Analysis: Past Israeli strikes on Hamas may have slowed up the group for a while, but they also increased its popularity, writes Peter Hirschberg in Jerusalem.
In the immediate aftermath of Israel's assassination yesterday of Hamas leader Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, aides to Mr Ariel Sharon let it be known to the media that the Prime Minister had been kept informed of the operation through the night and that he was satisfied with the result.
Within two hours of the killing, politicians from Mr Sharon's rightist Likud party were taking to the airwaves to justify the decision to target the spiritual leader and founder of the radical Islamic group. Deputy Defence Minister, Mr Zeev Boim, said Mr Yassin had been "marked for death" because of the suicide attacks the organisation has carried out inside Israel.
Defence Minister Mr Shaul Mofaz put figures on that assertion - 377 Israelis killed and 2,076 injured by Hamas since the start of the intifada in September 2000.
Finance Minister Mr Benjamin Netanyahu said Hamas might respond fiercely in the short term, but that "in the long term, they will be restrained because the leaders will know that they will be assassinated".
The long-term effect of Yassin's death, however, is not necessarily a deterred Hamas. In fact, one ramification could be the strengthening of the Islamic group and the weakening of the Palestinian Authority - not exactly what Mr Sharon would have intended when he gave the order to go after Yassin.
In the ongoing power struggle between the Palestinian Authority and Hamas in Gaza, which on several occasions over the last few years has erupted into brief gunbattles, it is the Islamic group that has been winning the battle for the hearts and minds of the Palestinian people.
While the PA leadership is perceived as corrupt and impotent in its ability to fulfil the national interests of its people, Hamas leaders are viewed as corruption-free and its rank and file members as ideologically committed.
In the past, Israeli strikes against Hamas - the latest operation in Gaza was launched last week after two suicide bombers killed 10 Israelis on March 14th at the Ashdod port - may have slowed up the organisation for a while, but they have also increased its popularity.
Mr Sharon has been deepening Israel's military involvement in Gaza since last week's suicide attack, although there are those who insist this is all part of his exit strategy. In recent months, the Prime Minister has been promoting the idea of a unilateral withdrawal from the Strip, but he fears that such a move, in the absence of an agreement, will be perceived by the Palestinians - and in the wider region - as a victory, and a humiliation for Israel.
Right-wing leaders are convinced Israel's hasty withdrawal from Lebanon in May 2000, after an 18-year occupation of the south and a protracted guerilla war with Hizbullah, undermined its deterrent image in the eyes of the Arab world.
The second intifada, which erupted in September of that same year, they contend, was a direct result of the Palestinian reading of the Lebanon pullout - that Israel was soft and that force could be used to extract concessions from it.
At the time of the pullout, Mr Sharon said Israel should have pummelled Hizbullah militarily, and only then departed. Now, it appears, he is trying to adopt that strategy vis-à-vis Hamas. By assassinating Yassin, and other movement leaders, this logic goes, Hamas will not be able to claim that its attacks on Israeli targets prompted Israel's withdrawal from the Strip.
Mr Sharon, it appears, was ready to absorb the criticism that issued yesterday from European capitals over Yassin's killing.
But the Israeli leader must have been banking on a more muted response from the US, Israel's main strategic ally. That's what he got: a White House spokesman said the US was "deeply troubled" by the strike, but did not directly condemn Israel.
Yesterday's strike will afford some political breathing space to Mr Sharon, who has been under growing criticism over his Gaza plan from the far-right flank of his coalition, as well as ministers in his own ruling Likud party. The move may even win him some public opinion points.
Israelis, however, are already jittery in the wake of the attack, and buses, restaurants and shopping malls are likely to be considerably more empty in the coming weeks.
If Hamas is true to its word - that Mr Sharon "has opened the gates of hell" - and suicide bombers do start blowing themselves up in Israeli cities, those jitters could rapidly be transformed into angry criticism.
One of the only cabinet members who questioned the strike, Interior Minister Mr Avraham Poraz, was already wondering yesterday how many Israelis would "pay with their lives".