Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu knows that a ground operation is highly risky and complicated, but might have no other options.
Israel will never be the same after Oct. 7, 2023. The invasion of its territory and slaughter and abduction of its civilians has awakened Israel’s deepest existential fears. Scenes of armed men leading away women, children and the elderly have invariably evoked memories of the Holocaust even among third-generation Israelis who never experienced those horrors.
Israel was established 75 years ago as a lesson of that dark era to ensure a safe haven for Jews in an independent state. Israelis’ certitude that their powerful military would keep them safe was shattered on Saturday, when over 1,000 Hamas militants overran the country’s state-of-the-art defenses and mounted a barbaric onslaught murdering over 1,000 Israelis, most of them civilians, within 24 hours.
Israel’s 9/11
To put this horror in perspective, proportionate to Israel’s population of nearly 10 million, the death toll would equal four times the number of Americans killed on 9/11. Witness testimony and video attest to the particular cruelty of the assailants who broke into homes, murdered children in front of their parents and parents in front of their children’s uncomprehending gaze, innocent civilians who have spent their lives in Gaza border communities hoping for peace against all odds.
Israel has mobilized some 300,000 reserve troops to deploy along two fronts: on the Gaza border in the south and the Lebanese one in the north, home to Hezbollah and its massive rocket arsenal. Israel has repeatedly warned Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah in recent days lest he be tempted to join Hamas and launch war on Israel, reminding him of the dire consequences for his group of the 2006 Second Lebanon War that he instigated. But the warnings may not suffice and armored columns are now massing in Israel’s north to forestall a copycat Hezbollah incursion into Israeli communities.
Last Saturday, Hamas carried out what Hezbollah had planned to do for years. The surprise was greater than even that of the Yom Kippur War 50 years ago, as was the humiliation. This time, it was not two Arab states with large armies attacking Israel, but a small, besieged terror organization whose daring and effectiveness shocked a superpower to its core.
The Israeli government faces a wrenching dilemma. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has pledged retaliation that would change the face of the Middle East, insisting Hamas cannot be allowed to exist alongside Israel. Whether that means a ground invasion of the Gaza Strip or continued pummeling from the air is unclear.
Air power falls short
According to several reports, in his conversation with President Joe Biden on Saturday, Netanyahu said that Israel will go for a ground campaign. But such a move would clearly take a heavy toll for the hostages and troops and Hamas might well be preparing to greet the Israeli troops with booby traps.
“With all due respect to air power,” a former senior Israeli military source told Al-Monitor on condition of anonymity, “it will be impossible to destroy the Hamas military capabilities and eliminate its military leadership without boots on the ground. You can ask the Americans and all those who fought al-Qaeda and the Islamic State organization. In the end, you have to go in. There’s no escaping it.”
In Netanyahu’s circle, all fingers are pointing at Iran. Israel has a great deal of information indicating coordination between Hamas and Iran, and even Iranian operatives operating in the Gaza Strip.
Iran is indeed Hamas’ biggest funder ($70 million a year for Hamas, $30 million for Islamic Jihad) and it encourages it to carry out terrorist activity against Israel. But as Secretary of State Antony Blinken said on Sunday, “We have not yet seen evidence that Iran directed or was behind this particular attack,” despite the ongoing support it provides Hamas.
“Netanyahu is trying to inflate the Iranian issue,” a former senior military source told Al-Monitor on condition of anonymity. “Iran funds and supports Hamas, but this event was planned by Hamas and implemented using its military capabilities. They caught us by surprise, and pointing fingers at Iran will not change that. I understand that Netanyahu doesn’t want to be humiliated by a substate organization of peasants on Toyotas wearing flip-flops, but that’s the situation. The Iranians influence Hamas, but Hamas is a sovereign and independent organization.”
In the meantime, while building up its ground forces in the north and south, Israel’s air force has bombed an unprecedented number of targets said to house Hamas facilities and leaders’ homes. Much of Gaza City’s Rimal neighborhood, the seat of the Hamas government and the enclave’s financial center, has been turned into rubble.
A senior Israeli military source equated the damage to Rimal with that Israel wreaked on the Hezbollah headquarters in Beirut’s Dahiya neighborhood in 2006. “If they thought they were immune, they were wrong. Senior Hamas officials should understand that they made a fatal mistake that will cost them their lives and their rule. Israel cannot afford not to settle the score with them.”
Egypt sent intel. warning to Israel
Israel also cannot afford the type of intelligence failure that enabled the Hamas attack. Al-Monitor’s sources confirmed reports that emerged on Monday to the effect that senior Egyptian officials had warned Israel of an impending assault from Gaza. They said Egyptian intelligence officials had indeed shared warnings with their Israeli counterparts, but the information was not specific or focused and was not brought to Netanyahu’s attention.
Explanations for the intelligence fiasco suggest Israel has grown far too reliant on its cutting-edge defense technology, whereas Hamas had learned the lesson of its vulnerability to Israeli eavesdropping and surveillance and reverted to more basic means of communication to avoid detection. Israel was also convinced that Hamas could become a rational governing force, propped up with money from Qatar and work permits for Gazan laborers in Israel. In the face of this colossal failure on his watch, Netanyahu is working to protect his rule and legacy even as he directs preparations for war.
Hamas is also stunned.
“Their success surprised them, too,” a diplomatic source in the region told Al-Monitor on condition of anonymity. “They hoped to kill some Israelis, embarrass the IDF and return to Gaza with two or three kidnapped Israelis. Instead, they roamed inside Israel for more than a day, killing over a thousand Israelis and getting stuck with something like 200 abductees,” the source said.
“They are very worried. With two abductees, they could have negotiated with Israel for permission to build a seaport and freedom for hundreds of prisoners held in Israeli jails. With more than 100 abductees, they will face the entire Israeli army inside Gaza. That’s the tragedy of their success,” the diplomatic source added.