The unprecedented wave of airstrikes yesterday could not have been a more dramatic indication of the failure of Israel’s policy to remove Hamas from power in Gaza.

For the past few weeks, as a six-month truce between Hamas and Israel unravelled, Israel has tightened its siege of Gaza, opening the border only intermittently to allow the delivery of humanitarian supplies to the 1.4m Palestinians in the crowded Strip on the Mediterranean.

That was just the latest stage in a vicious cycle. Israel insisted that Hamas stop the launch of rockets from Gaza on its southern cities; Hamas, which claims it is not responsible for the attacks, said it would do so if Israel stopped its attacks on Gaza and opened the borders. An Israeli attack inevitably followed a rocket, which would provoke another attack, and so it has gone on for more than a year.

Last week, days after the ceasefire officially ended, 80 rockets were launched against Israel in just one day. However ineffective they were – no Israeli was killed or injured – it was the breaking point for the Israeli government. The devastating response came yesterday.

It will, however, have achieved little in terms of the ultimate Israeli goal: to create conditions that were so intolerable that either Hamas would recant its hardline stand against Israel, or that the Gazan population would turn on the Hamas government.

Yesterday’s strikes will have had as much to do with Israeli domestic policy as military deterrence. The country goes to the polls on February 10. Tzipi Livni, the foreign minister and the Kadima party candidate for prime minister, increasingly faced accusations of being soft on defence.

With Livni’s rival Benjamin Netanyahu, the hardline Likud candidate, ahead in the polls, a continued barrage of rockets on southern Israeli cities would have meant certain defeat.

For their part, Gazans have indeed grown more desperate and more angry, both at Israel and at Hamas. But Hamas is a disciplined force and well able to keep the lid on the majority who just want a better life.

Meanwhile, the siege has radicalised the youth of Gaza who see no future, providing Hamas with an endless supply of recruits. The last time I was in Gaza, despair was the main emotion. People referred to the Strip as a “big prison”.

Hamas reacted in fury to the attacks yesterday, but it must take a measure of blame. Its leaders have come up with no policy to move toward what most on both sides agree is the only solution: two states side by side. All its efforts have focused on staying in power in Gaza and on taking power from the rival Fatah movement in the West Bank, rather than acting for the benefit of Palestinians.

The airstrikes will have handicapped Hamas and probably stopped the rockets until the Israeli elections. But only a negotiated agreement can end the vicious cycle – and there is little sign of that.

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