Washington Post: Hamas’s tactics trap Israeli soldiers in deadly ambushes

The Washington Post revealed deadly deception methods used by the Palestinian factions in Gaza, mainly Hamas to ambush the Israeli occupation forces penetrating into the Gaza Strip.

The Washington Post quoted Israeli soldiers as confessing to falling into a deadly trap near the Jabalya refugee camp in the northern Gaza Strip.

The Israeli army explained, in a statement last week, that the ambush used “dolls and backpacks with loudspeakers that broadcast crying sounds, and they were deliberately placed near a tunnel shaft connected to a large tunnel network”.

In recent days, the Israeli army reported that its soldiers heard recordings of people crying and speaking Hebrew, indicating that they were attempts to deceive Israeli soldiers into searching for prisoners nearby, according to Washington Post.

The Washington Post pointed out that in light of the intensification of ground battles between the Palestinian factions and the Israeli forces, Gaza is turning into a complex war zone, in which Israel deploys drones and robots from the twenty-first century, while the resistance relies on some of the oldest tactics: deception, and surprise and ambushes.

The Palestinian resistance is fighting above and below the ground, and fighters move from one building to another, trying to ambush Israeli soldiers.

The Washington Post quoted Israeli analysts as saying that the Israeli army is struggling to achieve conflicting goals: “finding and killing Hamas fighters while also trying to rescue prisoners”.

Likewise, a researcher at the Institute for National Security Studies at Tel Aviv University said that the deception operations adopted by the Palestinian resistance “are designed to lure Israeli soldiers and bring them into areas prepared in advance as killing zones,” noting that this method “creates confusion, chaos, anger and frustration in ranks of the Israeli forces”.

The researcher suggested that the method of resistance in the context of setting up ambushes will continue to constitute a major challenge and provocation.

He added that Israeli soldiers who face intense fighting at close range may be actually exhausted and afraid, stressing that the deception operations carried out by the resistance make Israeli soldiers more vulnerable to making mistakes.