If the press releases are correct, Israel has occupied about 20 square miles of the Gaza, and engaged Hamas in pitched battles. Yet, they have only suffered minimal casualties (about 13 wounded, 2 dead). What does this mean? Are the Hamas fighters waiting to draw them in (before counter attacking)? Or are the Israelis playing it sage (demolishing every house they attack)?
They’re going slowly and carefully, and they know what they’re doing.
If they(IDF) were fighting an army with the same weaponery there wouldn’t be an invasion.
Technology plays a big part, but one thing to remember is that hamas is a para military organization with different degrees of experience. Something akin to a guy that would be company commander in a western army, he has the years, some training and leader ship abilities. Right at the onset Israel was able to effectively gut a number of these guys with airstrikes, so now command devolves down to the lieutenants and such. People who might be individually brave and resourceful are not getting the time to become operationally effective.
Regarding technology and training, the Israelis seemed to have learned from the lebanon war and are putting those lessons to good use.
Lastly, dont underestimate the Israeli use of intelligence, a lot of the folks that they were able to kill, were likely dialed in before the start of the campaign. If i were in hamas place right now, i would probably be putting a few minutes to thinking Israeli intel might have been too good at the start.
Declan
How do you figure that?
Another question could also be: Why are the Palestinian casualties so high?
The answer is two fold: 1) Palestinians hide themselves and their weapons amongst the population and 2) Israel engages in some indiscriminate bombing.
Risk analysis.
But historically, Israel has attacked and invaded neighbouring countries with the same level more or less of weapon technology, and considerable superiority in numbers - see 1967.
Because the IDF is fighting like it’s 2009, and Hamas is fighting like it’s 1909.
Because they are a trained modern military fighting untrained irregulars?
Declan I heard that part of the difference between this and Lebanon is that Ehud Barak a real military man is leading it, in Lebanon there was some bureaucrat in charge.
The IDF got a bit of a bloody nose when they last went up against paramiltary groups in Lebanon a couple of years ago. Still came out on top but it was a bit of a shocker. They have probably adjusted their tactics accordingly.
As I was saying, I heard it chalked up to who was leading each invasion.
I’m not saying that Palestinian civilian casualties are acceptable or that Israel does not deserve blame for their occurrence to some extent, but I’ll object to the notion of “indiscriminate bombing.” In fact, I would wager that not a single bomb or shell has been indiscriminately used. The Israelis are not just dropping bombs in random locations; they’re picking and choosing their targets.
Now, you may question the level of care and concern they exercise in chooisng their targets. You may disagree with the particular equations they use to balance military advantage versus the risk of civilian deaths. But that doesn’t make it “indiscriminate.” Carpet bombing a city a la Bomber Command in Germany in 1944 is indiscriminate.
Largely true, but I thought the consensus was that the IDF didn’t really come out “on top” - at best, they had a draw, and since that draw left Hezbollah intact, most observers called it a win for Hezbollah.
The Hama’s rockets into Isreal are pretty “indiscriminate”, and I think the Isreali’s try to minimize civilian casualties. As opposed to Hamas who wants as many as possible.
Heh, if Israel actually bombed Gaza indiscriminately, like (for example) the Allies bombed German cities in WW2, you would be seeing WW2-like civilian casualties - in the multiples of tens of thousands.
You are all right, indiscriminate is the wrong word (which is why I said “some”). Nonetheless, it is an inaccurate portrayal. But I do think that there have been cases where less care than you would hope has been taken.
I think we would have to refer to Alessan on this one , but I dont quite think that the problems were on the operational end, rather they were on the political end. The prime minister and or cabinet was risk averse to having a lot of casualties and relied on the airforce.
I believe also , Gaza is a smaller geographic area of operations so the frontage might be about the width of an average street in some locations.
Declan
The problem is that we have no real idea of Israel’s military capacity to be selective. Israel’s critics have a tendency to assume that the Israeli military is all-powerful and all-knowing, so every single time a bomb hits some orphans or whatever, Israel must have wanted it that way.
The difficulty is that in war, things are not always so clear and easy. Soldiers are fallible, are fighting under stress and fear and with limited information, against an enemy who wishes to kill them (and remain alive themselves). Bad stuff happens - death of your own soldiers from “friendly fire”, death of civilians (particularly when fighting in what amounts to an urban environment, against an enemy who uses their own civilians deliberately as shields).
And of course there may be soldiers or even generals who simply say, a la Kurtz, “kill 'em all” - war tends to breed such types. In the fog of war, it is difficult to determine whether any of that is happening. I would say the evidence is against it happening on any widespread basis, because a genuine program of mass murder would kill, as I’ve said, a lot more people.
Much as I would like to agree , I can’t.
Hamas is fighting like its 2001, and has not adjusted to the fact that both the US in Iraq and Russia in Chechnya, just to give a range of differences between how the same tactics and strategys are fought, are now institutional knowledge that can be tapped by any military organization.
While Israel has done MOUT operations before, this time around they are concidering the complete battlespace enviroment and its showing dividends. I think some wrinkles still need to be ironned out , but for the most part its all a matter of time before Hamas cries uncle.
Declan