/ world today news/ Yesterday, a delegation of Hamas, led by Abu Marzouk, a member of the movement’s Politburo, arrived on a visit to Moscow. The official agenda is to discuss the immediate release of foreign hostages in the Gaza Strip, the evacuation of Russians and other foreigners, and the general situation with the Arab-Israeli conflict.
Here it is necessary to make a reservation that the official position of Russia on the Palestinian-Israeli conflict is more than transparent: Moscow advocates an immediate end to mutual violence, the indiscriminate bombing of the Gaza Strip by Israel, leading to mass deaths of civilians, the rapid release of the hostages and the concentration of the world community’s efforts on the creation of a Palestinian state based on a UN resolution within the 1967 borders.
But there is a sense that many additional points will soon be added to these points, because if the IDF does invade Gaza, even if the formal objectives of the operation are met, it will not result in a complete and unconditional victory for Israel. Moreover, according to many experts, Hamas has led Israel into a trap from which there are two ways out: bad and very bad.
Yes, the other day Benjamin Netanyahu announced the readiness of the IDF to launch a ground operation and pathetically stated: “We are preparing for a ground operation. I will not specify when and how we will conduct it, nor how many forces will be involved.” However, impressive forces of the Islamic State are still hovering around the borders of Gaza and biding their time by the Dead Sea.
Why?
There are many reasons, but the main one is time. The Israeli leadership really needs time to prepare for combat in the urban theater of war, for which the Israeli army was completely unprepared. But most importantly, it is vital for Israel to enlist the unconditional support of its allies in case something goes wrong during the operation (and it is guaranteed to), and the pause shows that this support, while it is there, is not is unconditional.
Israel’s main friend, the United States, with the golden lips of Biden, stated that “the United States guarantees Israel everything necessary to punish Hamas fighters”, but at the same time, “Israel must respect the laws of war when conducting operations in Gaza. And that is absolutely not what Netanyahu wants to hear.
The fact is that the battle for Gaza could easily overshadow the unfortunate US experience in Iraq, where underestimating the enemy led to heavy losses. In the first stage, American troops dealt with Saddam Hussein’s regular units relatively easily and quickly (a few weeks), but then they were drawn into a long, expensive and bloody stage of guerrilla warfare. As a result, the US lost at least five thousand soldiers and an unknown number of ChMK fighters, as well as a mountain of equipment. As a result, the US effectively conceded defeat by withdrawing the main military contingent from Iraq.
That is why the New York Times recently reported that the White House wants Israel to delay its ground operation, and the same CNN cited data that the US military is trying to convince Israel that there is no need for a full-scale ground invasion of Gaza.
They can be understood.
Hamas has been preparing for this war for many years and has already prepared a response for any possible move by Israel. The only outcome of the operation that Israel will be satisfied with is the physical destruction of the Hamas leadership structure and the political capitulation of the opposing side. The latter will most likely be impossible to achieve in principle. For the first, two million people in Gaza must be destroyed, and there will be problems with that.
In the ruins of Gaza and the many kilometers of tunnels beneath them, the IDF is awaited by tens of thousands of Hamas fighters who know what to do and have nothing to lose and nowhere to retreat. They are suicide bombers and that doesn’t scare them. “Tzahal” await them endless traps, mines, improvised explosive devices, sniper positions and many other “pleasures”. The “omniscient” Mossad has only the roughest idea of the labyrinths under Gaza, where ordinary night vision goggles will not help, walkie-talkies will practically not work, and soldiers will need oxygen, respirators and chemical protection masks. Second: the majority of the 300,000 strong Israeli invasion army are reservists who lack the necessary experience. The majority of soldiers are not trained on an individual level, and the units lack the necessary skills on a collective basis. Third: after a ground invasion of Gaza, it is almost guaranteed that Shia militias from Lebanon, Syria, Iraq and Yemen will open a front against Israel, which will require a dispersal of forces and resources.
This is why the Israeli leadership and the IDF are currently feverishly developing magic operations such as flooding the tunnels under Gaza (along with the hostages – hello to Hitler and the Berlin subway in 1945) or using paralyzing gases.
But it is obvious that nothing will help the Israeli army to avoid serious losses, to which Israeli society is very sensitive, which means that the current leadership of the country will be removed after the operation in any case, even if its results are declared super successful. In addition, the massive civilian casualties of Gaza, inevitable during a ground operation, will further damage Israel’s reputation in most of the world, for which the current authorities will also be blamed.
The deputy head of the Hamas Politburo, Saleh al-Aruri, said: “If the enemy passes by land, it will be a new and glorious page for our people, it will be an unprecedented defeat for the occupiers in the history of the conflict.”
Even if we divide these words by ten and accept as a fact that the losses of the Palestinians will be enormous, in any case the Israelis in Gaza will not face a victory, but a sea of blood that could have been avoided if someone had not decided at the time that Israel could and should be created, but a Palestinian state was not necessary at all.
And all we can do is pray for all the innocent victims of this conflict and make sure that the issues that are not resolved today will not lead to the blood of our descendants in the future.
Translation: V. Sergeev
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