The Israeli war on the Gaza Strip continues for the 38th day in a row, which was launched llowing the surprise attack by Hamas on military positions in the border area with the Gaza Strip, and on what is known as “Gaza envelope towns,” on October 7. Perhaps the first thing that happens to us in the course of the totality of what has accumulated so far is the lack of a large disparity between the various military analysts and specialists in security affairs in reading its upcoming challenges, which we will stop at most of them in this article.
The most prominent of these challenges have been addressed in recent days by most Israeli military and security analysts and specialists, in a way that can be sum up in the following presentation:
First, challenging the northern front in which Hezbollah continues to drain the IDF through daily battles with its forces, has so far kept the “lines of contact towns” empty of their population. Most Israeli analysts and specialists acknowledge that the level of Hezbollah’s challenge in the field is rising more and more, and includes the use of rallies equipped with explosives, and missiles carrying large quantities of explosives, and in return, the IDF command has raised the level of response in the northern front, and it is hitting a greater number of targets, not just anti-armour cells. Some suggest that prevailing estimates in Israel that Hezbollah is not interested in entering a major war in the north (Israel also seems to be not involved in it either) do not mean that such a war cannot break out. This confirms that from week to week it can clearly be seen that there is a gradual escalation in the volume of military confrontations in the Lebanese border area, and can increase as the fighting continues in the Gaza Strip.
Second, the challenge that most analysts call “addressing the issue of hospitals,” especially Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City, which is described in these analyses as “constitutes the nerve centre of Hamas, both in military and authoritarian terms,” and is therefore a declared target of the Israeli ground maneuver that began two weeks ago. According to some reports, tens of thousands of citizens around the hospital evacuated it, and only a few hundred remained. The Israeli army is tightening the noose on the hospital in order to maximise the conditions of the military operation in light of its failure to fall into what the military analyst of the newspaper “Yedyout Ahronoth” calls a “legitimate ambush”, that is, carrying out an operation that increases the intensity of international pressure on Israel and may lead to the cessation of all ground maneuver. In the opinion of this analyst, the two basic words, under the formulas used by the military in this war, are “slowly” and “cautly.”
Third, the issue of hospitals leads to the third challenge, which is the time available to Israel to continue waging war on the Strip and its residents. In this regard, the focus is on two aspects: first, the approaching winter, which includes rainfall with the restriction of the activity of the Air Force at the beginning, as well as reducing the activity of the ground forces due torrential rains and the possibility of sewage flooding and the spread of diseases. Second, the winter would exacerbate the humanitarian crisis that began to occupy a place among countries that unreservedly supported Israel at the beginning of the war (French President Emmanuel Macron, for example, who shy warned against harming women and children). It is also noteworthy that there are serious doubts as to whether US President Joe Biden will accept to enter his election campaign next January, “on his shoulders the image of a humanitarian disaster in the Gaza Strip, which from now on is leading to a decline in his popularity,” in the words of one analyst. According to another analyst, the US administration leaked through media in the United States that Israel’s time in the war in its current form is limited, and that all it has is a week or two maximum for a ceasefire in Gaza. And in his reading “the Israeli army seems isolated from the world when it talks about that the war will last long months”!
Fourth, the permanent challenge related to the extent to which the goals set by Israel have been achieved for this war. As the military analyst wrote for Haaretz, the first goals of the war, as identified for the Israeli army when it began, are to destroy the military capability and authoritarian infrastructure of Hamas. As for the final status required to be reached (after the war is over), the following was stated: “The Gaza Strip does not pose any security threat (to Israel) for a long time.” The army is also required, in the opinion of the same analyst, to enhance the sense of national immunity among the residents of Israel, restore the sense of security among the residents of the “Gaza envelope” area, establish buffer security zones in the Strip, create conditions for the return of the abductees, achieve deterrence and show force on all fronts and prepare for the possibility of escalation in the northern region. He emphasises that this is a professional and objective language, perhaps more than the belligerous public discourse adopted by the political level. As for the Chief of the General Staff of the Israeli Army, General Herzy Halevi, he prefers to talk about dismantling Hamas from its capabilities, but at the same time he is wary of the distribution of promises about erasing its military force, yet the Haaretz analyst asserts that this goal (dismantling Hamas from its capabilities) is very ambitious, in addition to the ability to achieve it remains subject to three things: 1. The use of effective military force, and 2. Customise a long enough time period, and 3. The ability to address areas south of the Strip as well as the potential to compromise with relatively low enthusiasm in the wake of the transition of the civilian population.
At this point and before the Israeli war on the Gaza Strip moves to its south (which Israel has pledged through its senior political and military officials) a number of former generals, foremost among them is Giora Island, the former head of the Military Intelligence Division (“Aman”), and Yisrael Ziv, the former commander of the “Gaza Division,” assert that the near goal that this war should be achieved is to lead to the collapse of the Hamas stronghold in the north of the Strip. They add that even if this happens, and perhaps soon, it will constitute “half of the work required,” given the Israeli security establishment’s assessment that half of the Hamas forces are in the southern part of the Gaza Strip and controlled them. These forces have rarely been attacked, so they maintain their combat ability and spirit. This applies to the Hamas leadership. In this regard, 3 additional challenges are indicated: the first, international pressure. It’s no secret that the U.S. wanted the war in Gaza to end as soon as possible, and the more harsher the images coming from there, the more pressured. Second, Israel succeeds in operating with “relative freedom” in the north of the Strip, because in their opinion it succeeded in persuading 70 percent of the population to go south. And when it will work in southern Gaza, there will be about two million people, the total population of the south who have nowhere to go, and 900,000 people from the north of the Strip. Not harming civilians is currently difficult and will become impossible. Third, the time factor, as long as the fighting continues, the fire will continue in the north as well, and in the two areas, and it is not possible to start talking about the return of the population. In addition, there are about 300,000 Israeli soldiers in reserve, and the economic cost of this is huge and escalating.
Antoine Shalhat
Antoine Shalhat A Palestininian writer and an Israeli affairs expert. This piece appeared on Madar Center article website . The English version is by Apple Translation.