Israel planning “something big” against Palestine. Israeli troops are preparing for what is widely regarded as an unavoidable ground invasion of Gaza.
The Israeli public and national security establishment are demanding retaliation for Hamas militant strikes that cost over 1,000 Israeli lives over the weekend.
A land invasion, however, would be difficult by Gaza’s dense population, its sophisticated underground network of tunnels, and the risk to Israelis, Americans, and others being held hostage.
“The problem is that it’s basically house-to-house fighting once you get into Gaza. And so it could be a heavy price,” former US Defense Secretary and CIA Director Leon Panetta said Tuesday on Bloomberg Television’s “Balance of Power.” “But on the other hand, I think it’s very clear that Israel has made the decision that they have got to crush Hamas in Gaza.”
An invasion would result in massive deaths on both sides and raise issues about Israel’s ability to design an exit strategy from the fight.
It would also have repercussions throughout the Middle East, jeopardising Israel’s fragile peace with its Arab neighbours and raising the likelihood that the conflict might escalate into a larger regional war.
As Israel planning “something big” against Palestine, according to a US official, the aftermath of an invasion might resemble the 2004 struggle for Fallujah in Iraq, which entailed violent street-to-street fighting.
According to the official, who discussed the delicate topic on the condition of anonymity, the resistance in Gaza might be strong, especially if neighbouring countries offer troops.
Israel hasn’t announced that it will send troops into Gaza, but Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has promised that “what we will do to our enemies in the coming days will reverberate with them for generations.”
An invasion would result in massive deaths on both sides and raise issues about Israel’s ability to design an exit strategy from the fight.
It would also have repercussions throughout the Middle East, jeopardising Israel’s fragile peace with its Arab neighbours and raising the likelihood that the conflict might escalate into a larger regional war.
According to a US official, the aftermath of an invasion might resemble the 2004 struggle for Fallujah in Iraq, which entailed violent street-to-street fighting.
According to the official, who discussed the delicate topic on the condition of anonymity, the resistance in Gaza might be strong, especially if neighbouring countries offer troops.
Developments on the ground also indicate that Israel is planning something significant. It is bombing Gaza from the air, the ground, and the water.
As columns of Israeli tanks advance into the region, its military is constructing a base near to the Gaza Strip to house tens of thousands of soldiers. The country has already activated 300,000 reservists, the highest number in its history.
“Israel is going to respond very severely and aggressively and there will be more loss of life,” Richard Hecht, a spokesman for the Israeli military, told journalists Tuesday.
The limitations of aircraft assault in Gaza contribute to the rising belief that Israel will conduct a ground invasion. Airstrikes are unlikely to clean up the tunnels, subterranean weapons caches, and smuggling channels that enabled Saturday’s attack.
“At some point they’re going to have to go in,” said Keith Alexander, a retired four-star US Army general who was director of the National Security Agency. “They can do limited operations,” he said, “but that’s a fairly big area to occupy and a lot of people to cover.”
Street-to-street battle in Gaza, where two million people live in an area slightly larger than twice the size of Washington, DC, would almost certainly result in severe civilian casualties. Arab authorities are concerned that images of dead civilians may incite a backlash among Arab populations, putting pressure on their governments to cut ties with Israel.
“The longer the occupation lasts, the more ebbing of support that you’ll see for Israel and the more pressure you’ll see on Arab states from their publics,” said William Usher, a former Senior Intelligence Service officer at the Central Intelligence Agency who specializes in the Middle East. “This has the potential to devolve into a political and PR disaster.”
