Sunday, January 4, 2009

IsraelMarchesIntoGaza

The Israeli Defense Forces launched a ground offensive into Gaza today. This follows Israel’s weeklong air bombardment with the announced aim of stopping the relentless rocket and missile attacks by Hamas onto Israel. These rocket attacks have been more or less continuous for a number of years, and total more than 10,000.

There was a nominal cease-fire for the last six months that Hamas ended unilaterally after announcing there will never be peace with Israel or any extension of the ceasefire. The Hamas organization then launched over 100 more rocket and missile attacks against Israel, which provoked Israel into action. Clearly Hamas wants to fight Israel, particularly on the Public Relations front. They believe they cannot lose as they are perceived as the little guy fighting the big bully so they want to suffer civilian casualties and position their fighters behind and amongst the civilian population intentionally whilst they aim their rockets at Israeli schools and civilian centers.

Hamas combatants will seek to ambush and trap Israel’s soldiers rather than confront their superior firepower and conventional advantages. It’s hard to fight superior forces and it is also difficult to fight an asymmetrical battle. If Israel really wanted to win this battle tactically it would have to reach the strategic decision to demolish Hamas and re-occupy Gaza. Israel doesn’t want to do this and therefore has set much more limited objectives to diminish the missile and rocket launching capability of their deadly foe.

Earlier on Saturday, some 13 people were killed in one Israeli air raid when a missile struck a crowded mosque in Beit Lahiya, Palestinian medics claimed. Israel accused Hamas of using such mosques to hide weapons, ammunition and arms manufacturing.

Despite the inevitable consequences, or perhaps precisely because they were seeking such an Israeli military reaction the Hamas terrorists in Gaza continued to fire rockets into southern Israel on Saturday, one of which hit the port of Ashdod, injuring two people.

Demonstrations were held against Israel's military operations around the world but no one other than Jewish supporters of Israel appeared to notice that Hamas instigated this entire conflagration.

Meanwhile in Israel thousands of reserve soldiers have been mobilized as the offensive in Gaza widens with the launching of a ground invasion that Defense Minister Ehud Barak says "won't be short" or easy.

It is wise to assume that some of these actions by Israel are a warning to Palestinian militants in the West Bank and Hezbollah guerrillas in Lebanon who fought a month long war with Israel in the summer of 2006.

Israeli ground troops began pouring into Gaza earlier Saturday. The incursion expanded an 8-day-old operation that had been conducted almost exclusively from the air.

At least 30 Hamas gunmen were reported killed as IDF troops swept into the northern Gaza Strip where they met fierce initial resistance from Hamas forces entrenched in well-prepared fortifications just over the border.

IDF sources said that the real goal is to conquer territory in northern Gaza, including rocket launch sites, from where most rockets are fired. They are using about four brigades' worth of troops inside the Gaza Strip.

Another main aim of the operation is to deliver a heavy, long-term blow to the Hamas military wing, which the IDF estimates, had not been seriously damaged by the air campaign.

It has been argued that Israel’s response to the rocket and terrorist attacks of Hamas is disproportionate. I don’t understand why this is so. How would the UK or USA or Russia or France, in fact any other country, be expected to react when it had been attacked 10,000 times?

Remember, Israel had pulled out of this territory years ago, and Hamas broke the cease-fire repeatedly and refused to renew it and no one seems to remember that Israel had released convicted terrorists as a gesture of goodwill in the last few weeks. None of this appears to matter or count.

I don’t believe that Israel has any other alternative left open to it and we can only hope that this operation will be as brief, victorious and final as possible. The alternatives are simply not tenable or acceptable.