A year after war, Gaza-Israel front is calm Israeli military commanders, while still wary of armed factions in Gaza, offer unexpected praise for Hamas, the Islamic militant and political organization that governs Gaza. Not only has Hamas and its armed military wing shown restraint, they say, but they have demonstrated they can rein in the more radical factions, such as Islamic Jihad, that operate alongside them. "Hamas was able to prove to us that it can control rocket fire from Gaza," said Brig. Gen. Mickey Edelstein, commander of the Gaza Division and the top military officer for that region. This is an achievement. Only about 50 rockets and mortar rounds were lobbed from Gaza toward Israel in the past year, and senior Israeli military officials say most were fired not by Hamas, but by other militant groups. All the missiles landed harmlessly in fields or were knocked out of the sky by Israel's U.S.-funded Iron Dome missile-defense system. There were no Israeli deaths. "The last year has been a great one," Edelstein said. Our kids didn't hear alarm sirens. The farmers could work in their fields. There were almost no attacks from Gaza against civilian or military targets. Words such as "calm" and "peaceful" are, of course, relative terms when discussing Israel and Gaza, whose heavily fortified frontier is still marked by occasional skirmishes and mortar or rocket fire, and bobble-headed Israeli security cameras peering down from towers 24 hours a day for militants probing the defenses. This month, an Israeli airstrike killed three Hamas militants in Gaza, hours after a firefight left a fourth Palestinian fighter dead. The skirmish occurred as Israeli security forces breached the Gaza border to demolish a mile-long "terror tunnel" uncovered by Israeli troops in October. Five Israeli soldiers were wounded when they struck an explosive device left in the tunnel, igniting a cache of petroleum. That Nov. 1 incident represented the worst violence between Israelis and Palestinians in the strip in a year. The numbers are sharp. There has been a 98 percent decline in high-trajectory firing," Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said during a visit Tuesday to troops nearby. There is no doubt that significant deterrence has been achieved. Netanyahu added: "We are not deluding ourselves. We know that Hamas and the other terrorist organizations are continuing to arm themselves in various ways. During the operation last year, the Israelis claimed to have killed 30 senior Hamas and Islamic Jihad militants and destroyed 980 underground rocket-launch sites, more than 200 smuggling and militant tunnels, and dozens of command centers and weapons-storage depots. The cease-fire, however, is just that, not an accord. Israel doesn't talk directly to Hamas, which it considers a terrorist organization, and last month, Gaza's Hamas prime minister, Ismail Haniyeh, called for continued armed resistance. He also condemned ongoing peace talks brokered by Secretary of State John F. Kerry.