Three goals from Operation Cast Lead: (1) degrade Hamas's military effectively cutting them off from their smuggling tunnels, (2) end rocket attacks on Israeli civilians, (3) Shalit. Israel is nowhere on Shalit, there are drip drip drip rocket attacks, and as for the smuggling tunnels - well:

Smuggling into Gaza from Egypt is underway again, only days after the end of the IDF operation against Hamas. AP Television News footage showed Palestinian smugglers Wednesday filling a fuel truck with petrol that came through a cross-border tunnel from Egypt. The footage also shows workers busy clearing blocked tunnels and bulldozers carrying out other repairs. One of the stated goals of the IDF offensive was to stop the smuggling through the hundreds of tunnels under the border. The goods coming through have included a steady flow of rockets and other weapons.

Amazingly that's still an improvement over a month ago. Before Cast Lead Hamas had a tunnel going all the way to Gaza's fuel terminals, the better to pretend that no fuel was getting into Strip. But the rest of the rebuilding efforts - which should go increasingly well now that the worst of the tunnel-collapsing rain storms are over - will be for the weapons that Iran is already very visibly shipping to the Gaza Strip:

Iran has renewed efforts to supply advanced weaponry to Hamas and the IDF is concerned that the terror group will try to smuggle long-range Fajr missiles into the Gaza Strip. According to the latest intelligence assessments, Iran, which was responsible for writing Hamas's military doctrine, has already launched an internal probe to determine how the plan it had created for Hamas failed to cause more IDF casualties. The military plan created by the Iranians was based on three pillars: The first was the defensive measures that Hamas had created in Gaza, which included dozens of kilometers of tunnels and thousands of roadside bombs and booby-trapped homes. The second pillar was rocket attacks against the home front. Here too, Hamas failed to fire rockets farther than 40 kilometers, even though it had planned to. The third pillar was creating a "victory image" in the form of a burned-out tank or the abduction of an IDF soldier.

The Iran-Hezbollah-Hamas axis discovered that they can't inflict spectacular damage on the the IDF and that they can't cow the missile-hardened Israeli southern front. So the new plan is to smuggle long-range missiles that can hit Israel's high-tech Tel Aviv underbelly. This even beats the wartime estimate of "three weeks" as the time it would take Iran to rearm Hamas. And to think: I actually had doubts about the efficacy of the Livni-Rice agreement on the smuggling tunnels.

At least we can be sure that the Obama administration won't pressure Israel to roll with future Hamas ceasefire violations. Sigh.

References:
* Gaza smuggling routes operational again [JPost]
* IDF uncovers tunnel leading to Nahal Oz fuel terminal [YNet]
* Four killed, three missing in a tunnel collapse [Elder]
* Iran renews efforts to supply Hamas [JPost]
* Ceasefire Would Allow Iran To Rearm Hamas Within Weeks [MR]
* Israel To Call Unilateral Ceasefire, Declare Partial Victory (Plus: Has Operation Cast Lead Achieved Anything?) [MR]
* White House: Obama determined to help consolidate Gaza truce [Ha'aretz]

Previously:
* Confirmed: Plurality Of Democrats Oppose Israeli Self-Defense, US Support Of Israel
* Hamas Taking Limited Losses, Waiting For Obama Inauguration To Negotiate Ceasefire Terms
* Hamas's Sets Up Video Streaming Site, Transitions Genocidal Propaganda Into Web 2.0