Analysis: Tactics on The Gaza Battlefields

Maj-Gen Wasef Erekat from Ramallah talks about the military details and tactics used by the Palestinian fighters to confront the Israeli army in Gaza.

The killing of Israeli soldiers and the destruction of tanks in Gaza after eight months of war on the enclave means the Palestinian resistance is strong, dynamic and holds the initiative with professional ability says military and security analyst Maj-Gen Wasef Erekat.

He described the Palestinian fighter in Gaza as one having courage, is valiant and who is fighting in battles using his quick thinking and swiftly moving in the field according to the dictates of the environment. 

As Israeli soldiers try to carry out their military plans and tactics in the different battlefields of Gaza, Palestinian resistance fighters lie in wait for them, forming boobytraps, drawing the soldiers forward and forcing them to enter the houses which they have wired by explosives and which are subsequently blown up as was the recent case in a refugee camp in Rafah, the retired Major-General recently told Al Jazeera from Ramallah.

There, the house was wired with explosives and eight Israeli soldiers who entered were struck, leading to the immediate deaths of three of them and the injury of others according to the Israeli army.

Today and after eight months and as the Israeli army promises to enter Rafah on a wide scale, the Palestinian resistance is involved in more than  one battle on the field of offense and that is the battle of the picture, the image and the videos of Palestinian rockets and missiles as seen on television and the social media.

Erakat emphasizes such images have great influence on Israeli soldiers, the Jewish public and the Israeli decision-maker, saying when these videoclips of missiles on tanks and towards Tel Aviv and are seen by Israelis it slams their spirits down and sends more negative messages to their soldiers.

‘Day After’

These missiles’ messages speaking of ill-forebodding for the soldiers that Gaza is indeed becoming a quagmire and a graveyard for them. This is why the Israel Chief of Staff Herzi Halevi and the Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant are imploring Benjamin Netanyahu to start planning for the so-called “day after”, the retired Palestinian military general maintains.

But Erakat said Netanyahu can’t do that because he “has nothing in his bag” because when we talk about 7 October Israel was defeated on three basic levels by the Aqsa flood:

First, the army – military might, intelligence, rules of engagement and fighting doctrine – was defeated by the Palestinian resistance; and even today after 236 days, it did not achieve anything. Second, today there are 500,000 settlers in occupied Palestine who left their homes and will not return back unless the Palestinians return back to their homes in Gaza. Thirdly, there is now a new trend today of people emigrating out of Israel. Hebrew newspapers have recently reported 5000 Israelis have applied to the German Embassy to enter that country, he added.

Because of this Netanyahu can’t talk about the day after. “The ‘day after’ will be dictated by the Palestinian fighters who remain steadfast in the battlefield and the great Palestinians people who are bearing the pain and tears and whose young children appear from beneath the tunnels and send messages to the whole world that whoever wants to see pride and dignity should come to Palestine and Gaza.” 

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    CrossFireArabia

    Dr. Marwan Asmar holds a PhD from Leeds University and is a freelance writer specializing on the Middle East. He has worked as a journalist since the early 1990s in Jordan and the Gulf countries, and been widely published, including at Albawaba, Gulf News, Al Ghad, World Press Review and others.

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    Amnesty Condemns Netanyahu’s Visit to Hungry

    Responding to reports that Hungary’s Prime Minister Viktor Orbán has invited and plans to host Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Hungary on Wednesday, Erika Guevara-Rosas the head of Global Research, Advocacy and Policy of Amnesty International said:

    “Prime Minister Netanyahu is an alleged war criminal, who is accused of using starvation as a method of warfare, intentionally attacking civilians and the crimes against humanity of murder, persecution, and other inhumane acts.  As a member state of the International Criminal Court (ICC), Hungary must arrest him if he travels to the country and hand him over to the Court. Any trip he takes to an ICC member state that does not end in his arrest would embolden Israel to commit further crimes against Palestinians in the Occupied Palestinian Territory.

    “Netanyahu’s reported visit should be seen as a cynical effort to undermine the ICC and its work, and is an insult to the victims of these crimes who are looking to the Court for justice. Hungary’s invitation shows contempt for international law and confirms that alleged war criminals wanted by the ICC are welcome on the streets of a European Union member state.

    “Netanyahu’s visit to Hungary must not become a bellwether for the future of human rights in Europe. European and global leaders must end their shameful silence and inaction, and call on Hungary to arrest Netanyahu during a visit which would make a mockery of the suffering of Palestinian victims of Israel’s genocide in Gaza, its war crimes in other parts of the Occupied Palestinian Territory and its entrenched system of apartheid against all Palestinians whose rights it controls.

    “Amnesty International calls on the ICC Prosecutor to investigate and prosecute all Israel’s crimes. Hungary should equally do so by applying universal jurisdiction principles. Powerful leaders, like Netanyahu, accused by the ICC of war crimes and crimes against humanity, must no longer enjoy the prospect of perpetual impunity.”

    “The ICC was established to ensure accountability for victims of genocide and other crimes under international law, and so that crimes which shock the human conscience would “never again” be accompanied by impunity. In ‘bringing power to justice’, the ICC is now facing a global backlash from powerful leaders seeking to undermine the international rule of law and stamp out the prospect of accountability for the most powerful.”

    Background

    In November 2024, the ICC issued arrest warrants against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defence Minister Yoav Gallant, as well as al-Qassam brigades commander Mohammed Diab Ibrahim Al-Masri, on charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity.

    Since then, leaders from ICC member states France, Germany, Italy, Hungary and Poland have stated or implied that they would not arrest Benjamin Netanyahu if he travelled to their respective countries. The United States has also enacted sanctions against the ICC Prosecutor, Karim Khan.

    A cornerstone principle of the ICC’s founding Rome Statute is that all individuals subject to ICC arrest warrants must be arrested and surrendered to the Court without recourse to immunity when they are within the jurisdiction of ICC member states, including on their territory.

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