From Israel’s intelligence failure to Hamas’s brutality, from the lessons of yet another conflict initiation to the chances of a larger war, and from strategies that can be employed to the chances of victory in a high-intensity urban war—there are wide-open domains to analyse and comment on in the world’s freshest conflict.
To do justice to the analyses on this emerging set of scenarios, one needs to have reasonable clarity on the history of the region, particularly since the Balfour Declaration of 1917, on modern-day strategies of hybrid war including the technologies used, and on the current regional geopolitics.
The region has endured various political and ideological standoffs such as Iran-Israel, Iran-Saudi Arabia, Palestine (Arab)-Israel, Shia-Sunni and various intra-Arab feuds; the cauldron has always boiled, ready for another conflict. We will touch upon some of these aspects in this column. This war is not ending anytime soon and definitely not before subsuming the efforts at creating stability in this turbulent zone.
The Israeli inability to anticipate an action of such proportions by Hamas despite apparently receiving confirmed warnings from the US and Egypt is being counted as a monumental intelligence failure for a nation whose survival depends on proactiveness. Hubris after many military victories is a natural phenomenon.
However, what Israel has never realised is that none of these victories was strategic enough to put an end to all the threats it faced; they only multiplied. Israel should have heeded lessons from the Yom Kippur war of 1973 which clearly indicated that a vanquished adversary will always find ways and means of near perfection to overcome weaknesses.
Hamas had fallen out with Fatah majorly over the methods the former employed in fighting and resisting Israel. It has always been on the lookout for innovative ways of resistance, harping on proactiveness. Yet, this time, its propensity to go the whole hog without a thought towards the scale of casualties the Palestinian people would suffer in an inevitable retribution has been a huge miscalculation.
Perhaps this was based on an erroneous perception that the international community in general and the Arab world in particular could convince Israel to seek a negotiated solution. This was harebrained thinking. No self-respecting nation, least of all one as proud as Israel, would accept an adversary inflicting such casualties on its citizens. Remember the Indian retribution at Balakot for the loss of 40 of its policemen in the Pulwama attack in 2019.
It remains unclear as to what may have led Hamas to adopt an Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS)-style strategy of depravity and brutality which involved the targeting of innocent civilians, women and children. Perhaps it took inspiration from the ISIS ability to fight conventionally for around four years in major urban centres such as Mosul in northern Iraq.
Hamas seems to have thought a tripwire strategy could bring the Palestinian issue back to centre stage before its potential consignment to the altar of the Abraham Accords. Tripwires are not based on amoral acts of subhuman violence. If such a strategy is employed then exactly the opposite happens, as evident from the way Israel has responded after being initially thunderstruck. Israel is not exactly known for stupor once it suffers a setback. In 1973, Ariel Sharon found a two-kilometre corridor between two Egyptian armies and wedged a bridging and armoured force through it to threaten the Egyptian rear.
If Hamas had used military resources, improvised or otherwise, and innovative tactical implements to target the Israeli Army, it may yet have drawn empathy and perhaps some revival of interest in the Palestinian cause. The moment large-scale atrocities, depravities and brutalities were executed, Hamas lost the plot. There is no evidence as yet to suggest that former ISIS commanders, former Iraqi Ba’athists, or any Iranian military advisors were the sponsors who advised Hamas.
India’s stance has been correct. The prime minister correctly called out the terrorist acts behind the conflict initiation. With India’s constant refrain that it is one of the oldest sufferers of externally sponsored terrorism, it is only right to contextualise our views to the immediate act before going back to the generic aspects in which the legacy Indian support for a two-state solution has always existed. Indian media has tried to create controversies over differences of opinion on foreign policy. There is no truth to it and every right-thinking Indian citizen criticises any act of extremist violence against innocent civilians, women and children.
The Israeli response with a 300,000-strong mobilisation of reservists is not aimed at Gaza alone but caters to the eventuality of a wider conflict that could emerge. There has been fair restraint in the responses of Arab nations, though a degree of support to the Palestinians and not necessarily Hamas has been noticeable. Hamas is nobody’s real friend because the chosen strategy of terrorism militates against all norms of progress that these nations seek.
There have been some attempts by Hezbollah to test the waters by activating the Lebanon-Israel border. A larger conflagration here would be worrisome for Israeli commanders. In 1996, Hezbollah fought fairly successfully against the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) and is today well equipped with thousands of rockets and missiles. Syria’s involvement is unlikely, though Israel has targeted a few sites in Syrian areas as a warning.
A ground incursion into Gaza will be undertaken in all probability. Urban warfare using conventional equipment in such a terrain is a difficult proposition. During the last major incursion by the IDF in 2014, around 66 Israeli soldiers, six Israeli civilians, and well over 2,000 Palestinians died. There have already been many casualties, so it is difficult to foresee an Israeli attempt to try and physically control Gaza to weed out Hamas completely.
Remember that half the 2.2 million population of Gaza has been ordered to move south so Israel can set up the offensive. Many of those ordered could eventually cross the border and enter southern Israel where enclaves could come up for humanitarian purposes. At some stage, humanitarian assistance will be needed through external agencies. That is the setting in which new centres of resistance could emerge in mainland Israel. To ward off that possibility, the IDF may opt to wipe out Hamas completely through continued military action. Most options here would place the IDF in a Catch-22 situation.