CrossFireArabia
Despite 11 months of fighting in the Gaza Strip, the Israeli army is still trying to alter the military equation with the Palestinian resistance groups whom its fighting.
Gaza is proving a tough battle for Israeli officers who are using multiple tactics and strategies to show they are in command. In desperate moves, the Israeli army is bombing shelters and homes aimed at forcing the Palestinian people to leave Gaza according to military expert retired Major-General Mamoun Abu Nawar.
Civilians have always been a soft target in the war. He noted that available statistics show since the beginning of the Israeli onslaught on 7 October 2003, 30,000 Palestinians have left for Egypt in one way or another and the Israeli authorities will not allow these people to return.
Abu Nawar added to Jo24 throughout war the Israeli army’s main goal has been to force people to leave the Strip through the bombardment of their homes while at the same time encouraging their voluntary displacement.
This is because it knows full well it will not be able to win the war and defeat the resistance – having already fought four wars in Gaza and has not been able to destroy Hamas and the Palestinian resistance movenents and/or has not been able to reduce their capabilities.
Palestinian fighters continue to target Israeli tanks, snipe soldiers, ambushes and booby-trap destroyed houses which Israeli soldiers seek to use for their military operations.
But the Israeli army keeps trying news ways to gain the strategic edge. Abu Mawar said today the Israeli army has switched to a new assassination strategy which is the killing of Hamas and Hezbollah leaders – Ismail Hanyah in Iran and Foad Shukr in Beirut – but this doesn’t seem to be working and has not been able to end the presence of Hamas either.
On the Gaza battlefield, the Israeli army leaders know they have fallen into a quagmire as their soldiers freely admit in letters they write to their superiors that victory is not within reach as claimed by extremist Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Kill and displace
But here lies the problem as Netanyahu and other extremists in the government reject a truce with the Palestinians which is what the army want but instead are pushing for their original goal of killing as many Palestinians as possible and displace whatever they can despite their failure to achieve the declared goals of the war.
Abu Nawar explained that the absence of a plan for the so-called day after the war created leeway for extremists especially after they were provided with the latest types of American weapons to implement its plan of more massacres, displacement and genocide.
The killing rate in Gaza has reached 10 Palestinians for every Israeli soldier after the use of American smart and dumb bombs which Israel has been provided with.
But he says that on the ground, the Israeli army is having a hard time and the resistance still has the ability to deter, engage, set up ambushes and snipe at officers and soldiers, stressing regular armies like the Israeli fear guerrilla warfare due to its dangers and high rate of losses, which is what is happening now in Gaza and giving the resistance movement the maneuverability to keep fighting.
