major ground operation - and even if the requisite several divisions were called up, they would need a few days of training before they were ready to enter Gaza.

 

At the moment, therefore, neither a full-scale invasion of Gaza nor a quick diplomatic solution seems in sight

Not mentioned is the possibility of a UN Security Council resolution mandating a cease fire. Evidently, that threat was neutralized before the campaign started, probably by tacit agreement with the US, or perhaps by agreement with more than one power. One of the reasons offered for the slow pace of the battles is careful assessment of damage and firing orders, tied to the realization that a single mistake could lead to massive civilian deaths and international pressure to halt the operation. Israel has reportedly called up about 7,000 reservists including tanks, but it is not known what use will be made of them, if any.