TACTICAL ISSUES

Gaza is a graveyard, and even though Israel is razing everything to the ground with indiscriminate bombing, it must put its troops on the ground. Is Netanyahu determined to sacrifice his troops?

By Sidney Hey

Over the years, war as an art has evolved as new technological advances have been made that help both the development of strategies and the effectiveness of weapons. But this effectiveness has not taken into account, much less guaranteed, respect for the lives of civilians.

The scenarios for disputes have been changing, from those battlefields that the sides pre-established to mediate their forces to the progressive advance in the development and application of tactics that do not respect the rules of classical warfare.

During the Second World War, the bombing of European cities was one of the most widespread crimes, and not only by the Germans. The US and Britain caused unlimited massacres in German cities such as Dresden and Berlin, but undoubtedly the nuclear holocausts over Hiroshima and Nagasaki in Japan is a crime that has yet to be replicated.

In these latter examples there were no military forces hidden among the civilian population, as Anglo-American governments and supporters often argue to justify contemporary massacres (Saigon, Pyongyang, Panama, Kabul, Baghdad, Tripoli, Damascus, Sana'a).

Killing civilians (beyond criminal) is not only politically incorrect but strategically stupid. Indiscriminate bombing has shown that the enemy will not disappear, on the contrary, it will multiply.  This is the misconception that US generals used in the first Gulf War in 1991 and which, copying their Israeli partners, was intended to terrorise Iraqi civilians into revolting against Saddam Hussein.

This scorched-earth tactic does not exactly demonstrate ground forces' expertise. The Israeli myth was shattered in July 2006 when Hezbollah was stopped in its tracks from advancing on Lebanese territory. There it became clear that the IDF was more adept at killing civilians and razing their homes to the ground than facing an opponent who hit back.

The current battlefield in Gaza is showing another phase of that unevolved evolution. Since Friday 27 October, Israeli troops have been launching isolated incursions by special units intended to reconnoitre and test the situation on the ground. Alongside them and by sea, US “Delta” forces and possibly “Seals” groups have entered as tactical support.

Among the Israeli units trying to penetrate by land are the 162nd Mechanised Brigade of some 20,000 men and the 84th Infantry Brigade "Givati" which is taking heavy losses.

Despite this pincer, as far as we have learned, the incursions have been difficult and with heavy casualties. The Israelis are panicking as they are suffering casualties despite being covered by armoured vehicles. It was even possible to document how armoured units arriving in the Gaza suburbs fired at civilians. Here it is possible to point to a state of uncontrollable nervousness in many elements of the IDF as well as, no doubt, a visceral contempt for the Palestinian Arabs.

But the enemy they face is not “rats” as the Tel Aviv regime racists and the pro-Zionist Western press label the Palestinians. Nor are all the fighters members of Hamas, the current propaganda material for demonising Palestinians.

It is a struggle in which all Palestinian resistance groups (except Fatah) are united with the support of the Arab-Islamic resistance with Hezbollah in the lead, who are daily jabbing at the IDF forces deployed in the north of occupied Palestine. Yemen's "Ansar Allah" (Sword of God) fighters have also joined in, launching barrages of ballistic missiles from the north of the Arabian Peninsula at Israeli targets in Eilat. 

On 4 November Hassan Nasrallah gave a public speech in south Beirut in which he set out Hesbollah's position and made it clear to Israel that all options were on the table. The “Burkan” missile attacks on Israeli bases seemed to prove the point.

This is a scenario that really worries those in Tel Aviv and especially Netanyahu who hoped that he could crush the Palestinians in a few days. Even his security and intelligence advisers would have ruled out the possibility that today's scenario, with the involvement of the entire Arab-Islamic resistance axis, would hamper his mopping-up operations in Gaza.

The coups in Eritrea, Iraq and northern Syria show that there is a determination for external support that has not previously been forthcoming. It also shows how once again Arab governments, more concerned with the stability of their own Status Quo, remain passive, leaving it to the will of militant organisations to take on the role of assisting the brotherly people of Palestine.

Even many of these governments have covert links with the Zionists and are therefore unreliable in the task that the Arab-Islamic resistance has been given to take on. This is not mere conjecture. What governments are doing is contrary to the feelings of the people who are alienated from their leadership precisely because of this lack of trust in their representatives.

The one who is feeling this pressure the most is the Egyptian president Al Sissi, a dictator put in place by the US after the failure of the Muslim Brotherhood adventure with the farce of the "Arab Spring" promoted by the Barack Obama administration and which ended in chaos throughout the Arab world.

Biden has over-extended himself and does not seem to contemplate that forces that divide will be certain to be defeated.