The six-day truce

After Israel and Hamas (which controls Gaza) agreed to a truce six days ago, everything appeared to be going fairly quiety for a change. Then on Tuesday, rockets were fired into the Israeli town of Sderot from inside Gaza. Today, in retaliation, Israel has closed the border crossings into Gaza:

Israel said the attack was a “grave violation” of a truce in Gaza between Israel and the militant group Hamas.

Israel had been allowing more imports into Gaza since the truce was agreed, but officials said the crossings would now remain closed until further notice.

Hamas, which controls Gaza, said the closings violated the truce agreement.

Well, of course it violated the truce! But so did shooting rockets into Israel! Or did it?

The rocket attack on Sderot on Tuesday was carried out by Islamic Jihad, which said it was to avenge an Israeli raid in the West Bank, in which two died.

So it looks as if one Palestinian militant group committed an act of violence against Israel, in retaliation for which Israel punished the entirety of the Palestinian population in Gaza. So why doesn’t Hamas try to stop Islamic Jihad from committing these acts of violence?

Hamas leader Khalil al-Haya said the group remained committed to the six-day-old ceasefire with Israel and it had called on all Palestinian groups to respect it.

However, he said that Hamas would not act as Israel’s “police force” in confronting militants who breached the truce.

I’m confused. Complain about violation of the truce after Israel imposes collective punishment on Gaza, but don’t commit to holding up the other end of the truce by taking any concrete action to stop other groups from violating the truce? Hamas is using Islamic Jihad as a proxy to commit terrorism while appearing to keep their own hands clean. If Hamas won’t act as the “police force” in Gaza, but will blame Israel for violating the truce when it takes unilateral action, who will keep those other militant groups from committing terrorism and getting away with it? And how can Israel avoid the heavy-handed and inhumane response of shutting down the Gaza Strip entirely when something like this happens?

Ad matai? Will it never end?