The state of Israel is ready for another war in Gaza following incidents in the Israeli-Gaza borders where it claims that numerous rockets were fired from the Gaza by terrorists groups according to The Times of Israel.

“Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon and IDF Chief of General Staff Lt. Gen. Benny Gantz on Tuesday expressed their satisfaction with the IDF’s preparedness for a possible incursion into the Gaza Strip and declared that such an attack would severely incapacitate terror groups” according to the report. The report also indicated that “their statements came amid a recent spike in the number of attacks emanating from Gaza and, subsequently, the number and intensity of Israeli retaliatory strikes.”

The Israeli government is in preparation to hit the Palestinians to disable their military capabilities to attack the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) in case of any future war with the Palestinians or any of its neighbors in the Middle East. It would also limit the Palestinians fighting capabilities if Israel were to launch attacks on its neighbors as in the case of Lebanon, Syria or Iran. Both Israel and Lebanon have a strenuous relationship for decades. Israel will launch strikes deep into Gaza if new peace talks fail when US Secretary of State John Kerry who is scheduled to arrive this week. Israel recently complained to the United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon and the Security Council that Lebanon committed acts of terror, including the murder of an IDF soldier by a Lebanese soldier. According to Israel National News:

In the letter of complaint, Israel’s ambassador to the UN Ron Prosor wrote that “the lack of leadership in Lebanon allows Hezbollah to operate against Israel and destabilize the region.”

Prosor added that “Hezbollah has placed thousands of missiles and rockets within civilian population in southern Lebanon, in blatant violation of international law, rockets and missiles that are used for firing at Israel. Hezbollah thus carries out a double war crime.”

“I appeal to the Security Council and ask for its intervention in the wake of the escalation in terrorist attacks from Lebanon into Israel in recent weeks,” Prosor wrote, adding, “Israel has shown restraint in light of recent events, but reserves the right to protect its citizens and take any necessary measures for this purpose.

The Times of Israel report says that the IDF will deliver a “harsh blow” to Gaza. Gaza is under Israel’s control.

The main threat from the Gaza Strip is rockets and terror — aboveground and underground,” Ya’alon said at an IDF drill at the Tze’elim army base in southern Israel. “Therefore, the operation that the IDF would be required to undertake would have to deal a harsh blow to Gaza and to the organizations operating there, in a way that would damage their capabilities and exact a heavy toll.

It is the largest Prison on the planet. American academic and author Noam Chomsky wrote an Op-Ed for http://Truth-out.org called ‘Noam Chomsky: My Visit to Gaza, the World’s Largest Open-Air Prison’ and said:

And it hardly takes more than a day in Gaza to appreciate what it must be like to try to survive in the world’s largest open-air prison, where some 1.5 million people on a roughly 140-square-mile strip of land are subject to random terror and arbitrary punishment, with no purpose other than to humiliate and degrade.

Such cruelty is to ensure that Palestinian hopes for a decent future will be crushed, and that the overwhelming global support for a diplomatic settlement granting basic human rights will be nullified. The Israeli political leadership has dramatically illustrated this commitment in the past few days, warning that they will “go crazy” if Palestinian rights are given even limited recognition by the U.N.

Israel is in the process of further destroying any chance for a Palestinian state. Israel wants to weaken any attempt by the Palestinians to defend themselves or their neighbors. As tensions rise in the Middle East with Iran’s nuclear program and the continuing civil war in Syria and now Lebanon’s southern border with Hezbollah’s military capabilities, Israel is only interested in weakening Gaza’s militants. I expect the next incursion into Gaza will be more severe resulting in more Palestinian and Israeli casualties. The Middle East is a powder keg ready to explode with Israel’s aggressive behavior towards its Arab neighbors. Israel says it is defending their citizens but aren’t the Palestinians defending their future from a state that seeks to dominate them?

It is also fair to say that the Palestinians are also defending themselves from genocide. Israel controls Gaza’s border crossings. Israel also controls its air space that allows it to monitor radio and television broadcasts and it sea space that restricts fishing for its population. It control’s the movements of goods which lead to the decrease of food and medicine. Israel also controls Gaza’s tax system by setting VAT and customs rates for goods that are intended for Gaza’s residents. Israel is preparing to further isolate Gaza through military actions that would only anger the Palestinian population to continue to resist the occupation. 2014 will be a pivotal year for the Middle East. Let’s hope that peace will prevail in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Although “skeptical”, the Times of Israel also reported that many Israeli’s and Palestinians support a Palestinian state coexisting with Israel:

The study, conducted jointly by the Harry S. Truman Research Institute for the Advancement of Peace at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research in Ramallah, found that 63 percent of Israelis and 53% of Palestinians support the establishment of a Palestinian state alongside Israel, the university said in a statement Tuesday

With Prime Minister Benjamin Natanyahu and the Likud Party in power, a two-state solution with a peace deal seems like a far stretch of the imagination.