By Mike Brest, Defense Reporter. Media: Washingtonexaminer
The Israeli Defense Forces is taking steps to prepare for a significant military incursion into the Gaza Strip, a campaign unlike one the world has seen for decades.
It has called up 300,000 reservists, moved military equipment toward the border, and has already begun limited operations within the Gaza Strip, though it hasn’t begun its ground incursion into the tiny enclave that is home to more than 2 million Palestinians.
“I think that we have to realize is that this is something different than what we’ve seen before in our lifetimes, right? And in the last 50 years, Israel declared war on Hamas,” IDF spokesman Maj. Doron Spielman told the Washington Examiner. “This is a war. This is not a short-term operation. This is not a go in and go out type of operation.”
Israel’s objective, the first it has declared in decades, is to “demolish” Hamas, the predominant terror group based in Gaza that provoked the current state of affairs with an attack on the Jewish state earlier this month.
“This is something that the military leadership, chief of staff spokesman has said this is going to take time, it’s going to need to be done thoroughly and therefore the mobilization of so many reservists and we have to remember, these are the same reservists,” Spielman added. “Why are they motivated? Because for many of them, it’s our own family. Israel is such a small place. We all know somebody was either unfortunately killed [or] taken hostage.”
Many anticipated Israel’s offensive into Gaza would begin last week following a 24-hour notice provided to the United Nations for an evacuation order.
“The fact that they haven’t actually launched into the ground campaign I think is indicative of just how difficult the situation is for them. You know, complex terrain, the presence of hostages, the presence of lots of civilians, I think, is causing them to I think just take a little bit more cautious approach and then think their way through this because they’re gonna have to deal with this, but it’s kind of where we are right now,” retired Gen. Joseph Votel, a former commander of U.S. Central Command, told the Washington Examiner.
One major hurdle to an Israeli ground incursion into Gaza is the presence of a web of tunnels, large enough for most people to comfortably walk through, underneath Gaza, where the terror groups are able to move around and smuggle goods and weapons freely. In 2021, Hamas claimed to have built more than 300 miles’ worth of tunnels. Spielman referred to the maze of tunnels as a “metro.”
The tunnels have lighting, electricity, air conditioning, and in some cases rails to help transport goods, according to the IDF spokesman.
“Hamas is a terrorist organization that has integrated themselves into the populations… they locate their command posts under their hospitals, they do all kinds of things that really mix their military activities with civilian activities, which makes it extraordinarily difficult to distinguish back and forth,” Votel added. “Hamas will have used a lot of booby traps and improvised explosive devices and other things they picked up from Iran over the years. And this will make it even more difficult.”
In the nearly two weeks since the terrorist attacks in southern Israel, the IDF has dropped thousands of bombs across Gaza. Roughly 3,000 Palestinians have been killed in the strikes. But it hasn’t stopped Hamas and other terrorist groups in the enclave from continuing to fire rockets at Israel.
Israel is also preparing for the possibility that Hezbollah, a U.S.-designated terrorist organization based in Lebanon, or another adversary could capitalize on the current situation and try to lend Hamas a hand by attacking on another front. There has been an escalation in tension near the Israel-Lebanon border, with both sides exchanging in tit-for-tat rocket fire, though it has not escalated into a larger conflict.
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