Israel Will Not Return to Fight Gaza

by Dr. Abdul-Sattar Kassem

Israel imagined Gaza to be an easy morsel, one whose resistance it could crush without difficulty. This is why voices multiplied within the Zionist entity calling for the necessity of reoccupying Gaza and liquidating Hamas, Islamic Jihad, and all the resistance factions, and a groundswell of popular enthusiasm for the idea appeared, pushing Israel’s prime minister to make a swift decision to launch an assault on Gaza on July 7, 2014. The Zionist prime minister decided to wage a war that would end up fortifying the Gaza Strip, through a deterrent force that the entity will have to reckon with very precisely in the future.

Israeli Disarray

Israel found itself in disarray in its new war on Gaza, because it lacks precise intelligence on Gaza’s military capabilities or on the locations of those capabilities, and so it appeared like a rabid dog, lashing out left and right without landing on any target that would actually diminish the resistance’s capacity to strike back. Israel struck many sites, but the explosions that resulted were confined to the explosions of its own aircraft’s bombs — never once did a rocket or ammunition depot go up. It killed many people, but it did not kill fighters in their defensive military positions. It demolished houses, but it did not hit military sites; it killed passersby in the streets, in markets, in charitable associations, and in homes for the disabled, and children and women made up a high proportion of the martyrs. It became apparent to the Zionists that they had not gathered enough information to wage a successful war, and they began trading insults and public accusations. The army accuses the intelligence services, the intelligence services accuse the army, and a sense of defeat seemed to have taken hold of them even though the battle was still only in its beginning.

Israel waged its earlier wars relying on precise information that allowed its army to hit targets accurately; now, however, that precision no longer exists, and the army has turned instead to the houses of ordinary citizens, demolishing them over the heads of their inhabitants. This “invincible” army has no clear objectives, is no longer capable of acting with any professionalism, and the very ethics Israel long spoke of as a hallmark feature of its army’s conduct have been utterly shattered in the savage, barbaric bombardment of safe, unarmed children and women. The Israeli army now appears before the world as a farce, capable of nothing but harming innocents and homes. It is turning into a global laughingstock, and its standing is sinking before its own people, who are searching for security.

The Palestinian Security Mindset

What is it that has thrown the Israeli army into disarray? It is the Palestinian security mindset, which has abandoned the old era of improvisation and casualness and developed a new, professional security mindset. The Palestinian arena was once a stage for Israeli intelligence, and Israel was able to plant spies and agents in every faction, every corner, every Palestinian institution and association, and was able to gather precise information on the activities of individuals, factions, parties, and combat cells, and to spring traps on them with ease. The Palestinian resistance in Gaza has drawn on this experience and has come to understand that vigilant security is the path to ensnaring the enemy, because it is precisely what blinds him to the true state of affairs. The Hamas government formed in Gaza pursued agents and spies with the aim of eliminating the phenomenon entirely, and every time Hamas arrested a spy, Ramallah would rush to his defense, claiming he was a national figure and that the arrest was political. The Palestinian resistance in Gaza did not fully succeed in eradicating the phenomenon of spies and agents, but it eliminated large numbers of them, sharply reducing Israel’s ability to obtain information. It is true that Israel possesses highly advanced technical means for gathering information, but the human element on the ground remains the most important factor in gathering precise information and providing guidance. The resistance has also strengthened its security vigilance by paying attention to the dangers of using electronic devices. Some electronic devices are, in effect, mobile spies, continuously relaying information to the enemy, and the Palestinian people have paid a heavy price as a result of using them, mobile phones and the internet chief among them. Now, in this war, the communication devices of Palestinian fighters and their leaders are switched off, and the enemy has nothing left to eavesdrop on.

Neutralizing Israeli Air Power and Artillery

Neutralizing Israeli air power and artillery is considered one of the most successful military tactics in the wars of static resistance. The resistance had already used this tactic in South Lebanon and in the 2012 war on Gaza. The Israeli air force is extremely powerful and advanced, and its pilots are trained to a rigorous and highly professional standard; the Arabs possess no equivalent air power, nor do even other states that manufacture warplanes, aside from the United States. It was therefore necessary to take measures that would reduce the destruction air power could inflict on fighters, and deep underground tunnels, fortifications, and bunkers equipped for both combat and ordinary life were the solution. There is no doubt that whoever arrived at this solution is a genius endowed with a creative military mind. By this method, the Israeli air force was unable to defeat Hezbollah in the July War, and could not achieve success in the 2012 Gaza war either. The air force failed to hit fighters and their military positions, and so it began striking civilian sites and killing civilians instead. Israel killed 1,200 Lebanese in 2006 and 1,400 Palestinians in 2008/9. Israel would strike sites it believed to be launch platforms or fighters’ hideouts, only to be surprised that the strikes coming at it were launched from the very same sites it believed it had wiped out. Israel grew confused each and every time, and this was reflected in its military statements: it would announce advances, killings, and annihilation, only to later walk back its own claimed achievements in subsequent military statements.

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The Resistance’s Surprises

The Palestinian resistance now surprises people by the fact that its mouth is no bigger than its actual abilities, and that its stick is no longer than its own height. Palestinians and Arabs had grown accustomed to resounding rhetoric and grand, fiery talk that far exceeded actual capability. For so long, Arab and Palestinian leaders issued fiery statements that supposedly destroyed Israel and its allies time and again, only to leave Arabs disheartened throughout the years. They were nothing but orators who were skilled at lying to no one but their own peoples. In Gaza, the situation is entirely different. The resistance was manufacturing weapons and smuggling them in in total silence. The resistance never uttered a word, never told people about its actual capabilities in development, innovation, and invention, and kept everything under wraps so the enemy would not take precautions. The Palestinian resistance surprised us with how little it said, how rare its statements were, with its methodical, scientific approach and its advanced scientific thinking. And afterward it surprised us, and surprised the enemy, with a number of things, summed up in the growing range of its rockets, its professionally trained naval forces, its anti-aircraft and anti-helicopter missiles, and its anti-tank and anti-armor missile capabilities. And more surprises, according to the resistance’s own statements, are yet to come, especially if the enemy decides to wage a ground war.

The enemy was caught by surprise and struck with despair, it and its accomplices alike, to the point that the American president proposed mediating with Israel to stop the fighting. The American decided to talk to the resistance he considers terrorist, because he saw his terrorist daughter caught in a military bind. Because of these surprises, Netanyahu lowered the ceiling of his demands considerably, saying in one of his statements that he was working to achieve calm for Israel’s residents. He did not raise his ceiling, nor did he boast of any conditions to impose on the resistance, and according to the reports circulating, Netanyahu is trying, through various channels, to obtain a truce from the resistance.

Coordination Among the Resistance Forces

The battle now raging in Gaza is witnessing coordinated resistance work among the various resistance forces. The factions no longer operate separately under independent commands — or at least this is what appears to us from their military performance. The factions are now cooperating, distributing roles among themselves according to each faction’s capabilities. It is clear that Hamas plays combat roles different from those played by Islamic Jihad or the al-Nasser Salah al-Din Brigades. The roles are being integrated so that there is a fully harmonious Palestinian military symphony, one that has a real effect on the enemy’s ranks. This is a major development on the Palestinian scene, because in the past the factions used to race to claim responsibility for military operations that no faction had actually carried out, and used to fabricate imaginary military operations against the occupation; during the 1987 intifada, they “defeated” the Israeli army several times over through false statements with no basis in reality. This new factional mindset is thoroughly disciplined, and it is achieving very high credibility for the resistance.

The Truce

Truces have played a discouraging role throughout Palestinian history, one that has completed the work of defeat. The Palestinian people struck for six months in 1936 against the British Mandate, demanding independence, and Palestine’s feudal leadership of the time swore to continue the strike until the demands were met. The strike ended without result, owing to the intervention of Arab mediation, which broke the strike on the pledge that friendly Britain would meet the demands. The strike ended, and Palestine was lost. Arab armies advanced in the 1948 war, but the Arab regimes’ acceptance of a truce changed the course of the war, and Palestinians were expelled from their homes. The 1987 intifada ended with recognition of Israel and of Security Council Resolutions 242 and 338. The meaning is that the Palestinian people kept offering up sacrifices whose glow was lost in the settlements that followed. I believe Palestinian conduct will be different this time, and that the Palestinian resistance will insist on achieving conditions, foremost among them lifting the Arab-Israeli siege imposed on Gaza.

Here, a warning must be sounded against Arab mediation, should the resistance incline toward accepting mediation. Arab states do not honor their own signatures, and are not prepared to stand up to Israel if it breaches a truce agreement. The greatest proof of this is Egypt’s inability to do anything about Israel’s violation of the 2012 truce, and its inability to do anything in the face of Israel’s refusal to implement the Wafa al-Ahrar prisoner-exchange deal concerning the release of Palestinian detainees. The resistance must choose a state that respects itself, one with the boldness and courage to stand up to Israel should it breach the agreement or refuse to implement it. In any case, there is no call to seek a truce if the resistance judges itself capable of continuing to fight and cornering Israel. This time, we may well be able to impose our own conditions on Israel. Israel’s patience does not run long, and its people cannot endure, and we must use this as a tool of pressure on its government.

Immunity for Gaza

Will Israel dare attack Gaza again in the future? After this failure it has suffered, and after this advanced resistance the Palestinians have shown, I do not think Israel will dare violate Gaza’s sanctity again in the future. It is true that the Palestinian people bore grievous sacrifices this time, but it is precisely these sacrifices that will prevent losses in the future. We are no longer a soft target for Israel; we have fortified ourselves. This pure blood shed on the soil of Gaza forms the impregnable shield that deters Israel from undertaking military adventures in the future. They were martyred for the sake of life, so that the people and the homeland might live, and they defeated an army that has now itself become defeatable.

Source: Translated from the original Arabic, “إسرائيل لن تعود لقتال غزة” by Dr. Abdul-Sattar Kassem.