Gaza – Ma’an – An Israeli airstrike that killed three Palestinian fighters on Friday night was targeted at Islamic Jihad in a calculated move intended to disrupt a precarious calm in the Gaza Strip, political analysts told Ma’an on Saturday.

The strike targeted Islamic Jihad in hopes that the group would respond violently, thus embarrassing the Hamas-controlled government in Gaza, which has assiduously enforced a unilateral ceasefire since the end of Israel’s three-week war on Gaza last January.

Islamic Jihad has generally observed the ceasefire until now, but has vowed to avenge the deaths of its members. Islamic Jihad also generally enjoys warm relations with Hamas, which it views as a fellow member of the pro-armed resistance camp.

The airstrike targeted the three men who were driving in a car in the Tuffah neighborhood of eastern Gaza City. One of those killed was the son of Islamic Jihad Leader Khaled Ad-Dahduh.

A spokesman said the men were en route to launch projectiles into Israel. He said the same group had launched two projectiles toward the southern Israeli town of Sderot in recent weeks.

Abu Ahmad, a representative for Jihad's armed wing, also confirmed in a statement that the three "were on a standard mission" when their car was struck, and warned that the attack would not go unanswered.

Gaza-based writer and political analyst Yahiya Rabah said pointed to the timing of the airstrike, days before an anticipated summit of factions in Egypt in hopes of restoring Palestinian national unity. The strike, he said, was an attempt to create tension between Hamas and Islamic Jihad at a moment when the factions were making gestures toward reconciliation.

There was evidence for this view at the funerals for the three men on Saturday, where Islamic Jihad gunmen fired shots into the air, in violation of a Hamas-imposed ban on carrying weapons in public. It was the first such display of arms at a funeral in Gaza since the end of the recent war in January.

Rabah highlighted the fact that in its stated justification for the killings, Israel said the men had fired projectiles in the past. This made the assassination an act of "retroactive murder," he said.

Political analyst Ibrahim Abrash said that Israel usually does not allow situations of calm, or cease-fire to last long, but that it chooses to end ceasefires at specific times and for political reasons. Abrash pointed to what he said was the “failure” of the trilateral meeting between US President Barack Obama, President Mahmoud Abbas, and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to re-launch formal peace negotiations. He also noted the failure of US Envoy George Mitchell to compel Israel to freeze illegal settlement construction in the West Bank, thought to be a key condition for peace talks.

Abrash said that Israel wants to create tension between Hamas and Islamic Jihad because it does not Hamas to govern Gaza. Furthermore, a violent response from Islamic Jihad would provide a pretext to end the current period of relative calm. An escalation in Gaza, in turn, would draw the world’s attention away from the West Bank and Mitchell’s efforts to secure a settlement freeze, the analyst argued.

Analysts also noted that Israel used a carefully-timed strike to end the six-month ceasefire that preceded Operation Cast Lead, the three-week onslaught last winter. On 5 November 2008, while the world awaited the results of the US presidential election, Israel launched an incursion into Gaza, killing five people and shattering the previous four months of ceasefire. The ensuing cycle of violence culminated in Cast Lead.

Responding to this analysis, senior Islamic Jihad leader Khaled Al-Batsh, said that his group’s response would not “embarrass Hamas.”

Al-Batsh said that the assassination of the three men on Friday was “a crime that all the factions should respond to.” “Israel should bear all the consequences of this action,” he said.

In an interview in Gaza last Monday, Islamic Jihad spokesperson Dawoud Shihab told Ma’an that his group views the current quiet as a temporary pause to give the people a chance to recover from the war and “allow the resistance to develop its capabilities.”