FROM OUR REPORTER IN CYPRUS

THE LATEST HAMAS attack on Israel has created more than a security headache for the government of Benjamin Netanyahu, as it appears the Israeli military is running out of kick-ass codenames for its retaliation operations.

“We’ve practically used up all our stocks over the years,” says Major Yoni Templemount of the IDF’s Operational Codenames Section, a secret branch of the Israeli military’s publicity department responsible for putting a gloss on the more unpalatable actions of its soldiers. “And with Bibi on the warpath, God knows how many more we will have to come up with in the coming weeks.”

The major would not confirm that they had asked the Americans to supply some of their sexier codenames, on a temporary basis, until the Israelis can arrange for a French PR company to get back to them with the latest in Parisian operational speak. “A few French words thrown in would make us more cosmopolitan, we feel,” he did say when pressed. “But we are struggling to compete with Hamas’s Al Aqsa Flood, which you have to concede is a pretty cool operational codename. I wish we had thought of that. I’m old enough to remember the good old days of Wrath of God, and suchlike. Yeah, those were the days. We were the victims. Everyone was with us. Now … well sometimes I wonder whether the UN shouldn’t have just given us a large chunk of Germany in 1948. Everyone else got one. For all the money we have spent defending ourselves here we could have transported Jerusalem over there brick by brick. But don’t quote me on that. And if you come up with any ideas for future codenames can you send them to me. You know, like Operation I’m In Construction, because the only ones who benefit when we flatten Gaza are the construction firms. Don’t quote me on that either. They’re in the suburbs of Tel Aviv, you know, Hamas. My wife and kids are there. It’s like Tet in Vietnam. I keep thinking, if they can do this now, what happens next time? And definitely don’t quote me on that.”