The Guardian: Achieving the goals of the ground invasion of Gaza will be very slow and difficult
The British newspaper “The Guardian” reported that the military leadership of the Israeli occupation army is well aware that destroying the capabilities of the Hamas movement as a doctrine and affiliation is impossible, and the same applies to the movement’s military capabilities. The two goals are different and each has great complications.
Under the title “It will be very slow and difficult”: Can Israel achieve its goals in invading Gaza? The British newspaper said, in its report, that “the Israeli military leadership realizes that “destroying” Hamas – as a belief and affiliation – is impossible,” and that the goal of invading Gaza by land, which Benjamin Netanyahu defined as destroying Hamas’s military and governance capacity, “are two very different and very difficult goals, each with great complexities.”
“These two goals cannot be achieved without a ground attack,” said Shlomo Brom, a former general and director of strategic planning at the Israeli Defense Ministry.
He added, in his statements to the newspaper: “For this reason, I believe that the government has already decided to launch a campaign on the ground.”
The newspaper indicated that the Israeli occupation army believes that the bulk of Hamas’s military infrastructure – or its “center of gravity” – is located in northern Gaza, despite the movement’s control over the entire Strip.
In this context, she pointed out that for this reason, orders were directed to the Palestinian civilian population in northern Gaza, numbering more than one million people, to migrate to the south of the Gaza Valley River, which divides the Strip.
She noted that the occupation army plans to preserve the land in the north long enough to destroy Hamas’ heavy weapons and the tunnel network that it spent 16 years building, expecting at the same time that the occupation will launch “search and destroy” attacks in the southern half of the Strip, in its ground invasion, in search of Hamas members. , civilians and military, but they will try to avoid controlling any territory there.
Catching North will be difficult enough
Broome continued his talk about the ground operation in his statements to the newspaper, saying: “It will be very slow and difficult, and it will require a great deal of preparation if we want to reduce our losses to the minimum possible.”
He added: “The Americans came with cautionary tales from battles such as Fallujah and Mosul in Iraq, or Raqqa in Syria, about how difficult it is to fight in densely populated areas, and in Gaza the military problems will multiply because of Hamas’s extensive tunnel network.”
“It is difficult to imagine a more challenging context for operations than Gaza City,” said David Petraeus, the US general who commanded US forces in Iraq and Afghanistan and then became director of the CIA.
He added, in his statements to the Guardian: “Operations in urban areas are always very difficult, but the operations in this case are likely to be very brutal, with snipers, suicide bombers, 300 miles of tunnels, and improvised explosive devices, against terrorists who are not wearing weapons.” “Military uniform, and they know the area intimately.”
Petraeus said: “Civilians and hostages will be used as human shields. They have been preparing for this battle for months, if not years.”
