Moved by the pain and anger caused by the killing of Hamas, Israeli military and political leaders have vowed to use all force necessary to eliminate the terrorist threat from this Islamist movement. The United States, at first, supported the use of force “without limits” that had been announced by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. A week later, the Biden Administration recommends calm and the president himself has pointed out that occupying Gaza would be “a serious mistake”.
The Israeli army is ready to enter the strip, but the order is delayed.
“We have everything necessary to raze Gaza – explains a military analyst who prefers not to be named, because he is not authorized to speak to the press – but what would be the point? What we suffered on October 7 was a terrorist attack and we must respond in an appropriate way. We do not need a war, which will cause many more civilian deaths, but an anti-terrorist strategy. The fact that Hamas loses does not mean that we win. Even if we kill all the terrorists, others will take their place. There will be no victory day. In Gaza, no one will welcome us with open arms.”
Air superiority, decisive in so many wars, is of no use to fight against a militia well entrenched in an urban plot. The F-16 and F-35, the surveillance and attack drones, the Apache helicopters “are useful in a war at a distance, but not in hand-to-hand combat,” adds this military expert.
Israel has assembled a formidable military force around Gaza, but there are no more than 30,000 men in the Ground Army’s combat units, and they have no experience fighting an urban insurgency. The mechanized infantry will assist the advance, but in the moment of truth, it will be the elite commandos who will have to eliminate the Hamas guerrillas.
“Are we ready to pay the price?” asks this army veteran, “because it will be high”.
Israeli strategists have calculated it well. Americans too. The numbers don’t add up. It will be inevitable that more civilians will die, it is possible that Hamas will execute the hostages and spread it on the networks like the Islamic State did. The moral implications for Israel will be enormous. Its reputation as an advanced democracy will further deteriorate.
This is exactly what Hamas wants. He has written one of the most horrific pages in Israel’s history, seeking to overact, and thus, in the face of the images of devastation, force the Arab countries to break off relations and support the Palestinian cause.
The US response to 9/11 was a colossal strategic mistake. From the ashes of Al-Qaida arose the Islamic State. Iraq and Afghanistan are back where they were. The financial cost and human envy was exorbitant, because it was useless.
The democracy of the United States suffered and the decline of its world leadership began.
The United States hopes that Israel will learn from its mistakes and confront Hamas as a terrorist organization.
“There are two fundamental rules of counter-terrorism that we must apply – says this same analyst -: protecting civilians and rescuing hostages. We must eliminate Hamas without harming the population.”
That is why Antony Blinken, Secretary of State of the United States, insists so much on opening humanitarian corridors and creating safe zones for the million displaced people who are accumulating in the south of the strip.
“If the population is out of danger and the fight against Hamas is considered as an anti-terrorist operation – maintains the expert – it will take longer to achieve victory, but we will save our democracy and relations with the Arab countries”.
The problem is that Benjamin Netanyahu needs a photo with the Israeli flag in the Hamas feud ASAP. Rhetoric has cornered him. How will he back down if he has announced that the invasion is imminent, that it will be massive and that Hamas will be crushed?
The prime minister, moreover, has done nothing to reduce the violence in the West Bank. His most radical allies, Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich, remain in the Government to expand the colonies and create a single state, with the Palestinian population locked in walled enclaves.
The anti-terrorist strategy must combine the use of selective force against Hamas with an aggressive policy against the expansion of settlements. It must put an end to Hamas, but allow the Palestinian Authority to regain its lost prestige and expand its powers.
The easiest thing is to give the order to invade. The most difficult thing is to eliminate Hamas.
