Armored vehicles of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) are seen during their ground operations in a location called Gaza, as the conflict between Israel and the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas continues, in this handout image released on November 1, 2023.
Israeli Defense Forces | Reuters
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned his country that a “long and difficult war” lay ahead.
The Israeli army, after launching the largest military mobilization of troops in its history, has now entered the “second phase” of its war against Hamas in the Gaza Strip. The IDF is supplementing the heavy aerial bombardment of the besieged area with what is being described as a ground raid, the details of which are being closely monitored.
The airstrikes began in response to the October 7 attack by the Palestinian militant organization Hamas – designated a terrorist group by the US and EU – on southern Israel, which killed more than 1,300 people and took more than 240 hostage. And the IDF’s long-held retaliation strategy is in full force: More than 8,500 people have been killed in Gaza in just over three weeks, according to Hamas-led Health Ministry authorities there.
In the first six days of the war alone, the Israeli military said it dropped 6,000 bombs on Gaza — a blockaded enclave about the size of the city of Philadelphia. Now ground troops are moving into the area.
Citizens try to reach survivors, dead bodies amid destruction caused by Israeli attacks on the Bureij refugee camp in central Gaza Strip on November 2, 2023.
Ashraf Amra | Anadolu Agency Getty Images
“Our soldiers have operated in Gaza City in recent days and surrounded it from several directions, deepening the operation,” IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Herzi Halevi said Thursday. “Our forces are in very important areas of Gaza City.”
A ground offensive is needed to achieve Israel’s goal of eliminating Hamas, which controls the Gaza Strip, the IDF says. However, a prolonged invasion – if it were to happen – would be bloody and costly not only for those living in Gaza but also for the Israeli army, military veterans and analysts say.
‘We know they are waiting for us’
Urban counterinsurgency, as the U.S. military in Iraq learned, poses deadly challenges to troops that would not apply in an air campaign.
“Urban battles have higher casualties. That’s just a historical fact,” Jim Webb, a former U.S. Marine who served in Iraq and Afghanistan, told CNBC.
“Iraq showed how much advantage the defender, especially an asymmetric one, has in urban combat. There, lightly armed insurgents were able to use the urban landscape to first delay and then hold the greatest maneuvering force in world history in years. .”
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In the case of Gaza, that defender is Hamas — and it will have almost all the advantages in ground fighting, Webb said.
“Cities naturally channel the attacker into predictable approaches. It also means that these battles take place at close range, making the use of supporting weapons such as tanks, artillery or air power extremely difficult, even when no civilians are around. the area,” Webb said.
“Gaza is full of civilians, and Hamas will be able to interfere,” he added. “I am not jealous of the task the IDF may take on.”
Palestinian members of the al-Qassam Brigades, the armed wing of the Hamas movement, take part in a rally in Gaza City on January 31, 2016 to pay tribute to their fellow militants who died after a tunnel collapsed in the Gaza Strip.
Mahmud hams | Episode | Getty Images
Israeli soldiers will have to deal with unfamiliar streets and alleys, mountains of destroyed buildings and Hamas’ extensive tunnel network, which the IDF euphemistically calls the “Gaza metro.” Hundreds of meters underground, the tunnels house weapons stockpiles, electrical generators, command and control centers undetectable from above – and likely many of the hostages Hamas kidnapped from Israel on October 7.
“We know they are waiting for us,” an Israeli soldier, who declined to be named because of his role in the Israeli security service, told CNBC. “And as bad as Gaza is above ground, it is even worse underground.”
‘It’s going to be bloody’
No one knows how long the militants will hold out, said Hussein Ibish, a senior researcher at the Arab Gulf States Institute in Washington. But he suspects that involving Israel in a prolonged ground invasion is actually Hamas’ goal.
“I think their plan is to impose as many costs on Israel as possible in its ground incursion and ensure that parts of the organization survive so that, assuming Israel engages in a long-term ground presence in the urban centers of Gaza, can launch an attack. an uprising,” Ibish said.
That uprising would likely start slowly because the organization is so decimated, he said, but there remains a high risk that it will gain strength over time. “Hamas ultimately hopes to round up Israeli soldiers individually and in small groups,” he said, “kill and capture them, and make Israel bleed horribly.”
The IDF did not immediately respond to a CNBC request for comment.
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“In terms of Israel’s strategic games, I think it’s going to be very difficult,” said Dave Des Roches, professor at the Near East South Asia Center for Strategic Studies at the National Defense University in Washington, DC.
“It’s just not going to be the war of ’67,” he said, referring to Israel’s Six-Day War in 1967, in which the country quickly defeated three neighboring Arab armies and acquired territory four times its original size. “No,” said Des Roches, “it’s going to take a long time and it’s going to be bloody.”
An IDF captain, who spoke to CNBC anonymously due to restrictions on speaking to the press, said Israeli forces were fully aware of the risks and prepared to assume them.
“We are prepared to do serious damage if we go in, despite the potential military casualties. Absolutely,” he said. “We trained for this exact situation.”
Des Roches believes that destroying Hamas’ military capacity will require the IDF to keep the area under control, essentially occupying it piecemeal, and then systematically mapping and destroying what the militants themselves have described as more than 300 miles (480 kilometers) of tunnels built over the past thirty years. .
But eliminating Hamas as a military force could be just the beginning of Israel’s challenges, conflict analysts warn. What about the roughly 2.3 million Palestinians still trapped in devastated Gaza in what the UN has described as a catastrophic humanitarian crisis?
“Once you destroy Gaza, once you destroy Hamas – assuming you can do that – you have more than two million people in need,” Des Roches said. “And if you don’t give them a better way of life, you’re going to have this problem again in five or 10 years.”