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.” 

  • CrossFireArabia

    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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    By Ismail Al Sharif

    “I’ll say it frankly: We should have exerted more pressure on Israel to adopt a different approach in Gaza” – Jake Sullivan, National Security Advisor to ex-President Joe Biden.

    A striking phenomenon is recurring in American politics: Some presidents, cabinet members, and senior officials become more outspoken in their stances toward the Israeli occupation entity after leaving office, expressing regret for decisions that contributed to the injustice inflicted upon the Palestinian people.

    This may be due to their liberation from diplomatic and partisan constraints, the pressures of Zionist lobbies, and the influence of tainted money, or perhaps their consciences awaken belatedly as they feel closer to death, realizing the enormity of the injustice they participated in or condoned.

    Examples of this are numerous. Among the most prominent is former US President Jimmy Carter, who, after leaving office, shifted from a traditional pro-Zionist rhetoric to criticizing the Israeli occupation and its policies. Then there is Chuck Hagel, former US Secretary of Defense, who held the United States responsible for the Zionists’ continued aggression and described their practices as terrorism— but only after his retirement, of course.

    Robert Gates, the former Secretary of Defense, also criticized war criminal Benjamin Netanyahu, calling him ungrateful.

    More recently, Jake Sullivan, former National Security Advisor, and Antony Blinken, Biden’s lackluster Secretary of State, joined the ranks of those who have expressed regret. Both men have blood on their hands from the blood of Palestinian children and played a shameful role in supporting the Israeli entity during one of the greatest acts of genocide in modern history.

    This was revealed in a lengthy investigation published in The New Yorker magazine last 20th July, titled “How Biden Enabled Israel’s Aggression Against Gaza – and Iran,” with the subtitle: “Top officials from the previous Administration now express regret over their failure to rein in Netanyahu.”

    However, this regret will not absolve them for they knew full well that the Zionists were committing genocide in Gaza. On 5 March, 2024, five months after the start of the genocide, Mirjana Spoljarić, president of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), sent a confidential letter to President Biden. The ICRC, in addition to its humanitarian mission, is obligated under the Geneva Conventions to provide states with information and advice to help them avoid committing war crimes.

    In her letter, Spoljarić reminded President Biden that the organization had condemned the “horrific” massacre perpetrated by Hamas against Israelis on 7 October 2023 and that it had continued to press the movement “tirelessly” for the release of the “hostages” it was holding.

    However, this time she appealed to Biden with “grave concern,” warning that Israel, which had continued to bombard Gaza with heavy munitions since that October, was ignoring the ICRC in an unprecedented manner.

    In her letter, she wrote: “The way Israel conducts hostilities is inconsistent with the laws of armed conflict, particularly the obligations to protect civilians, to distinguish between military objectives on the one hand and civilians and civilian infrastructure on the other, to ensure the humane treatment of detainees and the dead, to protect medical facilities and personnel, and to provide and facilitate the delivery of humanitarian aid.”

    Despite these clear warnings, the United States remained a key partner in the genocide, providing weapons, money, and political and international cover to Israel. And now some of its officials come to shed crocodile tears for the children of Gaza!

    I say to them: You have no right to repent now, after all these martyrs, after all these tragedies, to say: “We are sorry, we made a mistake.” You knew, and you had the power to pressure and prevent, but you chose to support, arm, and cover up. You bear the burden of what happened, and the blood of the children of Gaza will haunt you and pursue your names to the dustbin of history.

    This piece by Ismail Al Sharif was originally published in the Arabic Addustour daily and reprinted in English in Crossfirearabia.com.

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