for The Hill
 

After 16 years of living next door to a terrorist enclave, a badly shaken Israel is massing its forces to crush Hamas in Gaza. Palestinian civilians are caught in the crossfire — which is exactly what Hamas wants. 

As it has done after provoking four previous incursions by Israeli forces, Hamas is counting on images of death and destruction in Gaza to trigger outrage throughout the Middle East and bring international pressure on Israel to stop the fighting and withdraw its forces.  

The pattern is grimly familiar: Terrorists commit atrocities, then hide behind civilian populations to escape punishment. Limited incursions and ceasefires only pause the violence, allowing Hamas to regroup and set the clock ticking toward the next terrorist explosion. 

And every time, ordinary Palestinians suffer as Israel strikes back at Hamas’s rocket factories, depots and elaborate network of tunnels, cuts the number of border crossings and takes other security measures that make day-to-day life for Gazans ever more difficult.