Netanyahu and the IDF Top Brass Fight Over Gaza Cease-fire While Spiraling Towards Total War With Hezbollah - Israel News - Haaretz.com
The explosion of the armored personnel carrier in Rafah on Saturday morning, in which eight combat soldiers from the Israel Defense Forces Combat Engineering Corps were killed, exemplifies the high price Israel is continuing to pay for the fighting in the Gaza Strip.
As Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu continues to peddle the "total victory" that is supposedly waiting just around the corner, and as the army is imploring him to withdraw the forces from Gaza, arguing that the significant accomplishment has already been achieved, the reality of war is revealing itself.
Hamas is not engaging in much direct confrontation with the Israeli forces in Rafah, but is leaving behind enough large explosive devices and booby-trapped buildings to cause losses on the Israeli side.
The operation in Rafah has been going on for five weeks now, after having been delayed before then for two months. The U.S. administration posited demands and reservations to Israel, and especially concern about harm to the large population of Palestinian refugees that was pushed into the city.
Smoke rises over Tel al-Sultan in Rafah, southern Gaza, last month.Credit: AFP
After most of the inhabitants had left under the threat from Israel, the IDF began a limited operation in Rafah, working from a single division headquarters, instead of the two that had been planned initially. Israel quickly completed its takeover of the Philadelphi corridor along the border with Egypt, but within Rafah itself the IDF has been progressing relatively slowly.
Thus far, the occupation of less than half of the city has been completed. In Rafah, four Hamas battalions operated before the Israeli invasion. Though it appears the organization absorbed hundreds of fatalities in the battles there – among them several dozens on Saturday – apparently a large part of its people have fled north to spare losses.
It is doubtful that the leadership is particularly worried about what is happening in the city, apart from the question of Philadelphi. The corridor is essential to Hamas for continuing to operate its network of smuggling tunnels from Egypt.
The engineering Namer-model armored personnel carrier that blew up and was totally destroyed Saturday was manned by a mine-clearance team from a regular army combat engineering company. Everyone in the vehicle, an officer and seven soldiers, were killed.
Following the initial investigation, the IDF assessment is that the vehicle was blown up by a large explosive device. On the outer walls of the vehicle, carriers were affixed for transporting explosive bricks and mines, which the IDF uses to blow up buildings and tunnels. The personnel carrier explosion possibly led to a secondary explosion of these attachments and exacerbated the dire outcome.
IDF Southern Command chief Yaron Finkelman, left, with Chief of Staff Herzl Halevi, in the Gaza Strip, earlier this week.Credit: IDF Spokesperson's Unit
The incident occurred early in the morning, after a combat team from Armored Brigade 401 had completed the occupation of buildings in the Tel a-Sultan neighborhood. The forces were about to take up positions in other buildings, before daylight, when the armored personnel carrier drove over an explosive device, in a place where several other armored vehicles had driven before it unscathed.
The Rafah disaster happened on the backdrop of a worsening disagreement between the government and the military. From a sympathetic platform provided by Yedioth Ahronoth, on Friday Chief of Staff Herzl Halevi gave his version of the famous advice U.S. President Lyndon Johnson received when his country became bogged down in the Vietnam War: "Declare victory, and go home."
According to Halevi, the IDF is on the verge of militarily defeating Hamas, which will be achieved soon, after inflicting damage on the remaining Hamas battalions in Rafah. In such a case, there is no need for concern about ending the war in this format while striving for a deal to release the hostages. Thus, it will be possible to focus on preparations for the escalating front with Hezbollah in Lebanon, and, if need be, to return to the Gaza Strip and complete the blow to Hamas.
There is a great deal of logic in Halevi's proposal – this, more or less, is what former chief of staff (and National Unity party lawmaker) Gadi Eisenkot recommended in the recent month, when he was a member of the war cabinet.
However, it appears that the description of the damage to Hamas is too optimistic. Even if more than one-third of the organization's armed force has indeed been killed, as the army assesses, this is not a total defeat of the organization because it is not possible to measure the fight in the terms used to assess a conflict with an organized army.
In many areas, Hamas has replaced its military format with the default option – loose organization of terrorist and guerrilla forces. It appears to have no dearth of new recruits, who, after brief training and in return for a meager wage, are prepared to take up basic weapons – a Kalashnikov rifle or a rocket-propelled grenade (RPG) – and act against the IDF.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, in the Israeli Knesset, earlier this week.Credit: Olivier Fitoussi
It cannot be ignored that inside the Gaza Strip, especially in assaults, the Israeli forces remain relatively vulnerable. Hamas makes very good use of its weak points, which are also connected to the erosion and the heavy burden of the missions assigned to the forces.
Many of the attacks of the Israeli forces take place within tunnel entrances, or from concealment inside civilians' homes, as well as from inside United Nations premises that are serving as shelters for thousands of Palestinian families.
The army's recommendation to focus now on negotiations for releasing the hostages derives from a heavy moral obligation towards them, on the part of the senior command level on whose watch the October 7 massacre occurred.
It is also based on the understanding that it is not possible to replicate in the near future, to any great extent, the impressive operation that rescued four hostages in the Nuseirat refugee camp on June 7.
The trouble is that the window of opportunity to reach a deal was flubbed to a large extent. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu intentionally dithered over the efforts to arrive at a deal during the first months of this year. In recent weeks, it is Hamas that has been toughening its demands.
And in any case, it is clear that the leadership of the organization in the Gaza Strip is not prepared for a deal at this time, if it does not include a commitment to a long-term, complete cease-fire, with guarantees behind the agreement from foreign countries.
Netanyahu, who had no compunctions about violating the Sabbath and rushed out to have the cameras record him meeting with the hostages who were rescued, is immobile when bad news comes in from the Gaza Strip a week later.
Mediate to the nation the deaths of many soldiers? That's already a task for the IDF spokesperson Daniel Hagari. The timing of this information is not convenient for the prime minister: Combat engineering soldiers have been killed just a few days after the vote in the Knesset on legislation aimed at legitimizing the mass shirking of military service by the ultra-Orthodox.
In the coming days, additional legislation is planned that will increase the burden on people serving in the regular army and on reservists. At a time when Netanyahu is evincing imperviousness to the rage in many parts of the public, the poison machine on his behalf in the social networks, with the encouragement of his son Yair, has gone back to attacking the IDF chief of staff and Mossad chief Ronen Bar. The brief grace period afforded by the rescue operation has ended.
The Lebanon risks
Rafah isn't the only front that greatly worries Israel now. The severe tensions on the Lebanese border have continued since the killing of the Hezbollah Nasser Unit commander Taleb Abdullah last Tuesday.
In the past few days, Hezbollah has launched hundreds of rockets and dozens of attack drones against the Galilee, Golan and Sea of Galilee area. The government and IDF are operating under intense pressure from the media and residents of the north to stop the Hezbollah attacks, which have caused the evacuation of 60,000 Israelis from their homes and devastated border communities.
On the basis of Defense Minister Yoav Gallant and senior IDF officers' declarations, it seems that they support intensifying the attacks. The question is whether these measures will necessarily deter Hassan Nasrallah and end the escalation or have the opposite result, to the point of deterioration into total war.
To date, there is no evidence that the policy of extensive killings will restrain Hezbollah. Conversely, the Shia organization's leaders declare they will not withdraw and intend to continue the attacks so long as the Israeli operation in Gaza continues.
A forest fire caused by Hezbollah rockets in Israel's north, earlier this week.Credit: Gil Eliyahu
It is possible that Israel will ultimately have no choice but a war in the north. But those who preach it should take into account the expected vast damage to the Israeli home front (including the center of the country) from Hezbollah's tens of thousands of rockets and missiles and the IDF's difficulty in deploying its forces on two fronts.
Some assessments, that the IDF will fairly easily overcome Hezbollah in southern Lebanon, sound divorced from reality and rely on a false reading of Israeli military strength.
In the background, the Americans and French are continuing efforts to achieve a cease-fire before a total war breaks out. On Friday, Gallant, unexpectedly, chose to disparage France and accuse it of anti-Israeli actions.
But the main difficulty is it touches on relations with the U.S.: The administration in Washington is not concealing its reservations about an attack on Lebanon initiated by Israel, which greatly depends on the Americans with respect to munitions deliveries to the IDF.