Colonel Khodarenok: Israel's tactics will allow destroying Hamas underground tunnels
The combined arms operation of the Israel Defense Forces in the Gaza Strip may last from six weeks to six months, Bloomberg reported, citing officials in the country's cabinet. Is it possible to talk now about any deadlines for the end of the conflict and what tactics the IDF will use in the fight against Hamas - in the material of the military observer of the newspaper.Ru" by Mikhail Khodarenka.
Israel faces a choice
Such precision in determining the timing of the end of hostilities in the Gaza Strip, of course, cannot but cause a slight irony. The spread in dates at Bloomberg differs by at least an order of magnitude. To paraphrase the agency somewhat, with regard to the duration of the campaign in the Gaza Strip in this case, we can say this - "maybe a day, maybe a year."
Meanwhile, there is every reason to believe that in the General Staff of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), such deadlines were not determined initially, and all actions of formations and units are currently being planned based solely on the specific situation and the boundaries that will be achieved during the solution of certain operational tasks. And there is no reason to assume that the General Staff of the Israeli Armed Forces shared its plans with Bloomberg (no matter how authoritative the agency looks in this case).
Some media outlets write that Israel has suspended the implementation of the IDF's large-scale combined arms operation in the Gaza Strip and decided to hold several limited ones. It is unlikely that this information is trustworthy. By definition, there can be no such leaks from the General Staff of the Israel Defense Forces.
At the same time, the question of how the situation in the Gaza Strip will develop was not removed from the agenda. Half measures in urban battles do not achieve anything.
That is, by and large, nothing.
"Crush and conquer"
Therefore, there is every reason to believe that the Israel Defense Forces in the upcoming combined arms operation in the Gaza Strip will act in strict accordance with the formula of the First World War - "artillery destroys, infantry occupies".
As the newspaper wrote earlier.Ru", a significant amount of firing tasks will be assigned to the Israeli Air Force. They will destroy the Gaza Strip quarter by quarter. And only after that, the infantry will move to the next frontier.
There is another principle from the time of the First World War, which will certainly be implemented during the fighting by the Israel Defense Forces (of course, exclusively on a new technological basis) - "order is more important than speed." That is, the IDF infantry will occupy certain sections of the territory of the Gaza Strip only after the complete suppression of the resistance of Hamas formations. This is what will minimize the loss of personnel.
In a number of sources (in particular in the Financial Times ), this technique is interpreted as a "limited scale of hostilities" that allow the IDF to use the advantage in firepower over Hamas. In fact, it is not necessary to compare the "limited scale of hostilities" with the classic methods of mastering cities that have already gone down in history. And even the word "limited" in relation to the combined arms operation in the Gaza Strip is not entirely appropriate, given that only the Israeli air Force strikes several hundred targets in the sector per day.
Therefore, in order to minimize losses among the IDF personnel in the sector, it will certainly act in accordance with the two above-mentioned principles. In the Israel Defense Forces, they are called somewhat differently - "crush and conquer". But this does not change the essence of the matter.
Obstacles in the way of the IDF
And it is unlikely that the methodical advance of the units and formations of the Israel Defense Forces on the territory of the sector will be delayed for a long time by the extensive network of tunnels and underground passages, about which so much has been said recently.
Firstly, with modern means of exploration, such structures are opened quite accurately (and at a very great depth).
Secondly, the IDF has at its disposal quite effective means of combating such structures - a large set of bunker bombs (from GBU-28 to GBU-72), engineering and sapper units with significant reserves of explosives (drilling of wells with subsequent laying of explosives, their detonation and causing the movement of soil layers), injection into tunnels and underground passages of water, etc.
And most importantly, there are great doubts that the General Staff of the Israel Defense Forces has strictly defined any specific deadlines for the performance of certain operational and combat tasks. Let's repeat - the IDF units and formations will act solely in accordance with the situation. The main task set by the political leadership of the country remains unchanged - the complete destruction of the threat emanating from the Gaza Strip, that is, the destruction of the Hamas movement.
The opinion of the author may not coincide with the position of the editorial board.
Biography of the author:
Mikhail Mikhailovich Khodarenok is a military columnist for the newspaper.Ru", retired colonel.
He graduated from the Minsk Higher Engineering Anti-Aircraft Missile School (1976), the Military Air Defense Command Academy (1986).
Commander of the S-75 anti-aircraft missile division (1980-1983).
Deputy Commander of the anti-aircraft missile regiment (1986-1988).
Senior Officer of the General Staff of the Air Defense Forces (1988-1992).
Officer of the Main Operational Directorate of the General Staff (1992-2000).
Graduated from the Military Academy of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Russia (1998).
Columnist of "Nezavisimaya Gazeta" (2000-2003), editor-in-chief of the newspaper "Military-Industrial Courier" (2010-2015).
Mikhail Khodarenok