The prospect of a long-term truce in the Gaza Strip will be slim, even if a new government is elected in Israel, Israeli military and security expert Yossi Melman said.
In an article published Saturday, Milman said Israel was sticking to its position, which it told all parties, mediators and the international community, that any improvement in the situation in Gaza and the lifting of the total siege would require the return of Israeli prisoners and missing persons.
He noted that the current understandings of calm will end fully in April with the date of elections on the ninth of that month. Pointing out that this could ignite the situation during the election period.
Melman, a close associate of the security and military services in Israel, said that in Israel, the possibility of resuming the firing of incendiary and explosive balloons at the Gaza envelope settlements in the spring and summer is being prepared.
"This will again cause reactions and put both sides in the circle of vicious violence," he said, adding that this could happen at the most inconvenient time for Israel, the election period, or immediately afterwards.
It is likely that the next government will not change its approach to using calm in the short term rather than the long term, with the aim of bringing relative calm on the border and ending the war of attrition.
"Gaza will remain a barrel of powder that can ignite and affect the election results, or contacts to form a government later," he said.
