Since Saturday (2/8/14) the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) have very much
been on the move in Gaza. As a military they have obviously not been
keen to let everyone - particularly their enemy - know exactly what
they're up to. However it appears that the have withdrawn all troops to
within 1km (0.6miles) of the border and moved the majority of their
forces back into Israel.
Primarily this appears to have been done to allow them rotate troops out
of the battlefield so they can be replaced by fresh troops. After all
weary troops make mistakes and that is how civilians get killed. However
in response to the largely unjustified international pressure on Israel
over the past week or so there seems to have been a concerted effort to
speed up the operation in order to allow Israel to end the operation as
soon as possible. As a result 30 of the 31 known tunnels into Israel
have been destroyed and the remaining one is being kept as a sort of
tourist attraction for the international media. As a result it is
possible to argue that the IDF has achieved 100% of the objectives it
set out to achieve when it launched the ground operation on July 17th
(17/7/14).
The exception is the town of Rafah. Literally located right on the
border between Gaza and Egypt it is not the most logical place for Hamas
to build tunnels intended to attack Israel. In fact there's been a lot
of talk of Rafah's tunnel building families being forced to relocate to
other Gazan towns in order to dig the attack tunnels. As a result Rafah
was never intended to be a main focus of the IDF operation and their
activities there should have been limited to doing a quick search to
establish that there were no tunnels. This of course changed on Friday
(2/8/14) when IDF soldier Hadar Goldin was killed in a kidnapping
attempt. As Goldin's body has yet to be recovered the IDF is now
conducting an extensive search of Rafah in an effort to recover that
body and finally establish exactly what happened. This process could
take a very long time because today the World marked the 100th
anniversary to the start of the First World War. The nations involved in
that conflict are still working to recover the remains of soldiers who
went missing on those battlefields.
With the exception of the Rafah area the completion of this phase of the
operation allowed Israel to declare a unilateral 7 hour humanitarian
pause beginning at 07:00 (10:00 local) and ending at 14:00 (17:00
local). With the exception of an air-strike at the long term (est: 1948)
al-Shati refugee camp in Gaza City - which I presume killed a
high-value target - the IDF held their fire throughout.
For their part Hamas declared the withdrawal and humanitarian pause to
be a "Criminal Act" and continued to fire some 63 rockets and mortars
into Israel during the pause. On the West Bank an IDF soldier was
wounded in a drive-by shooting by men on a motorcycle and a Jewish man
was run over and killed by a Palestinian man in an industrial digging
machine who proceed to knock over a bus before being shot and killed by
the police. There was also the rather surreal situation in which a man
telephoned the police in Tel Aviv to tell them that he was a suicide
bomber who had changed his mind and wanted to return to Hebron. This
prompted a several hour search for the man which didn't find him but did
succeed in snarling up traffic across Tel Aviv. Fortunately the
incidents on the West Bank seem to be the work of so-called "Lone
Wolves" rather then co-ordinated terrorist attacks. Al-Qaeda of course
moved to Lone Wolf tactics once its infrastructure had been smashed and
it was unable to carry out more co-ordinated attacks.
Having achieved their original objectives the IDF now faces a choice; It
can either end its operation and leave having scored a partial victory
or they can search out fresh objectives. Given the increased regional
security threat posed to Israel by the conflict in Syria and Iraq I
think the IDF would be well advised to take the latter operation. That
though poses the further question of whether they want to achieve those
new objectives using ground forces or air power alone.
The main advantage of ground forces is that it puts people directly on
the target so they can establish for sure that it is a legitimate
military target before striking and revisit the target afterwards to
establish that the target has been fully destroyed. This is particularly
important when dealing with underground targets including tunnels and
bunkers. It also provides the IDF with vital evidence to refute the
rather wild propaganda claims that have been made against them in this
operation. For example where ground troops have destroyed Mosques they
have been able to provide video and pictures showing exactly the tunnels
and bunkers that Hamas have dug below the Mosque and the weapons that
Hamas has chosen to store within the Mosque. When the IDF have destroyed
a Mosque with an air-strike we are simply left with images of smoking
rubble where the Mosque used to be. This makes it much easier for people
to try and argue that the IDF is attacking Mosque on religious rather
then military grounds.
The main disadvantage to ground troops is that it massively increases
the risk both to the soldiers on the ground and civilians in the area.
That is because when the IDF - or any other army - go to destroy a
tunnel they don't simply turn up on the back of a flatbed truck. Instead
they first attempt 'soften-up' the area by subjecting it to attack
using heavy, area weapons such as artillery. They then establish a
cordon around the target using tanks backed by air-support. If fighters
attack that cordon or civilians simply stray into it they will be
counter-attacked by tank fire. As a result targeted, smart air-strikes
are actually the more humane option particularly in the more built-up
areas such as in the east of Gaza City even if they provides less
certainty that a target has been destroyed.
Fortunately it seems that the IDF will have plenty of time to consider
its next move because as I've been writing this it is being reported
that the Palestinian factions involved in negotiations in Egypt have
declared a unilateral 72 hour cease-fire and Israel have also agreed.
However as yet there are no details of when this cease-fire will begin
and what exactly it will involve.
(Originally Posted) 19:50 on 4/8/14 (UK date).
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