Israel seen avoiding Gaza war with Hamas - for now

JERUSALEM, June 24 (Reuters) Faced with a Hamas mini-state in the Gaza Strip, Israel has been preparing contingency plans for a major military offensive but is unlikely to initiate a confrontation, Israeli officials and analysts said today.

Though Israel's doctrine of pre-emptive strikes would seem to dictate crushing what many Israelis call an Iranian-backed ''Hamastan'' next door, there is some countervailing optimism about the Palestinian Islamist group's political priorities.

Israelis are also reluctant to revisit the casualties, confused diplomacy and global recrimination that accompanied last year's war on Lebanese Hezbollah -- a guerrilla movement whose methods were adopted by Hamas's estimated 20,000 fighters.

''Gaza, as a whole, can be considered an enemy state that we may eventually have to invade. It would be a war zone with the defenders having a big tactical advantage, so we have been planning accordingly,'' an Israeli defence official said.

Israel's assessments are that it would lose scores of troops in a full-on Gaza offensive, with a ten-fold death toll among the Palestinians, many of them civilians.

Yet the Israeli defence official said Hamas's rout of Fatah rivals in Gaza's civil war also offered Israel hope for calm.

''It's a paradox, but with Hamas in charge there are no more excuses -- no more rocket fire or gun attacks by 'splinter groups' that the Palestinan leadership can disavow. Hamas also has to refocus on the Gazan population's needs,'' he said.

Even at the height of the skirmishes with Fatah, Hamas fighters kept away from the aid-dependent territory's crossings on the Israel frontier, apparently loath to trigger gunfights with border patrols and a punitive blockade of vital imports.

A top Hamas official, Mahmoud al-Zahar, confirmed that his group was holding fire against the Jewish state it refuses to recognise, in parallel to seeking reconciliation with Fatah.

''At the moment we have to deal with two enemies at the same time,'' Zahar told the German magazine Der Spiegel.

NO WAY BACK Israel withdrew from Gaza in 2005 after 38 years of occupation.

Few Israelis would want a return to ruling the territory's 1.5 million Palestinians.

The appointment last week of Defence Minister Ehud Barak, formerly Israel's most decorated soldier, has spurred anticipation of more aggressive actions vis-a-vis Gaza.

But for now Barak appears content to stick to Israel's policy of selective air strikes and commando raids against Palestinians suspected in cross-border rocket salvoes.

''Barak's main priority is rehabilitating the armed forces after the Lebanon war,'' said Alon Ben-David, Israel analyst for Jane's Defence Weekly. ''He won't rush into a ground offensive.'' But one analyst, who has access to private briefings from political leaders and military officers, said: ''It's only a matter of time before Israel will have to go in and dismantle this military infrastructure in Gaza.'' There has also been an Israeli campaign to bring foreign peacekeepers to Gaza, perhaps as a limited garrison on the southern border with Egypt, which sees frequent arms smuggling.

Beset by domestic Islamist opposition, Egypt has a vested interest in helping Israel contain Hamas, and has stepped up efforts against the gun-runners from its side of the frontier.

But the intercession of Arab powers may not be enough to assuage Israel if it sees Gaza evolving into a front in any future conflict with Iran.

Part of Israel's rationale for attacking Hezbollah, another Iranian ally, was to counter Tehran's strategic arm in Lebanon.

Israel, assumed to be the region's only nuclear power, has vowed to prevent Iran from attaining similar capabilities; should that mean war, Hamas could well pitch in from its turf.

''Iran is here, in Israel's backyard. For now, at least, it's not a strategic threat,'' Ben-David said.

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