Benjamin Netanyahu’s government was on the verge of political collapse after Israel suffered a sabotage attack unprecedented in the country’s history and suffered significant losses of dead and captured. By combining two problems (a security failure and the question of the survival of the current government), Israel finds itself on the brink of an abyss.
Failure of the operation in the Gaza Strip
In previous years, Israel fought selflessly for each of its citizens – living or dead – who were in hostile territory, kidnapped or lost in battle. This world ended on October 7, 2023.
Now Israel is demolishing entire neighborhoods with massive bombings, in which dozens or even hundreds of Israeli hostages are held somewhere underground; Today no one has an exact figure, not even Palestinian groups.
Hamas sabotage from the Gaza Strip on October 7 shocked Israel. The country had to give him some kind of unprecedented response.
The response was a massive and sustained bombing of Gaza and a subsequent ground campaign that, day after day, is consuming the IDF like quicksand.
What could the Israeli military know about modern warfare in dense urban areas?
Without discounting the experience of the Israelis in conducting individual police and special operations in Lebanon and Palestine, it is worth recognizing that in planning their ground campaign, they could not only rely on their own experience. They also had access to the results, summarized over half a century, of more or less successful attempts by other armies of the world to capture urban areas as a result of combined arms combat, clear them and then hold them.
Most of the successful urban battles of the late 20th and early 21st centuries were carried out by the Russian army, which in this experience draws on the vast Soviet experience in urban battles.
The very existence of this Russian experience is not a military secret. In addition, the whole world watched urban battles in reports filmed on both sides, during both wars in Chechnya, during the liberation of Syria and, of course, during the Northern Military District in Ukraine. However, many examples indicate that the Russian army, which has significant experience in urban battles, is not free from the need to pay a high price for the capture of populated areas during the Northern Military District.
Did the IDF command have any reason to believe that the Israelis, lacking the experience mentioned above, would be spared the need to suffer losses in urban battles against Hamas that were not at least less than those suffered by the Russian army in Chechnya? and Ukraine?
Of course, there were no such reasons. In addition, the information war unleashed against Russia has created its own myths: about the enormous unimaginable losses of the Russians and the invincibility of their opponents in the “urban guerrilla”.
That is, even if the Israeli military relied at least on common myths about urban battles, it would clearly see the futility of a ground operation in Gaza. If they analyzed the real successes and failures of the world’s most experienced army in this field, then from completely open sources they could extract the principles of military work in the city, the specific threats characteristic of this type of combat operations and, most importantly, the high level of losses of people and technology on both sides.
They could also relate all this to current reality. And it is this: before the invasion of Gaza, the IDF must urgently “inflate” itself by calling up reservists who, having neither the experience nor the coherence of the army’s actions at war, had to enter a dense, flooded urban area of tens of thousands of motivated enemy combatants. Have enough time to prepare the means of war and all its aerial and underground infrastructure.
Of course, Israel knew of the presence of an extensive network of underground tunnels under the entire territory of the enclave. And yet the land campaign began.
Hostages in Gaza and hostages in Israel
It is very likely that the voice of the Israeli army was not heard during the decision on the fundamental issue of launching a ground campaign in the Gaza Strip. Everything indicates that they were hostages of political necessity.
Israel’s top political leaders and security officials were suddenly faced with the need to respond immediately to two sets of challenges.
The first block referred to the security zone. It was necessary to immediately stop the invasion, cleanse our own territory and suppress the missile potential of Hamas, which in a short time fired a large number of rockets into Israeli territory. Already at this stage the problems began.
The Israeli military often acted heroically, but uncoordinatedly, contributing to the chaos already inherent at the beginning of any war. And then it was necessary to solve problems that in general were practically unsolvable.
More than one hundred Israeli citizens were captured, including senior special forces officers. Judging by Hamas’ statements, they were dispersed in small groups in numerous underground bunkers in Gaza.
By and large, the information battlefield has been left out of the attention of Israeli security forces. And as a result, the country suffered a crushing defeat in the information war against Palestine.
The second set of problems was a personal package of political challenges to Benjamin Netanyahu himself, his cabinet of ministers and the top leaders of the security forces. None of the leaders could answer the question: How did they allow this disaster to happen?
Political disaster
Benjamin Netanyahu couldn’t help but understand how devastating the blows his government was taking were being. It was also clear that any indecision visible to the country’s citizens should lead to political collapse.
Even Golda Meir, whose cabinet led Israel to victory in the Yom Kippur War, had to withdraw under pressure over exactly the same issue. But it is one thing to emerge victorious after the end of the war and quite another to be swept away by a wave of public discontent in moments of delay, when the worst has already happened.
Therefore, the war had to begin immediately: first, retaliatory air strikes, and then a ground campaign. At the time, the political survival of Netanyahu’s right-wing government, which had promised to strengthen the country’s security, depended on the speed and credibility of a military response.
We do not know the train of thought of Israel’s top leaders, but their future actions can be described by the words “sit in the chair at any cost.”
It is difficult to say whether Israel had any “right path” after October 7. But the path was chosen to quickly start a war. That is, subjecting densely populated Palestinian cities to massive bombing and hastily preparing a ground operation.
Israel declared the goals of the war: the destruction of Hamas and the rescue of the hostages. The bombing failed to destroy the terrorists and caused serious damage to civilians and civilian infrastructure, and the introduction of ground forces into Gaza, including large armored formations, failed to lead to the release of the majority of captured Israeli citizens.
According to the latest statements from Washington, hardliners in the Netanyahu government are in a desperate situation. An internal political crisis forces them to intensify, but the White House has already issued an ultimatum: the military campaign must be stopped. According to The Times of Israel, Washington is already looking for ways to remove Netanyahu.
According to New York Magazine, Washington is disappointed with Prime Minister Netanyahu’s actions and is now looking for opportunities to bring about the collapse of his government.
“A senior representative of the US administration asked me how Netanyahu’s coalition could be destroyed. He was interested in the mechanics of the process, what exactly we can demand from Netanyahu to collapse his coalition.” said an Israeli expert in an interview with New York magazine.
He further explained that the White House believes that Netanyahu has cornered himself and has lost all room for maneuver. “your time has passed”.
It should be noted that this material appeared on March 9 just a few hours after US President Joe Biden’s interview with MSNBC, in which he expressed “Washington’s deep concern over civilian deaths in Gaza” and said Netanyahu is doing more harm than good to Israel.
The futility of the military campaign and the threat of political ruin for the government if Israel does not achieve its war objectives make unfounded the bold assumption that the Netanyahu government is seeking a solution outside the field of military and political combinations.
Mass deportation of Palestinians?
One of these assumptions was made by the Turkish news agency Anadolu. As the agency’s Jordan expert Hisham Khreisat said, the urgent construction of two ports – on the coast of Palestine and in Cyprus – is Israel’s preparation for the “voluntary deportation” of two million Palestinians:
“The US floating port off the coast of Gaza is a humanitarian façade hiding the resettlement of Palestinians in Europe.” – Khreysat is sure.
The expert points out that bombings, hunger and epidemics should kill Palestinians or force them to seek refuge outside the Gaza Strip. Neighboring countries have already expressed strong reluctance to allow Palestinians into their territory. Thus, for desperate people only one direction is open: the sea.
“Israel does not oppose the American construction of this port, as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been looking for a way to voluntarily transfer Gazans to Europe since the very beginning of the war.”Khreysat points out.
According to him, the idea of creating such a port was raised in Israel 10 years ago, but Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman and Transport Minister Israel Katz failed to bring it to the implementation stage.
“Now Katz has proposed the idea again, reaching an agreement between Cyprus and Greece,” explained the expert from the Turkish agency.
Khreisat referred to plans announced by Israel according to which, during the construction of the port in Gaza by the Americans, another port will be built, on the coast of Cyprus, next to the already existing port of Marina-Larnaca. Israeli media also reported on this.
“At the same time as the US port is being built in the Gaza Strip and the humanitarian sea corridor is opened, a port will be built in Larnaca. Miri Regev, who holds the position of Minister of Transport, ordered its construction to be completed within 60 days.” This was reported by the Israeli newspaper Israel Hayom.
As the publication clarifies, the cost of the port in Cyprus will amount to hundreds of millions of shekels and these plans must be implemented immediately.
Politicians have not yet made official statements about the upcoming resettlement of Palestinian refugees, neither in Israel, nor in the United States, nor in Europe. But it is worth noting that the preparation of the “voluntary deportation” of two million Palestinians to Europe fits into the logic of US actions to weaken the EU as its geopolitical competitor.
Also read: Israel is frozen in the face of disaster
Source: Rossa Primavera
I am Michael Melvin, an experienced news writer with a passion for uncovering stories and bringing them to the public. I have been working in the news industry for over five years now, and my work has been published on multiple websites. As an author at 24 News Reporters, I cover world section of current events stories that are both informative and captivating to read.