A day after Egypt’s intelligence chief flew into Ben Gurion Airport to reportedly warn that Hamas was mobilizing in Gaza and advise further Israeli concessions to the Gaza-ruling terror group to avoid a conflict, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ordered that Israel avoid measures that could lead to a military escalation, according to an Israeli television report on Saturday.

Channel 13 news cited the minutes from a September 27 meeting with security officials, in which “the prime minister determined that [Israel] must act to contain and minimize the escalation, while using intelligence and controlled force.”

He also reportedly called “to sharpen” the warnings against the launching of arson balloons from Gaza into Israel and to ramp up humanitarian benefits, the latter apparently a reference to Israel’s reopening a day later of the crossing for Palestinians laborers employed in the country as part of an Egyptian-brokered deal for Hamas to stop border riots.

The Israeli TV network also cited an October 1 document from another security meeting that said Israel was poised to reach a peace deal with Saudi Arabia and should therefore “maintain a measured level of security activity,” echoing reporting from the New York Times on Friday that Netanyahu didn’t want to authorize strikes in Gaza out of concern they could harm normalization efforts vis-à-vis Riyadh.

Such an agreement would have required Israel to make significant concessions toward Palestinian statehood, which Netanyahu and his hard-right government oppose. Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman said the sides were moving closer, less than a month before the Hamas attack.

Internal Hamas documents obtained by Israel during the Gaza war showed that the terror group’s attack was partially motivated by a desire to thwart Riyadh’s rapprochement with the Jewish state.

The TV report........

© The Times of Israel