The New York Times newspaper quoted US officials as saying that Israel’s decision to halt a large-scale invasion of the Gaza Strip and replace it with limited ground incursions is consistent with the proposals that US Secretary of Defense, Lloyd Austin, recently presented to the Israelis.
The New York Times newspaper noted that US officials expressed concern that the initial Israeli invasion plan lacked achievable military objectives.
The officials confirmed to the New York Times that the ground incursions carried out by the Israeli army in Gaza are smaller in scale than what the Israeli military described to Austin and other senior US military officials.
Earlier, the Israeli Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper confirmed that the United States is assuming leadership of the war instead of Israel, according to its interests in the region.
According to Yedioth Ahronoth, close US support for the Israel comes at a price.
Commenting on the participation of US Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, in the reduced war cabinet meeting, during his visit to the occupied territories shortly after the start of the aggression on Gaza, the military affairs analyst at Yedioth Ahronoth said that the matter was considered as a US control over leading the battle.
The Israeli media described this participation as a precedent of its kind for the occupation, noting that it shows the extent to which the Americans supervise Israel’s decisions.
In conjunction with the announcement of the Israeli army to expand its ground operations.
The Washington Post, quoted 5 US officials familiar with the discussions, saying that the administration of US President Joe Biden urges Israel to rethink its plans to launch a major ground attack on the Gaza Strip.
According to them, “US administration officials have become extremely concerned about the potential ramifications of a full-scale ground offensive, and are increasingly skeptical that it will achieve Israel’s stated goal of eliminating Hamas”.
Regarding the obstacles that the Israeli army will face if invades the Gaza Strip, the Foreign Policy magazine, confirmed that these challenges may push Israeli leaders to limit the scope and size of military operations.
According to Foreign Policy, the first challenge is the nature of the fighting itself, explaining that Gaza is built up and densely populated.
In its narrow streets and crowded buildings, a number of the advantages enjoyed by the Israeli army in speed, communications, surveillance, and long-range firepower are neutralized.
Accordingly, the IDF will need to dismantle its forces, which will then become vulnerable to small groups of resistance fighters.
It’s likely that the operations in Gaza, which are urban in nature, will be much more difficult than the devastating operations that the US army waged in the urban areas of Fallujah, Iraq, while it described the fighting in the tunnels as a nightmare.
For its part, the Washington Post referred earlier to the warnings issued by experts in urban warfare, that the Israeli army will face a hellish jungle of buildings, mines, and crowded tunnels, while fighting the Palestinian resistance.
Former senior Pentagon official, Mick Mulroy, stated that the Palestinian resistance has become very effective in fighting in urban areas, noting that it prepared well for the entry of Israeli forces, despite the superiority of the Israeli army forces, weapons, and equipment over those of the resistance in the Gaza Strip.
It’s noteworthy that the spokesman for the Israeli army previously announced that the ground forces were working to expand ground activities in Gaza, but they were unable to establish themselves in the main effort areas in the northeast and northwest of the Strip, and the center in Bureij refugees camp.
The Palestinian fighters confronted the attempts of the Israeli forces to advance and thwarted the attack, despite the occupation escalating the pace of its bombing of the eastern and northern areas of the Gaza Strip, in particular.
In turn, the Hamas movement confirmed the failure of the ground attack launched by the occupation on Gaza through 3 axes, confirming that Israeli soldiers were killed and wounded, and they were transported via helicopters.
Hamas said, in a statement, that the Israeli army fell into ambushes prepared by the Palestinian resistance, noting that the resistance fighters used Kornet anti-tank guided missile (ATGM) and the local-made Yassin anti-tank rockets to repel the attack.
