Watching the advance of Israeli ground forces in the Gaza Strip, one understands that Benjamin Netanyahu’s generals are eager to cut the strip in half. On the other hand, the Israeli Armed Forces avoided a massive military invasion, because it would only bring destruction, both to civilians and to Israelis.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Israel Defense Forces’ strategy focuses on isolating Gaza City and the northern coastal strip, a deliberate approach due to US pressure to limit civilian casualties, but also the complexities associated with a major ground invasion of a well-entrenched defense.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
If successful as planned, this process will allow the Israelis to slowly create enclaves that will be removed from Hamas control. Therefore, the coming weeks will likely focus on encirclement and attrition, rather than the square-on-square attack that US forces chose as their method of attack during the first and second battles of Fallujah-Iraq in 2004.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Israel’s strategy to date appears sequential and complex, involving raids, intelligence gathering and keeping pockets clear. From these enclaves, Israeli troops plan to strike the Hamas leaders and then withdraw back to the cleared areas with air cover. If successful as planned, this process will allow for the slow creation of enclaves that will be removed from Hamas control.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Months of war<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n The ground war in Gaza City will last for many months. The cycle of locating, isolating, containing and then eliminating Hamas commanders will slowly continue. The Israeli Forces will decapitate Hamas. Meanwhile, these limited strikes will also reduce Hamas’s ability to build and deploy rockets, missiles, and armed drones. In addition, the risk to soldiers and civilians is reduced. Unlike 2014 (summer 2014’s massive Operation Protective Edge, which lasted 50 days, cost many lives, and ultimately did not neutralize Hamas), today Israel seeks regime change, not deterrence, and that will take a long time and not just 50 days.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The purpose is to cause suffocation in the network of underground tunnels<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n The Israelis’ solution to Hamas’s extensive tunnel network is to gather enough information to target generators and ventilation systems, choking the tunnels.<\/p>\n\n\n\n While the IDF is trained for both urban and underground warfare, using a large ground force to enter either the city or the tunnels would inherently put them and the hostages held there at a disadvantage.<\/p>\n\n\n\n As part of this strategy, Israel halted fuel shipments to Gaza. The Israelis know that Hamas has fuel for generators to run the underground network. At the same time, the fuel ban is also affecting civilians, such as hospitals in Gaza that need power for incubators and vital medical equipment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Because the Israelis do not plan to station large numbers of troops in the city, they have no practical way to prevent Hamas leaders from slipping south. If the tunnels remain intact it will allow parts of Hamas to live underground, even after the battle.<\/p>\n\n\n\n IDF leaders seem to be aiming to kill as many Hamas leaders as possible without fully investing in dangerous underground fighting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n “Measured” approach<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n In theory the IDF wants to put pressure on Hamas to force the release of the hostages. Thus, Israeli forces are adopting a deliberate pace in their assault on Gaza, in part to create an opportunity to negotiate with Hamas militants for the release of their captives.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Israeli leadership understands that engaging in combat within densely populated urban areas and going underground will strip the Israeli military of most of its technological advantages, such as advanced surveillance systems, sensors and communications equipment. This would give Hamas an advantage both above and below the ground.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Israeli victory is certain, but the post-Hamas era is difficult in terms of its management by the Israelis. Since the Israelis do not wish to take over the governance of Gaza, after the total destruction of Hamas, Iran will likely try to introduce a more radical structure to keep Israel bogged down, making Gaza an open economic-political-military-” bleeding” both in society and in the budget of the state of Israel.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Watching the advance of Israeli ground forces in the Gaza Strip, one understands that Benjamin Netanyahu’s generals are eager to cut the strip in…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":16110,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,834],"tags":[4751,4860,1372,153,1976],"class_list":["post-16109","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-geopolitical","category-middle-east-geopolitical","tag-gaza","tag-gaza-strip","tag-hamas","tag-israel","tag-war"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16109","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=16109"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16109\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16111,"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16109\/revisions\/16111"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/16110"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=16109"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=16109"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=16109"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}