Six weeks after the start of the ground invasion of the Gaza Strip, Israeli forces and Hamas may have changed the way they fight, taking advantage of a week-long truce to reassess their performance and adapt their approach to battlefield conditions and enemy actions.
One notable prediction from all the experts, which appears to have been wrong – or has yet to come true – concerns the expected underground carnage. There hasn’t been much fighting in the tunnels (yet) and it’s questionable whether enemies will want to enter them.
A cautious Israel
Wary of the length, breadth and sophistication of Hamas’s tunnels, the Israeli military moved cautiously. Urban areas have been heavily bombarded since the war began on October 7, stopping only when Israeli ground forces were about to enter.
Before the truce at the end of November, Israel had succeeded in surrounding Gaza City. Many Palestinians fled south, obeying Israeli evacuation orders or simply fleeing for their lives.
After the capture of the Gaza City perimeter, Israeli sources disclosed that some commanders on the ground believed the price of soldiers and equipment was lower than expected, with 104 combat deaths so far. But the high command opted for a cautious approach, staying out of the densest built-up areas: parts of the old center and the Jabalia refugee camp.
Apparently satisfied with what it did in Gaza City, the Israeli command decided to repeat the strategy in the south, where it has now almost completely surrounded Khan Younis.
It is impossible to determine whether the heavy civilian casualties and destruction of Palestinian infrastructure were collateral damage or part of the battle plan. This question will likely be debated for years and there may never be a single answer.
Is Hamas preserving its tunnels?
On the ground, Hamas fought as expected: surprise attacks against Israeli forces using primarily shoulder-launched anti-tank weapons. Israeli casualty updates provide insight into the fighting by comparing the number of soldiers killed with the type, duration and scope of their advances.
But it is difficult to locate incapacitated armored vehicles, and we cannot rely on Hamas’ claims about the destruction of Israeli tanks and armored personnel carriers, which are exaggerated to boost morale.
Hamas does not allow much information to be released, but upon careful observation, a pattern emerges: the leadership of the Qassam Brigades, Hamas’ military wing, appears to be trying to keep the tunnels hidden and intact as long as possible.
Rather than using them for daily tactical and operational purposes, it seems to prefer to keep them as shelters during bombings, as weapons storage and as cover for its troops on the move.
Hamas fighters therefore do not appear to emerge from the tunnels to immediately target Israeli soldiers. They use tunnels to reach intended areas of operation, but surface further away and move through buildings and rubble for some distance to keep the location of the shafts secret.
What changed? Has anything changed?
Assessing why neither side initiated the tunnel war is a bit of a chicken-and-egg situation: impossible to say who did what first.
The Israeli side has always been wary of tunnel warfare, knowing that it would result in heavy losses. But after two incidents early in the fighting in which four special forces soldiers in one case and two engineer soldiers in another were killed by booby traps while trying to enter tunnels, initial reluctance faded. is perhaps transformed into a strong reluctance to send soldiers underground. fight.
Caution in handling the tunnels means that the Israeli military now simply identifies and marks the entrances to the tunnels, blocking or destroying them without entering them – except in cases where it must enter the tunnels for purposes public relations, such as at al-Shifa hospital.
But there are thousands of tunnel openings and, aware of the difficulty of finding them all, the Israeli army is reportedly considering filling them with sea water, drowning those hiding underground or forcing them to come up and to fight on the surface.
There may be a psychological reason for Israel to view water as a weapon: could it be some sort of revenge on the Arab world?
In 1973, the Egyptian army used fire hoses to breach Israeli sand berms on the banks of the Suez Canal in Sinai. While the high earthen walls effectively protected Israeli positions from bombardment, canal water projected by fire hoses cut through the berms like a hot knife through butter, allowing the Egyptians to repel the Israeli army.
Fifty years later, the idea of using seawater as a weapon is being considered, although it is unlikely to be as decisive in Gaza in 2023 as it was in Sinai in 1973 .
No one except Hamas knows for sure how Hamas’ tunnels are structured, but several videos show that the network has watertight doors. It is therefore likely that Hamas could protect parts of the network by closing sections and bypassing those that would be flooded.
Added to this are the practical problems linked to this so-called Israeli plan. Two million liters (about 530,000 gallons) of seawater would be needed to flood about one kilometer (0.6 miles) of tunnel, assuming the shafts are 2 meters (6.6 feet) high and 1 meter (3.3 feet) wide.
Multiply that by the estimated 400 km (250 miles) that the network extends, and the logistics become incredibly complex.
The pumps and pipes needed for this strategy would have to extend from the seashore to the start of the tunnels, which is not a short distance, given that the tunnels are located in the clay soil that begins at the away from the sandy shore. Having so much equipment exposed would leave it open to attack and sabotage.
If Israel chooses to do this and somehow the technical part succeeds, there remains the intractable problem of determining which section of the tunnel it is pumping water into and what that means in the set of things.
But in reality, the main reason Israel is refraining from offensive action inside Hamas’s tunnel network is the remaining prisoners. According to an official Israeli count, 138 people taken to southern Israel on October 7 are still being held in Hamas tunnels.
With almost all of the hostages now Israeli, some with dual American citizenship, it is difficult to imagine that an Israeli politician or military commander would be willing to risk his reputation at home by ordering the destruction of parts of a network of tunnels in which theirs could be found. kill.
