Coordinated, targeted, deadly and brutal, the Hamas attacks of October 7 were a shock to Israeli society. The country’s defense, intelligence and security organizations – sources of national pride – were caught off guard and unprepared.
They acted slowly and inappropriately, humiliating the entire establishment.
The initial military response was consistent with Israeli military doctrine of powerful attacks against previously designated targets. It took a few days for everyone to pull themselves together, create the emergency unity government (which mainly unified the right-wing belligerents) and proclaim a vast mobilization of 360,000 reservists.
Three weeks later, amid continued indiscriminate bombardment, the Israeli army entered Gaza. Then, in more than two months of ground fighting, the army cut Gaza into three, encircling Gaza City and isolating Khan Younis. Most Palestinians have fled south, where they are now congregating in Rafah in unbearable conditions.
Israel says that while it has not yet defeated Hamas, it is close to its proclaimed goal, claiming to have “eliminated” 8,500 fighters.
The Israeli military’s performance, however, has been very uneven in many aspects of the military and diplomatic response.
Military performance: not a failure, but far from success
In purely military terms, Israel has achieved some success. It carried out complex military operations in urban terrain, certainly the deadliest form of warfare, advancing steadily – but too cautiously and slowly.
The centers of Gaza City and Khan Younis are surrounded on the ground, but the army has so far failed to neutralize Hamas fighting units.
In an extremely difficult combat environment, the IDF has managed to integrate many different units with varied backgrounds, training and experience – including a plethora of specialized units that report directly to the General Staff outside of the normal territorial or brigade chain of command.
These complex arrangements require the presence of senior officers on the front lines to coordinate and avoid potential confusion. Among the 172 Israeli soldiers killed so far, the proportion of senior non-commissioned officers is unusually high, but the number of officers killed in combat is staggering, with no fewer than four full colonels among the dead.
Hamas’ losses are certainly lower than Israel claims. A conservative estimate would put it at 3,500 fighters to date, or 20 percent of its frontline strength. This would mean a ratio of 20 Hamas fighters killed for every Israeli soldier.
In classical warfare, any general would happily accept this proportion as a sure victory. But not in this war. Hamas fighters are motivated by ideologies and religions and are conditioned to ignore death; the dead are considered martyrs, which strengthens the cause.
On the other hand, Israeli society, which is highly militarized – almost everyone, except the ultra-religious, serves in the army – is less tolerant of the losses of its population. Israelis do not see the tangible consequences of the deaths of their sons, husbands and brothers.
This attitude to casualties is probably best illustrated by the fact that the Golani Brigade, one of the army’s oldest and most decorated units, was withdrawn from combat after 72 of its soldiers died in combat.
Finally, Israeli forces, which claimed overwhelming military (and moral) superiority, proved to lack either the capabilities or the will to decisively destroy Hamas’ tunnel network. Although they have demonstrated mastery of the technology to flood the tunnels with seawater, the Israelis have not yet deployed this tactic.
Liberation of captives: a bitter failure
Besides the destruction of Hamas, the other main proclaimed objective of the Israeli incursion into Gaza was to free the remaining prisoners. Not only was this goal not achieved, but Israel managed to kill three captives who attempted to surrender.
Military technology: Very good performance, but not decisive
In many aspects of military technology, the Israeli military is known as a world leader. Most of its hardware and software meets the military’s high expectations, which will certainly boost its postwar exports and help, at least, partly offset the staggering cost of the war.
The new weapons and systems have been successfully integrated with the old ones. The Israeli-built Eitan armored fighting vehicle was put into service a year before its planned introduction into combat units, without problems. New products, such as the Iron Sting smart mortar and small, simple, cheap reconnaissance quadcopter drones, have proven useful in reducing casualties in urban combat.
Existing products have demonstrated their versatility and have become widespread: small body cameras and gun cameras are now deployed in all teams; dogs equipped with live cameras have expanded the possibilities of reconnaissance inside buildings suspected of being trapped.
Another indisputable Israeli military success is managing to keep its combat data link communications secret, encrypted in real time – there has been no trace of compromise on the part of Hamas. The already proven Iron Dome anti-missile system remained reliable.
Only a few weapons encountered problems, such as the highly touted Trophy armored vehicle active protection system, which proved to be of mixed to no value in close combat. Initially, over-reliance on it cost the Israeli army some casualties in the early stages of the battle.
But the Israeli military’s learning curve was steep and, as in the case of the Merkava tank’s lack of aerial protection, corrective measures were applied quickly and successfully. Despite the military’s operational success, none of its technologies have proven to be truly game-changing.
Public Relations: A Disaster Despite All Efforts
Israel’s notorious and overwhelming propaganda machine has tried hard to get its official line accepted, but with limited success. The label Hamas “terrorist” has spread throughout much of the Western world – not as much in the rest of the planet.
Attempts to equate Hamas with ISIL (ISIS), an effort particularly aimed at the Arab and Islamic world and reinforced by Israeli military spokesman Lt. Col. Avichay Adraee to the Arab world, appear to have failed miserably.
But Israel’s greatest failure was its attempt to make the world believe the claim that “Israel is committed to minimizing harm to civilians and respecting international law.”
Even Israelis themselves have questioned these claims. Videos of purported Hamas fighters, which showed men – many of them overweight, unfit and over the age of 40 – surrendering to Israeli forces, naked to their underwear, were ridiculed and eventually reprimanded.
Statements aimed at dehumanizing Palestinians, such as their description as “human animals,” made – among others – by Israeli Major General Ghassan Aslian, ironically a Druze officer, have aroused more revulsion than solidarity. The Druze are an Arab minority group who have faced discrimination in Israel.
However, the greatest failure of the Israeli military campaign must be its deliberate, disproportionate and brutal response – a response that has killed tens of thousands of civilians.
The exact number will depend on how many Hamas fighters are among the 21,800 killed so far. If the Israeli claim that there were 8,500 Hamas fighters is true, that would still mean that 13,300 civilians, including 8,600 children, were killed. If Hamas lost 4,000 people – a figure I find much more credible – the number of civilians killed intentionally or through negligence by the Israeli army is well over 17,000.
This number is considered unacceptable under any conditions by many people around the world who believe that no matter how the war ends, these dead civilians will come back to haunt all of Israel.