Many Gazans, not just their leaders in Hamas, think they have little to lose by fighting on. For one thing, the spotlight has been switched back onto them since the Israeli campaign began earlier this month.
In Gazan eyes, Hamas gains from the violence because the outside world may, as a result of the grim publicity generated by the bloodshed, feel obliged to consider its grievances afresh.
This week Hamas issued a ten-point plan. A ceasefire, it suggested, could be followed by a ten-year truce. Among its key demands were a lifting of the siege of Gaza and the release of prisoners. Gaza's seaport and airport would be reopened and monitored by the UN.
After the last big Israeli effort to stop the rockets, in November 2012, it was agreed that, along with a ceasefire, the blockade of Gaza would gradually be lifted and the crossings into Egypt and Israel would be opened. The ceasefire generally held, but the siege continued. As Gazans see it, they have remained cruelly shut up in an open-air prison. Firing rockets, many of them argue, is the only way they can protest, even though they know the Israelis are bound, from time to time, to punish them.
More recently, say Gazans, the Israelis under Binyamin Netanyahu showed they were determined to destroy a peace-minded Palestinian unity government endorsed by Hamas and the more moderate Fatah party under Mahmoud Abbas, after the failure of American-brokered talks between Mr Abbas and Mr Netanyahu. The Israeli prime minister made it clear he would never talk to a Palestinian government backed by Hamas, even though America cautiously welcomed it. So he has done everything, say the Palestinians, to thwart it.
Among other things, Mr Netanyahu's government has prevented Mr Abbas from reasserting his authority, as part of the unity deal, over Gaza--and from paying off Hamas civil servants there. Indeed, Mr Abbas at first looked even more feeble than usual during Operation Protective Edge: he could not, as a leader committed to peace, cheer on the Hamas rockets. Yet his pleas for restraint on both sides have so far had little effect.
The Gazan grievance over prisoners stirs great passion among Palestinians everywhere. After three Israeli students were kidnapped on the West Bank on June 12th and later found murdered, the Israeli security forces rounded up more than 500 Hamas people, even though the movement did not claim responsibility for the crime. The increase in rocket fire was partly intended as a protest against the round-up of prisoners. Any ceasefire, says Hamas, must include the release at least of those detained in the past month.
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