Gaza/Tel Aviv - After a week of relentless Israeli air raids
on the Gaza Strip, Israeli ground troops along the Gaza border are
readying for an order for an incursion.
Since Israel launched its offensive shortly after 11 am (0900 GMT)
last Saturday, its air force has destroyed more than 700 targets, a
military spokeswoman in Tel Aviv said Friday.
At least 100 smuggling tunnels under the border with Egypt, as
well as police stations, offices, houses, vehicles and rocket
launching-, storing- and production sites belonging to the radical
Islamic Hamas movement and its activists, were hit, many more than
once.
After one week, the Israel Air Force's 'pool of targets are close
to exhaustion,' one Israeli government official said.
Israel says its airstrikes have already dealt a 'very tough blow'
to Hamas' weapons supply lines - the tunnels - and to its rocket
production abilities and arsenal.
More than than 430 Palestinians have died. Many of them were
members of Hamas' armed wing and security forces. According to the
United Nations, however, at least one quarter were civilians, who
lived, stood or passed close by the buildings hit in the densely-
populated coastal enclave.
Four Israelis were also killed by Palestinian rockets.
Despite the already surging toll in lives and infrastructure,
according to Israel's Channel 10 a majority of Israeli political and
military leaders believe that without a ground operation, Israel
cannot achieve the goal of Operation 'Cast Lead' of significantly
weakening both the ability and 'motivation' of Hamas to fire rockets.
Israel wants to keep up the pressure on Hamas, which rules the
Gaza Strip, until a 'new security reality' is created in its southern
regions, which have absorbed near-daily mortar and rocket attacks
from Gaza over the past seven years.
It wants to achieve this either militarily, or by diplomatic
solutions - the latter being more favourable to it than Hamas because
militarily Israel is 'winning' the battle - or most likely by both.
In that regard, Israel is building on lessons learnt from the 2006
Lebanon war, when it was in a relatively weak position as it
negotiated UN Resolution 1701, which ended the 33 days of fighting
with the radial Shiite Hezbollah movement. During that crisis, ground
troops, which entered only at a late stage, were unable to advance
very far into Lebanon and suffered heavy casualties when repelled by
Hezbollah fighters.
Hamas has also drawn lessons from that war and is using Hezbollah
as an example. Its defiant leaders have repeatedly stated that Israel
can expect 'a second Winograd.' Israel's Winograd Commission harshly
criticized the Olmert government's handling of the inconclusive war -
not least because the Israeli premier failed to define clear and
realistic goals of Israel's offensive against Hezbollah and because
ground troops were prepared only at a very late stage.
Since its take-over of the Gaza Strip in June 2007, Hamas has
gradually transformed it's armed wing, the al-Qassam Brigades, into a
well-disciplined and well-trained semi-official army, with an
estimated 16,500 fighters.
The Brigades have trained systematically for the scenario of a
major Israeli ground invasion of Gaza. Hamas has admitted that it has
periodically been sending groups of fighters to Iran, where several
hundred have already completed intensive training at a closed
military Revolutionary Guard base in Tehran.
Those who excelled returned to Gaza as instructors and trained
thousands more in urban fighting, sniping and making explosives from
households goods. Hundreds more Hamas fighters have trained in Syria
under instructors who learnt their techniques in Iran.
While a host of Israeli analysts are convinced Hamas is scared to
death of a ground offensive and has tried to avert it by making
statements that it wants a new truce, Gaza residents say the opposite
is true.
The air raids gave its fighters no option but to hide and face
accusations of cowardice, and residents say Hamas is now eagerly
awaiting the ground offensive - a chance to demonstrate its abilities
and inflict a heavy toll on the Israeli ground troops.
Hamas fighters are said have set up booby traps and mines along
routes Israeli soldiers are likely to take, and as in past incursions
can be expected to confront the soldiers with explosives, rocket-
propelled grenades, anti-tank missiles and mortar shells.
Like Hezbollah, Hamas is eager to declare victory and earn the
respect of the street throughout the Arab world.
There is one important difference. While Hezbollah fighters could
hide in the forests and hills of southern Lebanon, as well as flee
and get new supplies deep inland, the flat Gaza Strip is only 45
kilometres long and on average some six kilometres wide: One can
drive from the south to the north in 30 minutes - and jog from the
east to the Mediterranean in 30 minutes. With the tunnels bombarded,
there is no escaping from the tightly-sealed enclave.
Israel, which unlike Hamas has tanks and Apache helicopter
gunships providing cover during ground fighting, wants to create a
strong 'deterrence' against the rocket fire by demonstrating its
military superiority and by inflicting a 'heavy price' on Hamas as
well. If the Palestinian death toll is already the highest in four
decades of the conflict, it can be expected to rise even further.
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