2023-10-20 00:49:54
Yoav Gallant galvanized the troops from the border with the Gaza Strip. “Now you see Gaza from afar, soon you will see it from within,” the Israeli Defense Minister told the infantry units of the Givati Brigade on Thursday afternoon. It was the prelude to a new Israeli invasion of the Strip. An operation planned, in principle, for last weekend that was postponed due to weather conditions, according to the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF), which gave an ultimatum to the million inhabitants of northern Gaza to leave their homes.
In reality, Israel was giving the United States a deadline to look for alternatives to the ground incursion. Unsuccessfully. The fall of a rocket on the Al Alhi hospital in Gaza blew up diplomatic channels. Joe Biden, however, was still confident on Wednesday night of finding another way out, another response to the massacre committed by Hamas militants in the kibbutzim and in the communities of southern Israel. «We had a long conversation about it and about the alternatives that exist. “Our military is talking to theirs about what the alternatives are,” explained the president of the United States from Air Force One on the flight back to Washington.
Occupying Gaza again would be “a big mistake” on Israel’s part, Biden warned. But the war cabinet led by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is not abandoning its plans. He wants to recover from the moral blow dealt by Hamas, its 9/11. The bloodiest day for Jews since the Holocaust, in the words of Israeli President Isaac Herzog, which left more than 1,400 dead. From the ground, Gallant guaranteed that the order to invade would arrive.
Israeli army near the Gaza borderABIR SULTANEFE
In this diplomatic “impasse” the IDF called up 360,000 reservists in the largest military recruitment in the history of the State of Israel after the Yom Kippur War of 1973. The IDF had never had so many troops. Some 300,000 surround the Gaza Strip, the enclave controlled by Hamas, with tanks, armored vehicles and artillery. Two other Army contingents are stationed in the occupied West Bank and in the north of Israel, in the Golan Heights, a hot area on the border with Syria and Lebanon where tensions may escalate in the coming hours with the Shiite Hezbollah militia.
The Israeli siege on Gaza is fierce. The bombings have not stopped, in which more than 4,000 people have died in the last 12 days, according to the updated count of the Gaza Ministry of Health. The more than 2 million inhabitants live without water, electricity or basic supplies. Hospitals are close to collapse. The mediation of the United States with Israel and Egypt allowed in the last hours the opening of the Rafah corridor for the entry of humanitarian aid. It will not be enough to alleviate the situation. But the humanitarian emergency does not stop Israel’s plans, which is preparing what promises to be the largest ground operation since it invaded Lebanon in 2006.
«The scope of this is going to be greater than before and more severe. It’s not going to be clean… We’re going to go very, very aggressively against Hamas,” threatened IDF spokesman Richard Hecht. The stated goal of “Operation Iron Swords” is to dismantle Hamas. Dehead the political command and nullify the capabilities of the Al Qassam Brigades, the armed wing of the Palestinian militant group.
The military high command indicates, however, that it does not intend to occupy Gaza, an enclave that Israel abandoned in August 2005 at the initiative of the then Prime Minister, Ariel Sharon, which ended almost four decades of Israeli presence in Gaza. But not to the de facto occupation of the enclave. Israel reserved full control of borders and airspace, as well as control of the movement of people, goods and merchandise from abroad with the collaboration of Egypt.
And it has gone further in the last 18 years, invading Gaza on two occasions. In 2009, during “Operation Cast Lead,” Israeli forces carried out a deep ground raid. It was a trial by fire. In 2014, within the framework of “Operation Border Protector”, they changed their strategy and carried out a more limited one. They captured the area near the border to seal the underground tunnels used by Hamas to smuggle food, fighters and weapons and avoided urban warfare at all costs, lethal in a space as densely populated as Gaza.
The third invasion seems imminent, but Raouf Leeraar hopes to find “something different” from the previous ones. The member of the Israel Information and Documentation Center uses the same words as Lieutenant Colonel Hecht, the visible face of the Hebrew Army. The plan, this lieutenant in the reserve points out in conversation with LA RAZÓN, will be to “extract the hostages minimizing collateral damage and, at the same time, destroy Hamas.” Leeraar is confident: “They will only enter Gaza on foot if they are sure they will win. “They will achieve it, depending on the international community and mainly the United States.”
Military analysts anticipate that, as soon as the war cabinet gives the green light, one or two armored brigades with tanks could advance towards the coast, until they reach Deir al Balah, in the heart of Gaza, and split the Strip in two. Another two or three brigade-sized units could be grouped in the north, including around Gaza City, and one or two more in the southern cities of Khan Younis or Rafah. In this scenario, fighting could take place in different stages and small spaces. Leeraar, for his part, believes that “they will do it starting in the north and then sweeping towards the south.”
Eliminate Hamas
“Hamas will be prepared, although it is already weakened by the airstrikes. But yes, many will die and it will not be in a short time,” Leeraar acknowledges. Eliminating the Palestinian militant group is for many an impossible task. The so-called Islamic Resistance Movement, created in the heat of the first intifada by Sheikh Ahmed Yasin, initially as a local branch of the Muslim Brotherhood, has sunk its roots in Gaza. He has ruled the area alone and with an iron fist since 2007 after expelling his Palestinian rival, Fatah, mired in discredit in the West Bank, and is present in charities, schools and mosques.
It is omnipresent in the Strip, and has increasing support in the occupied West Bank. “Hamas surely anticipated such an Israeli response and is well prepared to fight a long-term urban insurgency against advancing Israeli forces,” writes Marc Lynch, director of the Institute of Middle East Studies at George Washington University. in the pages of Foreign Affairs magazine. “It expects to inflict significant casualties on an Army that has not engaged in this type of combat in many years.” A RAND Corporation report indicates that the group’s resistance in 2014 was “skillful, adaptable and coherent. “The personnel were willing to engage in hand-to-hand combat with Israeli forces and carried out infiltration and ambush missions with determination.”
Hostages
The Palestinian militant organization also has an advantage: hostages. The Israeli Army estimates that 203 people were kidnapped by Hamas in the attack on October 7. The spokesman for the Al Qassam Brigades, Abu Obeida, threatened to execute one every time Israel attacked civilian residences “without prior notice,” although in recent days he has opened up to negotiating releases if the bombings stop. It is not clear what level of importance Netanyahu attaches to the hostages in the context of the operation. His Finance Minister, the ultra Bezalel Smootrich, asked the IDF “not to take them into account” when breaking into Gaza.
Leeraar assures that the release of the hostages “is the number one priority.” But it does not seem that there is a plan B to get them out of Gaza: «Yes, there is always a plan B. I think it is a diplomatic plan put in place by the geopolitical actors involved – the United States, Jordan, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Israel, Iran , Russia-. “If Hamas releases the hostages before Israel expels them from Gaza, then they could stop the ground invasion sooner,” he explains. «There is only one big but – he admits –, and it is the northern front. What will happen in the north when Israel enters? “This could change the game completely.”
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