Israel should never have got involved with the 10km-wide and 35-km long Gaza Strip. It seized it from Egypt in 1967, and placed 7,500 settlers along the coast. It took the last one back home in 2005. If Israelis thought this would bring them peace and stability, they were wrong. Sderot, a working-class Israeli town three kilometers from Gaza, has been hit over the last four years with some 2,000 rockets fired from Gaza, and eight civilians have been killed by rockets in this town.

After Hamas won the 2006 elections in Gaza, Israel declared Gaza a “hostile entity”, and imposed a severe economic blockade. In January, Israel tightened the noose on Gaza following more rocket attacks, and fuel and medical supplies were further restricted.

At the end of January, in a clever and

Well-prepared move about which there had been warnings by Egypt to Israel in November, Hamas blew a massive hole in the metal wall which runs along Gaza’s southern border with Egypt. It is thought about half of Gaza’s 1.5 million residents took advantage and crossed over into Egypt and into the town of Rafah. They purchased all manner of goods — including bags of cement, mattresses, cans of fuel and even soap. Israel feared, probably correctly, that weapons would also have been taken back.

On Feb. 3, Egypt’s well-armed riot police, working in cooperation with Hamas security teams, regained control of the situation and resealed this crucial border. The Egyptian government said it would not tolerate further breaches of the wall; but that is outside its control. For its part Hamas said it wanted to arrange new crossing arrangements for Gazans to help relieve their poverty and suffering.

This highly publicized breaching of the barrier gave Hamas the initiative and was a slap in the face for Prime Minister Ehud Olmert of Israel and his besieged coalition government. The international community, increasingly alarmed by Israel’s vicious actions against the civilian population of Gaza, which could be regarded as possible war crimes, was delighted by the totally unexpected news that the plight of the Gazans had been much reduced — if only on a temporary basis. The United Nations Security Council has tended to focus, not on the improving range and explosive power of the rockets hurtling out of Gaza, but on the humanitarian crisis in Gaza.

The hole in the wall, later increased by a bulldozer, presented considerable problems for the Egyptian government. However, they handled them well. President Hosni Mubarak was furious that the hole had been made, but told the Egyptian public that Gaza was “starving due to an Israeli siege”, and ordered his troops and police to stand back and let the shoppers in for twelve days. The Muslim Brotherhood, the main opposition in Egypt, naturally has close ties with Hamas, and has been making known its view that President Mubarak has been enthusiastically collaborating with the hated Israelis.

Just how difficult an issue this was for Egypt was made clear when, on Feb. 4, a Palestinian extremist got into Israel from Egypt, and carried out the first suicide bombing there for a year. One woman was killed and eleven were injured in the town of Dimona, only a few miles from Israel’s secret nuclear facility. Police in Sinai said they had stopped other armed Palestinians, equipped with suicide belts and sniper rifles, close to this 158-mile border with Israel which does not have a fence all along it.

Israel was much alarmed by these events. It has long claimed that Cairo has not taken sufficient action to prevent arms and ammunition getting into Gaza. Tunneling between Gaza and Egypt has been a growth industry for years and smugglers, at great personal risk, have made much money. It is suggested by the political right in Israel that Egypt has a long-term plan to incorporate the Gaza Strip, and some have put it about the blowing up of the wall was organized secretly by Cairo. I do not believe that second part for a moment.

Israel has yet to find a way of stopping the deplorable rocket attacks. The blockade is a crude weapon that hits the civilian population, rather than those organizing the firing of the rockets. There will now be concern in Israel that there will be further attacks on this border wall in the months to come. Hamas will be able to turn on and off such assaults like a tap, and neither Israel nor Egypt will be able to prevent Hamas behaving in such a manner. In the region there is a broad recognition that this move by Hamas has given the ball a new spin which Israel, Egypt and Fatah will find difficult to play. It is a time for cool heads, and active diplomacy over a complex scene.