Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said, in his conversation last Saturday evening with US President Joe Biden, that Israel has no choice but to implement the plan to invade Gaza.

Despite the strict American support for Israel, which President Biden has reiterated on several occasions, the American administration is concerned about the potential repercussions of the imminent ground invasion of the Gaza Strip, and the size of the potential civilian losses, especially since there are American questions about Israel’s post-ground invasion plan. Washington fears the scope of the war will expand with the threats of the Lebanese Hezbollah, which has its finger on the trigger and will open fire if Israel does not stop its attacks against Gaza.

Israel is mobilizing its forces to launch the ground operation, which may begin within hours. The Israeli army did not officially announce its intention to invade Gaza, but it confirmed that it was making extensive preparations for a ground war, and placing hundreds of thousands of reserve unit members in the vicinity of Gaza. The American CNN network also quoted Israeli army sources as saying that major military operations would begin as soon as it was confirmed that Gaza had left. Civilians.

Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Galant indicated in his talks with his American counterpart, Austin Lloyd, that he has a plan on how to enter Gaza with the least possible number of casualties, and that the Israeli forces benefited and learned the lesson from the previous ground invasion in 2014, admitting that it would be a guerrilla war against the regular army. Israeli.

How will Israel carry out a ground invasion?

Israeli military officials admitted to the New York Times that the ground invasion of the Gaza Strip would depend on infantry force and tanks that constitute the Israeli strike force, in addition to commando forces and explosives experts. Officials explained that the ground forces will be protected by aircraft, military helicopters, drones and artillery launched from land and sea. According to some reports, Israel plans to use bombs known as “Bunker Busters” that aim to destroy fortified underground targets. These bombs penetrate the ground when they fall and aim to strike fortifications and tunnels.

The Israeli army announced that its goal is to eliminate the political and military leaders of the Hamas movement, which carried out the surprise attack last Saturday. Israeli army spokesman Daniel Hagari said on Saturday that Hamas leaders will bear responsibility for the atrocities committed against Israelis, and the goal is to defeat Hamas and eliminate its leaders.

The New York Times quoted Nimrod Novik, an Israeli diplomat and security advisor to the Israeli government, as saying that military leaders want Israeli soldiers to carry out house-to-house arrest operations for 18 months, which include removing rocket launchers, destroying tunnels, and all military equipment that Hamas possesses. . Israeli officials say they are planning months of fighting inside the Gaza Strip, whether above ground or in tunnels built by Hamas.

Threats from Iran and Hezbollah

The Axios website reported the threats of Hezbollah, which is supported by Iran and allied with Hamas, to open a second front with Israel on the Lebanese border. The website quoted Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir Abdollahian as saying that Iran will intervene if Israel continues its attacks against Gaza. Abdullahian told reporters in Beirut that he is aware of the scenarios developed by Hezbollah, which he described as causing a major earthquake in the Zionist entity. Hezbollah has a wide range of tens of thousands of precision-guided missiles and ground forces.

Destroying Hamas or saving the hostages?

But experts and analysts say that the Israeli Prime Minister has an impossible choice: either destroy Hamas or rescue the hostages, and it is not possible to do both. Experts warned that the "Al-Qassam Brigades" (the military wing of the Hamas movement) would kill the hostages it holds, or use Palestinian civilians as human shields in the face of the Israeli invasion of the Gaza Strip, which would lead to heavy human losses, would constitute a moral and operational dilemma for Israel, and would push the international community to To put pressure on Tel Aviv to stop the bloodshed and stop the killing of innocent civilians.

Experts expressed their fears about the repercussions of any ground invasion by Israeli forces into the Gaza Strip, risking the lives of hostages held by Hamas, in addition to the complexities of the battle. Assuming that the Israeli army controls Gaza, managing the Strip after Hamas is fraught with great risks for Israel to regain control of the region as it did from 1967 to 2005.

Corey Schack, director of foreign policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute, says that the US administration’s fears that Israel will carry out a collective punishment campaign that will result in massive civilian casualties will be the problem that will loom on the horizon as Israeli operations to destroy Hamas progress. She added, “Despite these fears, the United States The United States will not place any restrictions on its material and military support for Israel given the horrific nature of the Hamas attack.”

Complex guerrilla warfare

Colin Clark, a specialist in security and terrorism issues at the Soufan Group, an independent research center, says that the ground invasion and invasion of the Gaza Strip will be very difficult, as it will be more like a street war or a guerrilla war, and it is the most challenging type of battle for regular armies, and the Israeli forces will have to face challenges. Many of them include booby-trapped tunnels, if a ground operation was launched in Gaza, especially since Hamas spent years building a vast network of underground tunnels in Gaza, using them to store and transport weapons, carry out operations against Israel, and then hide from Israeli air strikes.

Clark says, "The Israeli forces' dealings with Hamas's tunnel network will make the operation complicated, because Hamas will have prepared for the Israeli ground attack and will booby-trap the tunnels." He added, "It will require extensive intelligence information about these tunnels, and the biggest problem will be about the conditions of the hostages whom Hamas has threatened to slaughter, and so it will become... It's very dangerous.

Hostage recovery

Reports say that Hamas is holding more than 150 people, including women, children, and foreign nationals. In order to recover the hostages, John McLaughlin, former deputy director of the CIA and professor of international studies at Johns Hopkins University, says that there are two options to free the hostages. The first is to resort to operational forces. American private; However, the density of the population in the Gaza Strip in the midst of a violent military operation will make the task of freeing the hostages almost impossible and more complicated than any other operations that took place to rescue the hostages, especially since Hamas can hold the prisoners in multiple places, which makes rescue efforts more difficult.

McLaughlin added that Israel's continuous bombing of the Strip may mean that there are hostages among those killed as a result of the air strikes. Assuming that intelligence officials examine satellite images of the area for signs of movement, Hamas could use tunnels to hide hostages. It would therefore require the use of other techniques to map areas where prisoners could be held, but it would be a slow process. He said, "It took years for American intelligence to find out the whereabouts of only one person, Osama bin Laden." He stressed that the second option to secure the release of the hostages is diplomatic efforts, but in light of the current situation, Hamas will cling to the hostages as tools for bargaining and incitement of terror or to use them as human shields.

Gershon Baskin, former director of the Israel Palestine Research Center, a think tank that served as a mediator in negotiations to release Israeli prisoner Gilad Shalit, noted that Israel must make deals to release hostages held by Hamas, and suggested that it announce that any Gazan citizen who brings hostages to the border will be arrested. He was granted amnesty and passage to the West Bank. Baskin suggested that countries such as Egypt, Qatar, and Turkey make efforts to pressure Hamas to release the hostages, and that Qatar expel Hamas leaders from Doha if they do not respond to calls to release the hostages.

Source: Ashaq Al-Awsat