Brian M Downing
Hamas wasn’t thought capable of disciplined large-scale ground attacks. Israeli citizens and soldiers have taken serious casualties. Atrocities like those ISIL visited on Iraqis and Syrians took place. Israelis see them as the most recent horrors going back to Ma’alot, Lod, Munich, Russian pogroms, and of course the Holocaust. A new level of intense anger and vengefulness has emerged. A military response has begun and will become more forceful.
PM Netanyahu and his nationalist-religious following have long wanted to acquire territory and assure security. Voices of moderation and obstruction are now quiet or irrelevant. Opposition leaders have joined the PM’s wartime government. Gaza is going to be attacked in a harsher manner than before.
Ground campaign
Previous Hamas attacks met with swift responses. Headquarters were bombed, leaders were killed, and brief punitive ground operations took place. Operations were costly in lives and ineffective in deterrence. A ground operation today would be larger in scale and duration. IDF troops will face better trained fighters than the ragtag ones who scattered before them. The number of rockets suggests large stockpiles of explosives are available and can be used for mines and IEDs.
Jerusalem isn’t unmindful of its casualties. Almost every politician has served, many in the special forces like Netanyahu and many as generals like Gantz the coalition partner. The concern is more pronounced as secular Israelis oppose Netanyahu’s authoritarianism. Many ponder emigration. Firepower is the answer. Intense artillery and airstrikes will level neighborhood after neighborhood, facilitate ground advances, and reduce casualties. Rubble, however, makes good defensive positions as ISIL showed in Mosul and Raqqa, and Hamas will use it for a defense in depth. Their willingness to die may now equal that of ISIL fighters.
End game
Previous incursions didn’t solve the problem. Hamas reconstituted itself and rose back up. There is no alternative authority to Hamas in Gaza. It has intimidated or killed all rivals. The IDF isn’t willing to occupy Gaza indefinitely. That would be a meatgrinder like Lebanon in the eighties. Nor will it stay until elections take place or the Palestinian Authority comes in. Neither can guarantee what every Israeli wants: a Gaza that cannot pose danger.
That strategic imperative is clear in Netanyahu’s nationalist-religious following, the IDF, and most of the public. Gaza will be isolated, devastated, and depopulated. It will be cut off from Egypt, shipping, electricity, water, and food. The levels of ordnance used to destroy so much of Lebanon in 2006 will be used on a narrow strip of land. An Israeli defense official has spoken openly of making Gaza a “tent city.” Life will be much harder than the previous years of blockade. Most Gazans will give up and leave as famine and deaths mount. Parallel actions may take place in the West Bank. Settlers will help.
Restraints
Longstanding nationalist-religious territorial ambitions and present security imperatives indicate an effort to destroy Gaza is at hand. Jerusalem might be blind to potential consequences.
Israel shrugs its shoulders at rebukes from world opinion. However, the sight of hundreds of thousands of civilians marching off with their possessions or starving amid desolate expanses may concern at least parts of the government.
As noted in a previous article, a crackdown may anger Sunni leaders and cause deep turmoil in their realms. This may be especially so in Egypt, Jordan, Iraq, and Saudi Arabia.
The battle for Gaza may provide a recruitment boon for al Qaeda and ISIL. Jihadi enclaves in the Maghreb, Sinai, Syria, Iraq, and Yemen may strengthen and expand.
©2023 Brian M Downing
Brian M Downing is a national security analyst who’s written for outlets across the political spectrum. He studied at Georgetown University and the University of Chicago, and did post-graduate work at Harvard’s Center for International Affairs. Thanks as ever to fellow Hoya Susan Ganosellis.