For me, the words "cease fire" have an extra resonance. When I was a soldier in the 1948 war, I twice experienced what it means to wait for a ceasefire. Each time we were totally exhausted after heavy fighting in which many of our comrades had been killed or wounded. We hoped with all our hearts that a ceasefire would really come into effect, but did not allow ourselves to believe in it. In both cases, a few minutes before the appointed hour, along the whole front line a crazy cacophony of firing erupted, everybody shooting and shelling with everything they had. To attain some last-minute advantages, as it appeared afterwards.
And then, suddenly, the shooting stopped. An eerie quiet settled in. We looked at each other and left unspoken what we all felt: "We are saved! We have been left alive!"
I understand, therefore, the feelings of the fighters on both sides who are now hoping that the mutual ceasefire will come into effect and hold. After four and a quarter years of fighting, everybody is exhausted.
The first question at the end of the fighting is: Who won?
Naturally, each side will claim victory. The Palestinian organizations will assert that it was only the Qassam rockets and the mortar shells that compelled Israel to agree to a ceasefire. The Israelis will claim that the Israeli army has crushed terrorism and compelled the Palestinians to give up.
So who won? In fact, nobody. The fighting ended in a draw.
The Israeli army has not won, since it did not succeed in putting an end to the attacks, much less in "destroying the terror infrastructure." On the eve of the ceasefire, the Qassam rockets and mortar shells turned life in the town of Sderot into hell. The inhabitants don't hide the fact that they are nearing the breaking point.
Moreover, the organizations reached a new level by undertaking more complicated attacks, real guerrilla actions. The destruction of the army outpost on the "Philadelphi axis" involved blowing up a tunnel beneath it and storming the post on the ground. Similarly, the attack on the Kami checkpoint combined the explosive demolition of a wall with an attack by fighters. These actions were reminiscent of those of the Irgun and Stern Group in the last years of the British mandate.
Our army had no answer to the Qassams and the guerrilla actions. Haven't they tried everything? Brutal incursions. Shelling by tanks, killing fighters and bystanders. Demolition of thousands of homes. Targeted assassinations.
Nothing helped. There remained only the method advocated on TV by Israel Katz, a cabinet minister: to bomb and shell the Gaza Strip towns, open the border to Egypt in one direction and drive hundreds of