UPDATE 13:10 PST - I didn't realize people were coming the this post for liveblogging. That's going on in another post. Sorry about that.
ORIGINAL - Looks like it's a done deal:
Israel plans to halt its Gaza offensive without any deal with Hamas, an Israeli official said on Saturday, in an apparent effort to deny the Islamist group any gains from the three-week-old conflict. Hamas leaders in exile have vowed to fight on, but many of the 1.5 million Palestinians enduring incessant bombardment and privation in Gaza seemed desperate for their ordeal to end. "The goal is to announce, subject to cabinet approval, a suspension of military activities because we believe our goals have been attained," said the official, asking not to be named... Without an accord with Hamas, diplomats said they feared Israel would let only a trickle of goods into Gaza, hampering reconstruction and creating more hardship for its people. The security cabinet is due to meet in the evening and Prime Minister Ehud Olmert will address the nation after that. "There is no agreement with Hamas," the Israeli official said, adding that Israel would reserve the right to act if Hamas continued firing or launched rockets across the border.
This sounds a lot like what's known about Livni's preferences: you don't negotiate ceasefires with intransigent lunatics like Hamas. To the extent that they force your hand, you take military action, physically degrade their capabilities, and then leave when you've done what needs to be done. Fair enough. But there's going to be plenty of second-guessing about whether Israel's actually done what needed to be done.
(1) The smuggling tunnels - Yes, Israel has severely degraded Hamas's smuggling tunnels, blowing up about one-third of the estimated 300 tunnels. And yes Livni and Rice signed a memorandum of understanding committing the US to helping suppress smuggling. But that means that there are still 200 tunnels left. Plus the MOU won't actually work. Plus the State Department is notorious for pulling anti-Israel bait and switches - making security commitments to lock in irreversible Israeli concessions and then changing the terms of the original agreements. Plus Egypt says they won't cooperate on the MOU even though the actual text acknowledges that Egyptian cooperation is critical. But even with all of that - yes, it will take Hamas a while to rebuild their lifelines and restock their weapons.
(2) Shalit - This might be Israel's last real chance to secure Shalit's release. The pressure on the government to succeed is enormous - protesters are talking about a national moral meltdown if the government fails. His actual status is unknown - Hamas made a big deal out of turning him into a de facto human shield during Cast Lead. But he's probably too much of a bargaining chip to be endangered and he obviously won't be released if Israeli soldiers just halt their fire unilaterally. The medium-term plan appears to be that he'll get bundled into negotiations over opening border crossings - a win for Israel since on the very evening of Cast Lead the price that Hamas was demanding was much heavier. But those negotiations might stall out because Hamas's demands are unacceptable to Israel. The result would be that Shalit's status would get put back into limbo.
(3) Rocket fire - Rocket fire has decreased by half since the Operation began, although part of that is because Hamas has been conserving their stocks. Their most powerful rockets and missile have only been trotted out a couple of times - long-range Grad missiles that they've fired at Israeli cities, anti-aircraft missiles that they've launched at IAF planes, and anti-tank missiles that they've used on Israel troops. The rest of the stockpile is hidden under Shifa Hospital and beyond the reach of anything but ground troops. That hasn't stopped Hamas from launching drip drip drip rocket barrages at Israeli civilians, hitting homes and schools. You should check out LGF's exclusive report about how the Israeli home front tries to cope with this kind of terror. This is the condition that's most cut-and-dry. Either Hamas stops firing rockets - an admission that they've been cowed by Israel - or they keep firing rockets. If they keep firing rockets it's a near certainty that the Israeli government will have to enter Stage 3 of Operation Cast Lead, except by that time under a new American President and far less favorable diplomatic conditions ("but we proved Hamas didn't want peace" won't really matter). Still - it might work.
In any case the ceasefire was probably a done deal earlier this week when Olmert threatened to escalate the Operation if ceasefire negotiations didn't work out. Israel has made modest gains while taking genuine but limited losses. There has been some progress on Operation Cast Lead's military goals and Israel may have succeeded in moving the goalposts on Shalit negotiations. And while Hamas will certainly trot out the Hezbollah "we achieved victory by surviving" line - the sheer scale of the devastation, the failure to inflict heavy losses on the IDF, and the inability to panic Israeli civilians will make those boasts look hollow. So Israel's "declare victory and get out" strategy might have something to it.
But if negotiations on Shalit start to drag on or if open smuggling resumes - and of course if the rocket fire continues - it will look like the Olmert government again managed to wrest diplomatic defeat from the jaws of military victory.
References and previously after the jump...