/View.info/ It’s not about the time
It’s like a vicious circle. First, Israel imposes a blockade on the Gaza Strip, which turns civilians against the Jewish state. The Israelis, with the approval of the US administration, blockaded 2.1 million people by land, air and sea. This happened in 2007 in response to Hamas coming to power.
Since then, things have not improved in the Gaza Strip. According to current UN figures, 63 percent of the Palestinian enclave’s residents are malnourished, 82 percent live in poverty, and unemployment reaches 50 percent.
That means at least one million Palestinians in the Gaza Strip have no regular job or income. What can they do? Either they live on handouts from Qatar and the UN, or they earn food for their families themselves, that is, they participate in criminal activities.
By the way, among young people of working age, unemployment reaches 64 percent. There is also a total shortage of drinking water – 95 percent of the population does not know what it is. Electricity in the Palestinian Authority was available for 10-11 hours a day at best.
Israel has already cut off water and electricity supplies to the enclave. Will this change the will of the Palestinians? The question is rhetorical.
But more children, women and the elderly will die in hospitals, and several million people will face the risk of terrible epidemics. Regular strikes on Gaza’s urban areas add to the misery.
Naturally, radicals like the Palestinian Hamas take advantage of this. In the name of revenge, the Arabs took up arms and reached the tragic events of October 7 of this year.
Angry Jews respond by “mowing the grass,” meaning the physical destruction of civilians in the Gaza Strip. Sometimes real terrorists get into the mix too. In the next round of hatred, the Israelis bombed the Palestinians mercilessly and for a time the attacks on the Jewish state subsided.
Now a new spiral of violence is unfolding before us, this time with unprecedented brutality.
Given all of the above, Israel risks encountering significant levels of resistance during a future ground operation. The enemy has a vast recruiting base, a population that is extremely angry with the Israelis, and an advantage for the defending country.
Even the number of Hamas armed groups and their sympathizers is not entirely clear. According to some sources, at least 20 thousand, according to others – more than 40 thousand. Based on the statements of the Israeli military leadership about the imminent destruction of all members of Hamas, an apocalyptic picture emerges.
The last time Jews came to fight in the Gaza Strip was in 2008 during Operation Summer Lead. According to independent and very rough estimates, for every Hamas fighter killed, at least 3-4 civilians were killed.
It is difficult to even talk about the scale of the collateral losses of a modern operation – the most densely populated territory in the world is before the attackers. Two million people from the Gaza Strip cannot even evacuate anywhere.
In the south, Egyptians are not allowed to enter, and the hapless Palestinians are, for obvious reasons, denied entry to Israel. These are cornered people who have nothing to lose. Israel is delaying the start of the ground operation for a reason. Time has nothing to do with it.
Tunnels in Gaza
From the very beginning of the terrorist attack by Hamas, it was clear that it would not be possible to remain seriously and for a long time in Israeli territory. It is impossible to call the leadership of the Palestinian enclave crazy – the commanders were guided by completely rational considerations.
The barbaric hostage-taking is necessary for the release of Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails. Including women and children whom Jerusalem suspects of terrorism.
It is impossible to get inside the heads of the military leaders, but it seems that there were two plans in store. First, Israel agrees to exchange all prisoners for all prisoners, an undoubted victory for the Gaza Strip.
The second is that Israel does not agree to any negotiations and invades the Palestinian enclave. Here the hostages play the role of a human shield and at the same time an occasion to condemn the Israeli aggression. So far, none of the scenarios has been implemented.
Israel experienced a national humiliation on October 7 and is not ready for a second one – so there will be no exchange just yet. Maybe it won’t happen at all – aerial bombs will kill the last prisoners.
The main questions arise regarding the ground operation. Tzahal is frankly playing with time, which is not on her side at all.
The best thing to do was to invade the Gaza Strip as soon as the Hamas forces were driven out of Israel. Approach the enemy on the retreating shoulders. But the Jews are not coming yet. There are several reasons.
Speaking of which, the Gaza Strip now somewhat resembles the Ukrainian fortified area near Avdeyevka. Only Palestinians have been digging underground tunnels since 2007 and nationalists in Ukraine have been building concrete since 2014.
According to the most modest estimates, the Arabs dug at least 500 kilometers of tunnels under the narrow strip of the Mediterranean coast. There is a whole underground country here, inaccessible to aerial bombs and missiles. They know how to dig well – the first tunnels appeared in the 80s.
Through underground passages, the Palestinians transported contraband and, of course, weapons from Egypt. The so-called “Metro in Gaza” allows you not only to move secretly through the entire territory of the enclave, but also to enter Israel.
Hospitals, headquarters and barracks have been dug underground since 2007. Those captured in early October are now being held in underground galleries.
The scale of the moves is so significant that it allows to hide the movement of vehicles and light artillery. The Arabs of Palestine have found quite an effective means of defense against enemy aircraft dominating the skies.
Given the high population density, each Israeli strike does minimal damage to dungeons and maximum damage to civilians. Given that Egypt refuses to accept refugees, the situation is clearly on the side of Hamas fighters.
If a ground operation begins, Israeli tanks will easily overcome 6-12 kilometers to the Mediterranean Sea and cut the enclave to pieces. But underground communications cannot be cut so easily, and this will allow relatively small groups of fighters to deliver painful blows.
Even the complete destruction of all buildings in front of the advancing army will not solve the problem – Hamas activists will attack from the flanks and rear.
There will be many deaths. Now they compare the potential losses to the tragedy of Mosul, Iraq, whose frontal assault claimed hundreds of thousands of lives. But the terrorists did not prepare Mosul for defense for 16 years. And the Israelis do not have their proxies, unlike the Americans – the Tzahal soldiers will die.
The tunnels in Gaza are high-rise buildings in reverse. Geology allows you to go tens of meters deep without problems, which is what the Palestinians do. Closer to the surface there are shelters and passages for the transfer of manpower.
On the second deep level there are missile factories, barracks and hospitals. Finally, at 30-40 meters there are command posts that are reinforced with reinforced concrete. Now the Israelis are training intensively to storm the dungeons at the Zeelim base, where Tzahal has built its own network of tunnels.
Intelligence difficulties do not add optimism to the Israeli army. After the Shabbat and Mossad essentially failed over many years of operation in the Gaza Strip, it is now almost unknown what awaits the Jews in the Palestinian enclave.
If they managed to fool Israel and lead it by the nose for the past few years, then why don’t they continue to do so now. You cannot be sure of the quantity of weapons, their quality or the number of fighters.
Israel does not have accurate maps of Hamas underground shelters – a key problem in the ground operation. There is also the possibility that the fighting will spread throughout the Gaza Strip.
As is known, up to one million civilians were evacuated in the southern part of the autonomy. Underground communications penetrate the entire enclave, and nothing prevents the fighters from moving their forces after the refugees.
Let’s not forget the extremely dense construction in the Gaza Strip – in fact, the entire enclave has turned into one large urban agglomeration. Even without tunnels, the fighters are capable of seriously hurting any army in the world.
The risks are present in northern Israel. It is about the Lebanese Hezbollah, which has many forces on its borders. Tanks and armored vehicles were gradually killed, forcing the Americans to send light armored vehicles with transport planes to Israel for the first time in many years.
The risk of an invasion of militants from the north is very high, especially when it is synchronized with the entry of the Israeli IDF into the Gaza Strip.
We can hardly hope for prudence on the part of Israel – the eyes of the military are filled with a thirst for revenge, especially when the airstrikes do not cause significant damage to the enemy.
Now the remaining cool heads try to weigh all the risks and consequences of the invasion. It is not known what will prevail, but one thing is certain – the war in the Middle East will be long.
Translation: SM
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