Israel - Hamas Conflict: Concluding Part
Israel - Hamas Conflict: Concluding Part
And why can’t Israel neutralise their offensive armaments: the rockets and missiles?
The answer to this question lies in the complexity of the topography of the Gaza strip. Having been driven into the sea, literally, Gaza is a densely populated state. Their population centres have no breathing spaces. Being dense in population, they provide Hamas with the perfect cover for hiding their equipment arsenal and personnel. Hamas is known to have hidden armaments and ammunition under hospital buildings, religious places and also schools. The sanctity of these institutions prohibits the use of destructive instruments. Israel has provided videos of Hamas firing rockets within the precinct of hospitals. While it may have robbed Hamas of legitimacy, it enhanced its effectiveness and survivability. Israel has often claimed that Hamas uses its people as a defensive shield. The claims could be correct as Hamas use civilians as their military assets. Thus, Hamas hides its assets within the civilian infrastructure and let Israel take the blame for bringing down buildings. For Hamas, it is sound tactics.
But the degree of difficulty to target them comes at a considerable cost for IDF. An enormous amount of air effort is required to inflict the desired damage. There is also collateral damage, like in the case of Jala Towers, that Israel brought down in an aerial attack in last weeks’ bombing. It housed the Al Jazeera TV and the Associated Press offices in Gaza, and it gets bad publicity to IDF.
The only other way is the physical degradation of the targets. Employment of ground forces is a political decision that cannot be legislated without declaring war on Palestine. War takes the escalation ladder couple of notches higher. It may suit Hamas, but it does not suit Israel. Israel has learnt its lesson after the 2014 conflict. They were in a similar situation; after a sustained air campaign in Gaza on Hamas targets; the rocket firing on Israel did not cease. IDF decided to take the offensive inside Gaza to strip the Hamas of the firepower, the rocket artillery that was incessantly bringing down rockets at Israel. The IDF decided to take the ground offensive route and undertake MOUT (Military Operations in Urban Terrain) with five brigade-level task forces supported by Artillery, Attack helicopters and the Air in a ground support role. Soon IDF realised the difficulty of carrying out MOUT due to restricted manoeuvre space full of IEDs (Improvised Explosive Devices) and mines. Hamas tactics of withdrawing to depth areas to another defensive line were paying dividends. But the element which proved to be the IDF nemesis was; the network of underground tunnels that Hamas had built from Gaza into Israel. The network was a series of vertical and lateral tunnels at varying heights which were challenging to navigate without an annotated map. The tunnels network surprised even the Special Forces of the IDF as they were caught on the wrong foot many a time. The tactics of escaping through these tunnels and emerging behind the IDF were most unsettling. With time and more causalities, IDF did get the hang of the tunnel system and destroyed a substantial number; over a dozen. Yet IDF realised it was a futile battle to destroy each and every tunnel. For Hamas, the tunnels were the key to hiding their weapons and ammunition. Another facet of the asymmetric warfare that IDF realised was; while they operated in task forces to battle the Hamas on streets, their enemy was hiding behind civilians and seldom presented themselves as military targets. Also, the capture of an objective could be quickly neutralised by Hamas by capturing a single Israeli soldier, for the value Israel put on its human resource.
After 18 days of battling Hamas in tunnels underground and constricted urban spaces over-ground, the IDF withdrew from Gaza. And after two months of conflict, both sides agreed on the Egypt broker cease-fire. IDF had failed to achieve a decisive military victory despite delivering a critical blow to Hamas fighting capabilities. They failed because they knew Hamas would rise once again to fight with them, and true enough, that conflict is raging now. IDF stands on a similar dilemma as it battles Hamas again. The possibility that a ground offensive would not provide success any more than it did in the 2014 conflict weighs heavily on their minds. Where does then the conflict move from here?
Will this problem ever Find an Amicable Solution?
This question haunts everyone’s mind. An escalation of conflict is unlikely to bring any other outcome other than more casualties. The quantum of rockets thrown at Israel has been a lot more now than in 2014. Also, the ranges have increased too. The damages to Hamas infrastructure has minimal effect, as is eliminating their top hierarchy. A newer crop of leaders who are more fanatic and uncompromising than their predecessors take their places. Hamas continues to thrive at what it is best at ‘Spreading hate and violence against Israel.
Hamas draws its strength and muscle from the nations that are at odds with the rest of the civilised world: Iran, Syria, Qatar, Turkey, to name a few. Money also comes in from supporters in Germany. Unless the world clamps down on the clandestine trail of money and arms that flow inside Gaza through the tunnels and open seas, Hamas will continue to arm itself for the next conflict. Egypt was the primary conduit for Hamas, but since President Abdel Fatah el-Sisi has come to power, he has clamped down upon the illegal tunnel and over-ground routes into Egypt. This has made logistics for Hamas more tedious and riskier. Yet all it has managed to do is slow down the process. The Abraham accord was a step which was leading to the marginalisation of the Palestine Authority. A conflict with Israel threatens the accord as the Islamic world rises up in unison to condemn Israel. It helps Palestinian Authority to bounce back into reckoning. The longer the conflict lasts, the better are the chances that the accord will be buried. While Hamas would like to continue the fight, it doesn’t suit Israel’s national interests. But not everything is sane in Israel either. Bibi Netanyahu is fighting for his political survival and aligned his party to the extreme right-wing elements who vie for the Palestinian blood all the time and would not mind going to war with Hamas again. They were responsible this time too by creating trouble in the Precincts of the Al Aqsa mosque. Netanyahu has chosen them as his partners in crime. An early and satisfactory resolution of conflict for Israel could even encourage him to call for another election in a bid to resurrect his political fortunes. His downfall could send him to jail for the corruption charges he is facing currently. Thus, his future is linked to the outcome of this conflict.
The Palestinian authority lies in shambles. There is no clarity on who is in power. Look at the predicament the world faces. At the UN, the Palestinian representative comes from West Bank to condemn Israel’s actions, but it has no control over Hamas. They do not even have their ear. In Gaza, the political wing of Hamas does not lay down any agenda, and the military wing is not answerable to them. They do what pleases them, which is fighting the Israelis. The civilian population has no say in the matter as they suffer the injustice of time and their leaders. Hamas has no interests in world opinion, for it is not a recognised body by them. For Hamas, as long as some countries like Iran and Qatar continue to fund them, they will continue their fight. In this fight, it doesn’t matter to Hamas a Sunni organisation, if their strongest supporters are Shias: Iran and Hezbollah.
The hope for the region lies in better economics. Looking at the vast gap between Palestine and Israel’s economic situation, an observer cannot but wonder if Hamas continues to fight in this conflict because they have no hope to improve their current living state. Unless they are lifted from poverty, this conflict will continue. Whether it is done through lifting sanctions on Hamas and Gaza by Israel or by the comity of Muslim nations through accords like the Abraham accord. Israel was hopeful that Qatar might relent and sign the accord, thus paving some influence within Hamas. That, too, would now get a temporary suspension. A method has to be found within these bounds. If not, the misery of helpless Palestinians in Gaza would continue. Hamas would fight forever, neither uplifting themselves nor their brethren. Their only satisfaction will be that they continue to send more and more Israelis into their air-raid shelters. What surprises observers most is, in spite of the sufferings of the extreme nature the Palestinian people still continue to rally behind Hamas. It’s hard to tell if it’s out of compulsion or free will.
As regards the current conflict, it is unlikely that it will end up in a full-scale war. Israel is aware of the minimal gains it achieves by going into an all-out war. As per the pattern, after the steam is let off, both sides would look for a way out and claim victory. Both need a face-saver, having upped the rhetoric so high. Very few countries have leverage on Hamas and are friendly with Israel. The US is unwilling to get embroiled in the current conflict as it has eyes firmed on the Iran nuclear deal. Egypt has been a constant mediator between Israel and Palestinians and could again come into the fray. Turkey and Israel are not friends, but they have not sworn enemies either. They fought on the same side in the Azerbaijan- Armenia conflict, and hence Turkey could make a truce happen. Once a ceasefire is declared both will claim victory. Hamas never loses; they always claim to be victorious irrespective of its losses. Israel is more circumspect, and Netanyahu would claim that the objectives set out for the conflict by IDF have been achieved. It would firm up his alliance with the right-wing parties and it should secure a majority for his Likud Party in Knesset.
Whether the future plays as per the script written above, only time will tell. But one point is clear: In future, Israel cannot whip up the same rhetorical old argument of rocket firing by Hamas as an excuse to go to war. They will have to change the narrative and take steps to find an out of box solution to stop Hamas’s rocket barrages into Israel.