WarSclerotic

Two more soldiers killed in Gaza,IDF expands ground operation

By YAAKOV LAPPIN07/20/2014 05:22

Staff Sergenat Bania Roval, 20, from the Paratroopers 101st Battalion, was shot dead by a terrorist in a tunnel; 2nd-Lt. Bar Rahav, 21, was killed by a missile defense system’s activation in a nearby tank.

via Two more soldiers killed in Gaza, IDF expands ground operation | JPost | Israel News.

Large numbers of Ground Forces entered the Gaza Strip overnight between Saturday and Sunday as Israel expanded its operation against Hamas. The increased presence in Gaza is aimed at destroying Hamas infrastructure, the IDF said.

It came after the government decided to move into the next stage of the operation, and after the units sent into Gaza completed intensive training and preparations.

Earlier on Saturday, two more soldiers were killed in the Gaza Strip, the IDF announced, bringing the total number of Israeli military casualties to five since the start of the ground offensive.

Staff Sergeant Bania Roval, a 20-year-old soldier from Holon, serving in the Paratroopers 101st Battalion, was shot dead by a terrorist in Gaza who emerged from a tunnel shaft and opened fire at soldiers. The terrorist was shot dead in return fire.

“Controlling tunnel shafts doesn’t give us full control of the entire tunnel,” a senior military source said.

The second soldier, 2nd-Lt. Bar Rahav, 21, from Ramat Yishai, from the Engineering Corps, was killed as a result of the activation of the Trophy missile defense system in a nearby tank. The system successfully blocked an anti-tank missile fired at the vehicle, but the soldier was killed in the process. The IDF is investigating.

Military sources said Hamas gunmen have increased their attacks on soldiers who are searching and finding tunnel entrances in Palestinian homes near the border with Israel. Simultaneously, Hamas has ordered its members to use remaining tunnels for immediate cross-border attacks against Israeli civilians and military targets. Thirteen cross-border tunnels have been destroyed since Thursday night. The air force had struck some 500 targets since the start of the ground operation.

The IDF feels it has gained “significant control” of cross-border attack tunnels, and that this development is “upsetting Hamas,” the source added. Hamas is doing its best to hamper the army’s efforts, and attempts to send a donkey with explosives and a suicide bomber on a motorcycle on Friday are part of those attempts. Hamas is also trying to kidnap soldiers.

Additionally, two terrorists attempted to attack a D-9 armored bulldozer used in uncovering tunnels by the Engineering Corps. In the attack, two terrorists emerged from a tunnel entrance. One, a suicide bomber, detonated his explosives, and the second fired an anti-tank missile. Both were killed in the incident.

Analysis: Fighting terrorists who move around in ambulances, Jerusalem Post, Yaakov Lappin, July 20, 2014

Hamas is an expert at embedding itself in the midst of the Palestinian civilian population and using it as human shields, to seek immunity from the army.

Israel’s decision to launch a ground offensive provides it with an important advantage in the war against Hamas.

A ground maneuver gives the IDF the ability to move in enemy territory, destroying targets from up close, while still deploying firepower from the air throughout.

It is a concept as old as Israeli military history. Today, however, Hamas represents the asymmetrical enemy that defines combat in our times.

Hamas is an expert at embedding itself in the midst of the Palestinian civilian population and using it as human shields, to seek immunity from the army.

In recent days, IDF sources reported spotting Hamas gunmen boarding ambulances in Gaza filled with children.

Hamas urged residents of northern Gaza to remain in their homes, and provide cover for its concentration of rocket launch squads in that area.

These tactics are designed to provide the terrorist organization with protection from the IDF.

They are the same tactics that have prevented the air force from destroying all of Hamas’s rocket infrastructure, hidden deep under residential buildings, or targeting its leadership, which is hiding under the Shifa hospital in Gaza City.

Hamas spread out its assets across Gaza, and there is no one center of gravity for the IDF to target.

The military operation is complex and long, and the IDF’s focus on destroying tunnels is only the first stage of the ground maneuver.

Despite their tactics, Hamas and Islamic Jihad are in trouble. They have lost more than half of their rockets supply – some 40 percent have been destroyed in air force attacks and another 1,700 rockets have been fired at Israel. Many rockets remain, but the supply is beginning to dwindle.

Military sources said significant gains have already been made on the ground. destroyed. Rockets continue to be destroyed from the air, as are enemy command and control centers.

On the defensive front, Iron Dome continues to frustrate Hamas and Islamic Jihad’s attempt to inflict mass carnage and large numbers of casualties in Israeli cities.

Hamas invested years in building up its offensive assets; tunnels, the rockets arsenal, and command and control centers. Yet efforts to activate these have mostly ended in failure.

Nevertheless, Hamas will continue to fire projectiles at Israeli cities, and try to send murder squads into Israel through tunnels, before the IDF discovers them.

It was Hezbollah that pioneered such tactics 20 years ago.

The Lebanese Shi’ite organization spent years building the model of asymmetric war that Hamas relies on in Gaza today.

Israeli security officials argued that this is the first time the defense establishment found an effective formula for dealing with it – offensively and defensively.

These efforts are backed by enhanced intelligence, and precision guided munitions, which represent new capabilities for Israel.

The security challenges of the previous decade, in which waves of Palestinian suicide bombers from West Bank cities left more than 1,200 Israelis dead, were significantly more severe, according to these officials.

Then, as now, it took some time for Israel to come up with an effective solution to the threat. Yet by 2005, the suicide bombing rampage had been extinguished.

Today, the officials feel, Israel is on its way to eliminating rocket terrorism as an effective tool for terrorist organizations.

Hezbollah, a far larger and better armed enemy, is watching the battle unfolding in the Strip closely. Its rocket arsenal is 10 times larger than that in Gaza, but the IDF is also able to hit 10 times as many targets as it did in Gaza.

Hezbollah also constructed subterranean terrorist assets in built up areas. Now, officials said, Hezbollah will be forced to reconsider its war doctrine.

Additionally, they said that the intelligence and offensive capabilities will most likely deter it from getting involved in a conflict with Israel.

Say the wrong thing, Power Line, Scott Johnson, July 19, 2014

We can count on President Obama not to do the right thing and to say the wrong thing. He treats our friends as enemies and our enemies as friends. He says the wrong thing when he would serve our interests by shutting up. He shuts up when saying the right thing would serve our interests.

Earlier today United States Ambassador Dan Shapiro posted a readout of this morning’s call between President Obama and Prime Minister Netanyahu. Here it is:

This morning, I spoke with Prime Minister Netanyahu of Israel about the situation in Gaza. We discussed Israel’s military operation in Gaza, including its efforts to stop the threat of terrorist infiltration through tunnels into Israel. I reaffirmed my strong support for Israel’s right to defend itself. No nation should accept rockets being fired into its borders, or terrorists tunneling into its territory. In fact, while I was having the conversation with Prime Minister Netanyahu, sirens went off in Tel Aviv.

What do you make of that, bozo? So far so good, but Obama couldn’t leave it at that, of course. He continued:

I also made clear that the United States, and our friends and allies, are deeply concerned about the risks of further escalation and the loss of more innocent life. And that’s why we’ve indicated, although we support military efforts by the Israelis to make sure that rockets are not being fired into their territory, we also have said that our understanding is the current military ground operations are designed to deal with the tunnels, and we are hopeful that Israel will continue to approach this process in a way that minimizes civilian casualties and that all of us are working hard to return to the cease-fire that was reached in November of 2012.

And then we have this…anything but this!

Secretary Kerry is working to support Egypt’s initiative to pursue that outcome. I told Prime Minister Netanyahu that John is prepared to travel to the region following additional consultations.

Unfortunately, we don’t have a readout of Prime Minister Netanyahu’s side of the conversation. I would guess he spoke tactfully, while having some of the following thoughts running through his mind.

Israel is in a struggle with a genocidal enemy whose means of combat are a variety of war crimes. Israel regularly compromises its own operational security to prevent civilian casualties. It has been palpably reluctant to send its forces on the current invasion of Gaza, the casualties of which will be felt a thousandfold inside Israel.

By Obama’s reckoning, however, Israel is not concerned with further escalation and the loss of innocent life. He thinks he needs to counsel Israel publicly to toe the line while its men are in harm’s way. This is a calumny which Obama’s silence could only improve.

Israel’s hand has been forced, however, by Hamas and its tunnels, whose sole purpose is attacks on Israeli civilians (by rockets hidden there or by forces entering Israel through them). Here, courtesy of Omri Ceren of The Israel Project, are a few notes and citations regarding the tunnels:

Hamas has launched multiple attacks into Israel from their offensive tunnels. Last week there was an attempt to land on Zikim beach and launch an attack (http://www.inss.org.il/index.aspx?id=4538&articleid=7181). The Kibbutz Sufa massagre was another (http://www.timesofisrael.com/tunnel-infiltration-thwarted-near-kibbutz-sufa/)

Those tunnels are part of a larger underground city underneath the Gaza Strip, which has defensive, offensive, and command & control dimensions. Miri Eisen, former head of the IDF’s combat intelligence unit: “All of the city of Gaza, throughout the different urban areas, which is so much a part of the Gaza Strip when you look at it from outside, these low-ranking urban areas, one, two, three-story houses all have a subterranean aspect. You’ve seen some of the tunnels that they have tunneled for a mile or two from the Gaza Strip into Israel because those we’ve exposed, but we have full intelligence information about the subterrian ones that they’ve built underneath the city. That’s where Ismail Haniyeh did his tape, tape that he showed a couple of days ago. It’s where they do their press conferences. Everything is underground.” (https://soundcloud.com/the-israel-project/us-communications-7-17-14-900)

Degrading the tunnels can’t be done from the air, because there’s no way to damage them without inflicting massive damage on civilian infrastructure. Col. Richard Kemp, a retired British Army officer who served as Commander of British Forces in Afghanistan: “We must commend Israel for the courage to put their soldiers’ lives at risk. The alternative would be carpet bombing & mass [civilian] casualties.” (https://twitter.com/COLRICHARDKEMP/status/489875919822008320)

Degrading the tunnels can’t be done from the air, because there’s no way to robustly detect them. Miri Eisen, former head of the IDF’s combat intelligence unit:: “The problem with the tunnels is of course that their detection is, is not accurate because you don’t have the visual aspect of the tunnel itself, you don’t have exactly the depth, and of course there are many other practical questions, is it protected, etc. etc. Usually what the IDF is doing is following and gutting the formation and waiting for the right moment either to ambush that, or to as we saw in Kerem Shalom a few weeks ago to bomb it in the last moment, this is the method that was chosen this time too.” (https://soundcloud.com/the-israel-project/us-communications-7-17-14-900)

Degrading the tunnels has the potential to do long-term damage to Hamas. Hamas can’t just rebuild like they have in the past. Amon Yadlin, former head of the IDF Military Intelligence Directorate (Aman) and current director of the Institute for National Security Studies at Tel Aviv University, “The fact that the tunnels used by Hamas for its military buildup after Cast Lead and Pillar of Defense were destroyed and closed by the Egyptians will make it possible to ensure that after a significant blow is struck at production facilities in Gaza, the post-operation buildup, if there is any, will be slow and limited.” (http://www.inss.org.il/index.aspx?id=4538&articleid=7181)

“The military significance of [the tunnels] cannot be overemphasized.”Gabriel Schoenfeld , a senior fellow at the Hudson institute: “The military significance of all this cannot be overemphasized: Ultra-deep shelters for critical military facilities can be made formidably resistant to attack. It is exceedingly difficult to discern from the surface where tunnel ventilation shafts are located or in which direction a tunnel proceeds. One has only to consider the trouble Israel has had finding tunnels dug by Hamas out of the Gaza Strip that are just a couple of yards below the surface. Another difficulty is determining exactly what military activities are being conducted in any given tunnel.” (http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/015/252djcxb.asp?pg=1)

For a report on the progress of Israel’s arms so far, see the Times of Israel report “IDF battles Hamas, uncovers tunnels, on 2nd day of ground op.” Subhed: “Gaza man appeals for medical help then tries to hurl grenades at soldiers; donkey despatched with explosives attached.”

Israel mobilizes another 50,000 reservists, DEBKAfile, July 19, 2014

(Accurate? The call up does not appear to have been reported elsewhere yet. — DM)

Saturday night, as fighting intensified in the Gaza Strip, the IDF announced the call-up of another 50,000 reservists.