In the wake of the Hamas terror attacks, which began on Saturday and have killed more than 1,000 Israelis, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has vowed to defeat the group “just as the enlightened world defeated ISIS” and to destroy “every single point that Hamas was operating from.”
Israel has already launched a massive campaign of airstrikes and sealed off Gaza from food, fuel and other supplies. It has also called up some 300,000 military reservists–the largest mobilization in the country’s history–and moved dozens of battalions to southern Israel in what is widely seen as preparation for a ground invasion of Gaza. While Israeli leaders have not commented publicly on plans for a ground war, Netanyahu reportedly told President Joe Biden “we have to go in.”
It will not be the first time Israel has sent troops into Gaza since Israeli forces formally withdrew from the territory in 2005. In 2006, Israel troops crossed into Gaza in an unsuccessful attempt to rescue a soldier, Gilad Shalid, who was held by Hamas; Shalid was later freed in a prisoner swap. In 2008, Israel launched a 22-day military offensive in Gaza aimed at stopping rocket fire at southern Israel. And in 2014, Israel waged a 7-week war in Gaza after the abduction and killing of three Israeli teenagers. Since then, Israel has launched several campaigns of airstrikes against Hamas and another terrorist group, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, in Gaza, but has avoided sending in troops.
Obviously, none of these offensives destroyed Hamas or eliminated its ability to strike Israel, but they were not really intended to do so. Israel’s military strategy against Hamas has sometimes been referred to as “mowing the grass”–destroying or degrading the group’s infrastructure and capabilities and killing some senior leaders, setting back its ability to strike Israel without going through the costly and dangerous effort of trying to eliminate it completely.
In the wake of the past week’s unprecedented carnage, Israeli leaders clearly have something different in mind this time around:
“Citizens of Israel, we are at war," Netanyahu said Saturday, in the hours following the Hamas attacks. "Not an operation, not a round [of fighting,] at war.” Defense Minister Yoav Gallant has vowed, "What was in Gaza will be no more."
Tightly packed cities and miles of tunnels
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On paper, Hamas is no match for the Israel Defense Forces. According to Israeli sources, the group has roughly 30,000 fighters in its ranks–about a tenth of the number Israel has called up just this week. And while the quality and accuracy of Hamas’s rockets and drones have improved dramatically, and last week’s assault showed some startling tactical improvements, according to military analysts, it’s still up against one of the world’s best-funded and most high-tech militaries.
What Hamas has on its side is the terrain.
The Gaza Strip is one of the most densely populated places in the world, with more than 2 million people living in an area of about 140 square miles. In past conflicts, Hamas has taken advantage of Gaza’s tightly packed urban areas, using buildings to conceal military equipment and firing rockets from civilian areas.
During the 2014 war, Hamas was able to inflict casualties on Israel using sniper fire, close combat with small arms, and suicide bombers. It was less effective against Israel’s heavy armor; not a single IDF tank or armored personnel carrier was destroyed.
Militant groups in Gaza have also built extensive networks of underground tunnels, nicknamed the “Gaza metro,” many complete with electric lights and ventilation systems. During a media tour last year, an Islamic Jihad official told journalists from France 24 that the group had constructed both defensive and offensive tunnels and that the latter could be used for “taking Israeli soldiers captive, repelling Israeli ground offensives and carrying out various field operations."
“There is no good ground option in Gaza,” Raphael Cohen, director of the RAND Corporation’s Strategy and Doctrine program, told The Messenger. “Hamas has spent 15 years prepping Gaza for such an incursion. For the IDF, operating inside such a dense urban environment means fighting on the ground, which negates your advantage in the air and some of your intelligence advantages as well.”
He added: “Urban warfare is always bloody. It will be bloody for Hamas. It will be bloody for the IDF and it will be bloody for civilians.”
Adding to the complications are the more than 100 hostages still held by Hamas and Islamic Jihad. Hamas has already threatened to kill one civilian hostage for “every targeting of our people who are safe in their homes without warning.” Some hostages may be held in the very tunnels the Israeli military is hoping to destroy.
Even if Israel is able to inflict heavy damage on Hamas’s military infrastructure, destroying or heavily damaging the group's capability will be more difficult. In 2008, when Hamas fighters were overwhelmed by Israeli firepower, many simply removed their uniforms and blended back into the population.
This war could last weeks or months, but Israel is unlikely to want to occupy Gaza again–as it did before 2005–in order to keep Hamas from reemerging.
“I don't think there's a whole lot of appetite [in Israel] to be the primary provider of services to 2 million people who really do not want you,” Cohen said.
Civilians will bear the brunt
The number of civilians killed in previous Israeli assaults on Gaza is a hotly contested topic, but civilian casualties are always high in urban warfare. The U.N. estimates that 2014’s war killed at least 2,104 Palestinians, of whom 1,462 were civilians and 495 were children. (About half of Gaza’s population is under 18.)
The IDF claims to have taken steps to avoid casualties such as making calls to Gaza residents and dropping leaflets warning of impending attacks, but it has also been accused by human rights groups of indiscriminately targeting civilians and blocking access to medical providers.
Palestinian authorities say that more than 1,000 people have already been killed and more than 4,000 others injured in Israeli airstrikes since Saturday. An Israeli military spokesman initially advised Palestinians fleeing airstrikes in Gaza to flee into Egypt, but then issued a follow-up statement saying the border crossing was closed. On Tuesday, Israel bombed the crossing.
While Israel normally pushes back against international criticism on civilian casualties, claiming that its strikes are precise and that Hamas uses civilians to manipulate global public opinion, there may be less concern this time around. In announcing a “complete siege” of Gaza on Monday, Defense Minister Gallant said in a statement, “we are fighting human animals and we are acting accordingly.”
Beyond the sheer logistical difficulties of destroying Hamas in Gaza, and the likely civilian toll it would entail, analysts say Israeli leaders may also have been reluctant in the past because of the chaos that might ensue if Gaza's governing authorities were wiped out entirely.
Cohen, the author of a study on the lessons of previous Gaza wars, says that before the weekend terror, he was told by an Israeli politician, “we want to break Hamas’s bones but not put them in hospital.” Now, Cohen said, “that calculus is out the window.”