The primary objective of IDF raids in the Gaza Strip Wednesday was to push back Hamas fighters and the armed groups that joined them away from the border fence that surrounds the Strip. In recent days, IDF Southern Command officials noticed that Hamas fighters are getting closer to the fence and border crossings and are operating there with growing intensity. Defense Minister Barak and Chief of Staff Ashkenazi, who both have bitter experience with Hizbullah's deployment on the border fence in southern Lebanon, decided to thwart a similar process in the Strip.
IDF raids on Wednesday were meant to prevent Hamas fighters from establishing themselves and digging tunnels in close proximity to Negev communities, border crossings, and IDF troops. If they were able to do that, in the near future they would have been able to infiltrate, carry out terror attacks, and abduct soldiers and civilians without the IDF having sufficient warning to thwart such acts. Therefore, the IDF is currently operating, and it will continue to do so consistently in the future, in order to create a "buffer zone" that is roughly 1,500 meters (close to a mile) deep, west of the fence. This "buffer zone" serves another purpose: Thwarting and disrupting rocket launchings from the Strip towards the western Negev.
The IDF's operational pattern on Wednesday, as well as the objectives, were formulated by the army even before Hamas' takeover of Gaza, and continued after it, but mostly in a sporadic and targeted manner. Barak's move into the Defense Ministry provided the army with the ability to plan and implement its activity in a way that integrates it into a clear strategy for curbing the long and short term threats created in the wake of Hamas' Gaza takeover.
This strategy, which is increasingly taking shape in the Defense Ministry, is meant to end or at least significantly minimize Qassam rocket attacks and prevent Hamas from growing stronger and boosting its operational capabilities in general.