The Guardian: Weaknesses in Israel’s war strategy
The Guardian newspaper said in an analysis on the developments of the Gaza war, and the newspaper’s correspondent in Israel, Jason Burke, said that the latest evacuation warnings from Gaza reveal weaknesses in Israel’s war strategy.
Two striking elements of the recent evacuation warnings issued by the Israeli army to residents and displaced people in central Rafah and much of northern Gaza are that warnings to Rafah were placed at the bottom of posts and social media posts, as if the IDF were trying to downplay the significance of the upcoming offensive.
The second conclusion of the warnings is that they call for the evacuation of areas in northern Gaza that have already been the scene of repeated Israeli military operations, underscoring how difficult it’s to eliminate Hamas in Gaza.
Some of the vast tunnel network built by Hamas during its 16 years of control of Gaza is intact, there are still some remaining stockpiles of rockets to be fired at Israel, and Gazans allow Hamas to be near them either in support of or out of fear of the movement.
For political, diplomatic, and economic reasons, Israel doesn’t want to keep large numbers of its troops on the ground in Gaza and has failed to build any kind of effective management in the areas from which it supposedly expelled Hamas.
These choices helped its enemies, allowing Hamas to return to its former strongholds, which are now often reduced to rubble.
Israel finds itself caught in the classic trap of the war against the insurgency, needing a decisive victory while its enemy just needs to survive.
Those who suffer the most are those civilians stuck in the middle.
