WarSclerotic

Hamas, Hezbollah Could Push Israel To War | AVIATION WEEK.

By David Eshel
Tel Aviv

Israel is always on high alert when it comes to the potential for war with its neighbors, particularly the two groups viewed as proxies of Iran and Syria: Hamas and Hezbollah. Though neither seems particularly eager for a full-blown conflict with Israel at present, defense analysts see a number of developments that could lead to another war with one or both, perhaps as soon as this year.

One reason for this view is that Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon continue to be supplied with ordnance from Iran. Thousands of Hezbollah rockets are poised to strike Israel again, though for almost four years the border between Lebanon and northern Israel has been remarkably quiet. One reason may be that 11,000 soldiers from the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon and 15,000 Lebanese army troops are more effective at keeping Hezbollah’s Shiite militia at bay. The tranquility may be illusory—Tehran and Damascus could encourage Hamas and Hezbollah to attack Israel in furtherance of their regional aims. Iran has also threatened retaliation if Israel attacks its nuclear program; and with popular unrest a constant threat to the leadership in Tehran, a war with Israel, fought through Hamas or Hezbollah, could be one way of diverting Iranian public attention away from the regime.

Other developments are raising tensions as well. In the year since the Gaza incursion called Operation Cast Lead ended, Hamas has made a major effort to restore its internal security forces. The military/terrorist wing, the Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades, has been rebuilt to its previous strength with its military capabilities substantially expanded. The smuggling of weapons into Gaza has accelerated beyond expectations, in spite of Israel and Egypt sealing their respective borders with the area and Israeli interception of arms shipments at sea and in Africa. Much of this weaponry originates in Iran, whose rulers are eager to extend their regional influence to the Mediterranean. Restoring Hamas’s arsenal with advanced ordnance is a major part of Iran’s strategy of targeting Israel from Lebanon and Gaza.

The Hamas weapons inventory has grown enormously in the past year. Yuval Diskin, head of the Shin Bet internal security agency, told the Knesset’s foreign affairs and defense committee last month that Hamas’s current capabilities are “better than they were on the eve of Operation Cast Lead.” Hamas and other Palestinian terrorist groups “will continue to grow stronger in 2010,” he added. Diskin said Hamas will continue efforts to smuggle rockets into Gaza that have a range exceeding 50 km. (31 mi.), along with “antiaircraft missiles, antitank missiles and . . . other . . . weapons.” Last November, the head of military intelligence, Maj. Gen. Amos Yadlin, told the committee that Hamas had conducted a successful trial launch of a rocket with a 60-km. range, which could endanger the Tel Aviv metropolitan area.

Writing in the Beirut daily newspaper Al-Akhbar, Ibrahim al-Amin, who is affiliated with an Islamic militant group, warned that Hamas and other Palestinian factions have been training for a year with antiaircraft missiles and with large explosives that could blow up an armored vehicle the size of a Merkava tank—a 65-ton vehicle. According to al-Amin, the groups also practiced firing medium- and long-range missiles, as well as targeting Israeli communities “up to 100 km.” from Gaza. Israeli experts believe this last claim is, however, overstated. Nevertheless, with more accurate rockets, Hamas could attack airfields in southern Israel, which they attempted but failed to do during Operation Cast Lead. Hamas is also believed to have acquired Russian RPG-29 antitank grenade launchers and Kornet antitank missiles, which were used successfully by Hezbollah against Merkava tanks in the Second Lebanon War of 2006.

Adding to these concerns are signs that another war could be triggered by the Al Qaeda offshoots that are spreading across southern Gaza. Worries about Al Qaeda are not new in Gaza. Shin Bet noted in its 2009 annual report that operatives from a range of groups in the global jihad movement have appeared in the region during the past year. Dozens of terrorists have joined new military factions in Gaza such as the Salafist group Jaljalat (thunder in Arabic) and Jund Ansarullah. Far from welcoming them, Hamas leaders are aware of the threat these groups pose to their control, and have taken brutal measures to suppress them. Tensions climaxed last July when Hamas clashed with global jihad operatives who were using a Rafah mosque for a rally. During the battle, many global jihad commanders were killed or wounded. Nevertheless, the incident did not prevent survivors from continuing their clandestine activities, and the movement is taking hold among the masses in Gaza.

A senior White House terrorism expert warned recently that the Al Qaeda networks in Gaza could become as dangerous and menacing as the jihadist strongholds in Yemen. This threat may also have prompted Egypt to crack down on the Gaza border. Jihadi access to the Sinai, which Egypt controls, would not only imperil the peninsula, but might well spill into Egypt, emboldening the antigovernment Muslim Brotherhood.

While Hamas has virtually stopped firing Qassam rockets into Israel since Operation Cast Lead, the situation along the border remains explosive. The Israeli offensive severely damaged Hamas’s military, security and administrative operations in Gaza. Civilian infrastructure is virtually nonexistent, and much of the housing remains in rubble. The Gaza Strip is almost entirely sealed by Israel, and lately by Egypt, which is building the deeply dug “Mubarak Wall” along the Rafah border, formerly the Philadelphi Route. The objective is to severely disrupt the smuggling carried out in an extensive network of tunnels under the border. The wall is formidable, composed of bomb-resistant steel that is virtually impossible to dismantle or destroy, at least by smugglers. Though it will not end tunneling, it is expected to stem most of the smuggling, which has been a key source of arms and revenue for Hamas.

Cairo also plans to build a harbor along its sea border with Gaza, for use by navy patrols to monitor the Egyptian side of the Rafah shore. The harbor dock would be 10 meters (33 ft.) deep and extend for 25 meters from shore. The harbor would further restrict Palestinian fishermen who are already subject to actions by the Israeli naval blockade.

Although Israel maintains a strict naval exclusion zone off Gaza, Palestinian militants recently launched a new seaborne weapon at Israel’s beaches—floating barrels filled with explosives and attached to foam buoys, which resemble those in use by Gaza fishermen. Militant groups in Gaza have claimed responsibility for the barrel barrage, saying it was in retaliation for the murder of a Hamas leader in Dubai. The militants accused Israel of planning the killing; Israel responded that it had no part in the murder, though recent evidence suggests otherwise.

The idea of floating bombs to shore may go back to January 2002, when a ship filled with a load of weapons for Gaza was seized by Israel in the Red Sea. Naval experts discovered floatable waterproof containers on board that were made in Iran. Equipped with mechanisms that keep them submerged at a specific depth, the containers were intended to drift underwater with the current toward shore out of sight of Israeli patrol boats. The containers were big enough to transport large weapons that could not be smuggled through the tunnels. The tactic may be continuing: Container ships from Iran have been sighted in the eastern Mediterranean for months. Israel and the U.S. Navy have apprehended some, but others could have reached Lebanon and Syria. Dropping the containers beyond the exclusion zone off Gaza, they could have drifted submerged toward shore, escaping detection by Israeli radar.

The IDF is preparing for the possibility that in a conflict with Hamas, it will be ordered to retake the Philadelphi Route, focusing on Rafah, the lifeline of Hamas’s arms-smuggling activities. Plans for such an operation have been worked out and will likely include long-term deployment of several units in Rafah, where troops will go house-to-house searching for tunnels and destroying them.

Such a plan was presented to then-Prime Minister Ehud Olmert’s government ahead of Operation Cast Lead. At the time, the government deemed the operation too costly in terms of casualties. In a recent interview with Israel Radio, Maj. Gen. (ret.) Yom-Tov Samia, former head of the IDF’s southern command, hinted at the possibility that the army will retake the Philadelphi Route, saying, “We must create a situation in which Hamas runs out of oxygen.”

Many experts believe that Israel should have targeted Rafah during Operation Cast Lead instead of deploying troops to Gaza City, a move that might have kept the threat of future conflicts farther in the future.

Photo: Israel Defense Forces

This entry was posted on March 9, 2010 at 2:36 PM and is filed under Iran / Israel War. You can subscribe via RSS 2.0 feed to this post's comments. You can comment below, or link to this permanent URL from your own site.