PALESTINIANS AND ISRAEL – Conflictos Modernos

Yahya Sinwar: Is Him The Last Gazan Warlord?

Introduction.

The Israelis had the following strategic tasks for their invasion of the Palestinian Gaza Strip on Sunday, October 8, 2023:

Ensuring that Israel will not be attacked from the Gaza Strip again.

Organizing the political and administrative structure of the Strip and its peaceful and stable functioning.

Destroying (incapacitating) the capabilities of the Command and Structure and the militancy of Hamas.

That this terrorist organization, whose statutes state that the Palestinians occupy from the river (the Jordan) to the great sea (the Mediterranean) as their national land, will not again be a vital threat to Israel.

Development and means.

Israel has killed about 40 thousand Palestinians so far, according to Hamas sources, which are the least prestigious and least credible. And it has not yet achieved any of its important or secondary objectives. For example, eliminating the entire senior leadership of Hamas.

The tasks of artillery, as the heavy fire of an army, are, in ascending order of enemy annihilation: Blind, Disrupt, Neutralize and Destroy.

The last task is almost impossible to achieve. Because, the same debris produced by the first artillery fire or aircraft bombs, increases the chances of shelter and of creating ambushes and defensive positions by the attacked.

In the Plans for heavy fire support of ground units, normal and reactive artillery, heavy anti-tank defense, short and medium range rockets and ground support aircraft are included and intervened.

Normally it is impossible to kill or physically injure all the enemy. This may have been an impossible goal, sought by Israel in the first moments of the war. In the midst of the incapacitating intoxication of anger, pain, revenge and fear. When the Israelis found themselves in the middle of a strong and selective attack in their rather deep (operational) rear. That was not detected in any of its preparations and operational phases by the Mossad and other agencies, nor was it repelled, once it was launched, starting with the small garrisons of the IDF in the southeast and east of Israel, around the Strip.

If the objectives were more ambitious and provided with more resources, by the Hamas leadership (presidency and 3 vice-presidencies, with their advisors), and admitting the non-maintenance of the objectives occupied by Hamas, Israel would have been in serious military danger due to the damage to its rear military structures. The following could be attacked: military airports; land transport parks; obstructed roads and occupied or destroyed crossings; fuel depots; command and transmission centers; communication networks; arsenals…

The functions of the Hamas Structure.

The central structure of Hamas is made up of an external presidency (located outside the Palestinian territories) and three vice-presidencies. The Gaza one, under Yahya Sinwar‘s command, is the most influential in the organizational chart. Another is in the West Bank, operationally superimposed on the Palestine recognized by the UN, which is the Palestinian National Authority, based in Ramallah. The presidency and the other vice-presidency are abroad.

The president of Hamas was Ismael Haniyeh, who has just been sacrificed in an allegedly Israeli attack in Tehran. When Haniyeh was attending the takeover of the new Iranian president.

As a general rule, recently broken, Israel has the habit of not claiming responsibility for any attempt or attack on the enemy.

The importance that Sinwar has for Hamas in its organization and in decision-making, makes him surely the successor of the late president of Hamas. He will be in charge of making military and political decisions for Hamas. And in how to carry out the war and its objectives and in the difficult negotiations with Israel.

The liquidator missile entered precisely the room where Haniyeh was, protected by the Revolutionary Guard of the Islamic Republic of Iran. This is the Ideological Army of Iran. It is capable of protecting few within its borders. The precision in time and place of Haniyeh‘s Personal Data confirms that the Israelis have access to relevant information at the highest level in Iran.

And, it is in charge of developing the pro-Iranian revolutionary movements in the different countries of South-West Asia. Regardless of whether religiously they were of another belief or variety within Islam. Thus, they support Hamas, which is Sunni. In these activities, General Qassem Sulemaini, head of the al-Quds Brigades of the Revolutionary Guard, in charge of special actions outside Iran, where he entered at the age of 18, stood out with his own and shining light. Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei said, referring to him: «He is a son to me, I am a father to him.»

One handicap Sinwar has is that his usual effective hiding place is the military tunnel networks that run through the Gaza Strip. They are a defining structure for rigid defense (without giving up space to the attacker, normally) and in depth against a modern and highly motivated mechanized army. But, this network does not facilitate external communications for executives and military personnel.

Another great difficulty for Sinwar to be the supreme leader of Hamas and to be able to negotiate with Israel and live, is that he was the Main Responsible and Theoretician (of what he wanted to be done; he always dresses in civilian clothes) of the treacherous, cruel and disproportionate military attack on the south and southeast of Israel on Saturday, October 7th.

From Gaza, the militiamen left, trained to the point of sufficiency, in models and assemblies, which matched and resembled the fighting terrains in Israel. Which they would find in their deliberate, calculated, known attack. Which they would launch with precision on the south and southeast of Israel.

And, the Hamas irregulars returned to Gaza victorious, after killing more than 1,200 Israelis, soldiers from small posts, civilians from villages and kibbutzim (group, in Hebrew), young people having fun at a popular concert and capturing and taking as hostages some 250 Israelis and foreigners of Jewish affiliation, men, women, children and the elderly. They had the characteristics indicated by the Hamas leadership in Gaza; if they are weak and die quickly, they lose them.

And, little by little, the political-military leadership of Hamas is cut down by the determination, the motivation and the intensity and permanence of the Israeli operations. Especially, the occupation and clearing of the territories and tunnels of Gaza.

THE URBAN COMBAT OF ISRAEL IN GAZA

The Israeli Tsahal.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF), the Tsahal, is a fairly capable national army, with modern military doctrine and well equipped and regularly trained. It has about 190 thousand professional personnel (permanent). Which can be increased in two or three days to near 750 thousand troops.

Mobilizing for this up to around 550 thousand men and women, who are in the active reserve. These have a varied combat training, depending on their age, profession, training and missions carried out. The first 300 thousand are the most outstanding to decisively join the fight. The other quarter of a million are called according to needs to update and finish training them effectively.

***ISRAEL DOES NOT HESITATE TO USE PUNCTUAL MASSIVE BOMBING***

The ugdot or Israeli brigades (ugda is its singular name) of mechanized or motorized infantry are the main Israeli units to carry out a fight in enemy urban terrain. They fight against a much less capable enemy. But, with equal resolve and motivation, because they consider themselves muyahidin or warriors of Allah.

Let us see some aleyas or verses from the Quran, to realize the catechized and motivated Palestinian enemy:

“Oh, Believers, persecute the infidels (all others) until all Worship on Earth is given to Allah.”

“War has been prescribed for you and you shun it. Well, Allah will find another more obedient people and will disown you.”

The infantry ugda consists of 3 infantry battalions, another tank battalion, a field artillery group, 1 anti-tank fighting company, one motorized engineer company and 2 combat and tactical reconnaissance companies. The armored ugda consists of 3 tank battalions, one special forces battalion, one motorized engineer battalion, one armored reconnaissance battalion and a mixed artillery group.

***FORCES OF THE GIVATI BRIGADE MAKE A STOP ON THE ROAD***

The infantry ugdot are better known. Tanks are, however, the most effective weapon that Israel generally has in its wars. And, within the deliberate concealment and lack of precision of the data that reaches the public, which is practiced on these issues in Israel. Among the five infantry ugdot available, the “Givati”, “Golani” and “Kfir” stand out.

Characteristics of the fighting terrain.

Fighting in “urban or factory terrain” means that the combatants’ views are short in most directions. And, on the other hand, the enemy has a multitude of “relative hiding heights” that hide him and even, sometimes, cover him from opposing fire. This is a source of tension due to the uncertainty it creates.

***HAMAS MOBILE REACTIVE ARTILLERY WITH ITS TEAM AND INFANTRY SECURITY***

Physical and mental loneliness also act here. The combatant is separated from the officers commanding him. And, he is part of the squad or crew of the organic support weapons. Whose members are as affected as he is.

Automatic and more precise fires allow and force extreme dispersion and camouflage of combat forces in presence. And, the terrain of struggle here is particularly empty and hidden.

The maneuvers here consist of relatively very short movements. This also affects the loneliness and uncertainty of the combatants. The operational movement capacity of the units in motor vehicles is almost unnecessary, if we discount the direct heavy fire support from their weapons to the combatants. Other marches are simply “marches to combat.

**A SECTION OF HAMAS IRREGULARS MANEUVER INTO COMBAT**

Hamas members and others have built an immense defensive “fortress”. It is a structure of tunnels at two levels of depth (circa 9 ms and 50 ms) studied and created over years. This structure qualitatively resembles those used by the Taliban in Afghanistan and the Vietnamese Vietcong in the Mekong area of southern Vietnam. But, it is more elaborate, larger and capable. Level A is used in the militants’ rejection fighting: here they fight, obtain shelter and temporary hiding place, allows them to move parallel and covertly to the ground of the Strip, use alternative delay positions against advancing or reorganizing soldiers, launch short and middle distance range rockets. Level B acts as a large refuge and general warehouse for Hamas forces and his men and relatives. Intermittently, there are direct paths between both levels of the structure.

***HAMAS IRREGULARS POSING FOR THEIR PEOPLE***

This “main protective cover” cushions the heavy fire of Israeli attackers. And it forces soldiers to fight at close range with Hamas irregulars. Thus, the “combat capabilities” of both enemies are quite equal and the sum of military casualties will inexorably rise to figures not expected by the population of Israel. The Israelis’ attempts to flood some tunnels with sea water or a kind of propelled lightweight foam rubber inside them, did not meet expectations.

General situation.

More or less, so far, there is talk of about 6,000 militiamen and about 200 Israeli soldiers as total casualties in Israel’s attack on Gaza. Also, there are just over 23,000 Gazeti civilians dead and 250 inhabitants of Israel’s cooperatives, party places and small barracks captured as hostages, in an unnecessary massacre that is overdone by its cruelty and ferocity.

On Saturday, October 7, irregular Hamas forces launched a “swarm attack” on southern and south-central Israel. Supported by the prior and/or simultaneous launch of thousands of short and medium range ballistic rockets. And, the small “action units” of Hamas, strong in about 3 thousand militiamen employed in total, achieved their tactical objectives: the defeat and/or destruction of Israeli positions (cooperatives, villages and small military posts), causing about 1,300 total casualties to the population and the Tsahal and capturing the said precious hostages. And, producing a strong and general commotion in Israel and in the Tsahal, much greater than the sum of the individual effect of each small attack received.

***YAHYA SINWAR, MILITARY CHIEF OF HAMAS IN GAZA, PROTECTED BY A CLOUD OF «PALESTINIANS». ISRAEL CANNOT DESTROY IT, BECAUSE IT LIVES SURROUNDED BY HOSTAGES.***

We are not going to repeat now the operations to be carried out by the Tsahal in the Gaza Strip, since in our recent article “The Urban Defense of Hamas in Gaza” they are already described.

We are going to discuss some ideological and strategic positions of both enemies.

Israel has estimated more than 12,000 Hamas military targets destroyed. Which include command centers, medium and short tunnels and their accesses, communications centers, storerooms, military materials, unit locations and small militia units. Also, it has killed (according to Hamas’ Health Department) 23 thousand civilians and injured tens of thousands of people; not exactly from chafing, punctures and large scratches or fractures. Israel is carrying out not only a military liquidation of armed enemies, but an “ironing” of the Gaza Strip with blood and fire.

This has no signs of progressing towards a stable and secure solution.

The total annihilation of enemies is a devilish mission or total objective. That would require a long and very high commitment of human resources and material means. A close comparison would be between artillery fire to neutralize or destroy.

***A VIEW OF THE LARGEST TUNNEL IN THE HAMAS NETWORK OF TUNNELS IN GAZA***

The Nazis were unable to eliminate the Jews of Central Europe and the West of the USSR in four years of presence in the territories of the Gehime Statz Policei and Himmler’s SS.

Nor could they eradicate Bolshevism from the USSR, inhabited, according to them, by “untermensch”, subhumans, an inferior race or severely degraded race by their vices. Which was supposed to be, therefore, affordable and easy.

The human soul, essential and shunned.

When you put a people, race, or large community under the threat of destruction, new “soul energies” emerge from it, generated in the depths of the human soul. They boost his “national morale” and lead him to fight fiercely. Recovering that certainty of survival that was taken from him.

Israel’s bombing has seriously damaged or destroyed more than a hundred buildings, including churches and mosques, some up to 4,000 years old. Belonging to the Gazan Arab cultural heritage. The attacks targeted the social cultural essence of Gazans, their identity. And the Israelis had to respect them, so as not to give serious arguments to the enemy.

Hamas’ Urban Defense in Gaza:

Irregulars mixed with Civilians against Regulars

Introduction:

The structure of Hamas‘s military deployment is based on the «short brigade«, which is a tactical operational unit widely used by irregular or partisan or guerrilla forces, when they reach a certain development in their military capabilities and deployments. These Hamas´ “short brigades” have between 1,000 and 1,500 men in their combat order, depending on their basic weapons. The most numerous are infantry and elite. They also have some independent companies specialized in adequate short staffing.

The brigades lack defense against aircraft or armored units as such or organic field artillery. This necessarily turns them into light irregular forces, capable of fighting in a mobile manner and using irregular fighting tactics. Looking more for their mobility and areas not adequately defended in the enemy deployment. The rejection in urban areas gives them extra effectiveness, protection and security against the regular military enemy. Since populations form or are molded into a multitude of hiding places, passageways, tunnels and relative hiding heights (floors, parks, gutters, windows, balconies, roofs and gaps in different classes of walls).

Intersections of major urban streets, high-rise buildings and steel-frame buildings (especially factories) can mainly form the core of defense delay points. The nests of resistance depend on these strong positions. Of them there are a large number, also as alternative positions. These nests, when active, are manned by two or three men and may be staffed by riflemen or a light machine gun, also forming an anti-tank or sniper position. In the interior patios of the houses, even on rooftops, they deploy their 80 or 60 mm mortars, whose position is changed as soon as they launch a few bombs. All of this gives cohesion to a defense position that operates in a sector of the Gaza Strip.

Normally, except in the final moments of an assault, civilians remain intertwined with irregular Hamas positions. The loss of Palestinian civilians is one of the collateral objectives “desired” by Hamas. To present to the world and discredit Israel for its “Asymmetrical against Unarmed Civilians” fight. Until now, the Palestinian civilian death toll is about 300 a day on average. A disturbingly tolerable number of “martyrs of Islam and its Minor Jihad.” The Mayor or Real Jihad is the Muslim Effort in the Path of Allah.

Development.

Among the few tens of thousands of Hamas militiamen, no more than 30% are currently trained to use time-limited defense as a form of fighting. These “urban irregular Islamists” protect themselves by extending their defensive positions beyond what is necessary in a conventional defense, thus covering a greater controlled surface. These “fortress” are diffuse, hidden and even imperceptible to outsiders. In just a few hours, the previous works are completed and reinforced. Their communication ways require more work time, but are also less obvious. You have to enter houses to detect perforated walls and find passageways or real tunnels under a piece of furniture or a rug. In their defensive struggle they try to cause the military enemy the highest possible losses and force him again and again to reorganize and redirect his deployment. But they always do it without exposing themselves excessively to a fight at short distances, to being overwhelmed or to losing their freedom of action. This is inexorably linked to the cession of urban space to the military. To do this, they withdraw at the moment they deem appropriate from the direct attack of their enemy, not from their extensive, imprecise bombardment or cannonade. And so it is announced, again and again, that this or that city has been liberated from “bitter enemies.”

Occupying towns is technically the same as raiding a block, an apartment block or a house. How is this? Because the structure of the objectives is similar: walls, spaces between walls and gaps in the walls. There are three stages of attacking a town: isolating it, entering and settling in it, and fighting inside against the defenders.

Isolation implies occupying or covering with effective and seamless medium and heavy fire all possible obvious and hidden escape routes for the rebels, from a certain distance to the population. Likewise, all water, energy and communications services must be cut off externally. As there is a possibility that a nearby enemy band will come to harass or distract the surrounded group to help them escape, it is necessary to establish an external fence at a certain distance from the inner fence, equally ferreous and without views or fire gaps, which covers all possible approach routes. We will call ring the sufficient space created between both discontinuous fences to provide protection, supplies and shelter to the assault forces. Throughout the ring, double sentries will be placed at sensitive points, reinforced by small mobile patrols, intended to thwart rebel infiltration in both directions. The ring will contain 2 mobile reserves of variable size, placed in opposite directions (e.g. north-south), to repel serious breach attempts. Command of the defense of the ring will be carried out by a single commander, different from the attacker command.

A good approach route must allow the attacker to take advantage of a space not covered by the defense and reach his objective without initial loss of his combat capacity. Sewer networks may contain booby traps. And here there are no adjoining forests to provide concealment and cover for the heavy fire. Given that the rebel defender is surely going to retreat from the urban edges, defended only by combat outposts, it will be best to reach the first selected positions inside the urban perimeter in a first push. Entries can be searched from multiple directions. And even to avoid civilian casualties, do some prior preparation on the exterior prominent buildings, starting with bursts of heavy machine guns and then using artillery or helicopter gunships.

As an example, a platoon would advance following the layout of an Arab street. One section would go inside the buildings on one side and the other through those in front, covering him with their light automatic fire. The third section would follow behind, alternately on either side. The forward observers attached to the Ugda (or Israeli brigade), whose plural is Ugdot, could go with it, while the direct heavy fire means would follow behind down the street. Tasks would be exchanged between sections. The reinforced company would advance along one or two semi-parallel streets and relieve the sections after a time. You would have a section in reserve to eliminate flanking attacks or hidden snipers.

The reinforced battalion would attack in a sector of the city, maintain the cohesion of the effort with the higher command plans, give the initiative in combat to the companies and guarantee a continuous and sufficient flow of equipment and material from its rearguard. It would also facilitate heavy fire support and have sections for clearing enemy, hidden or flanking positions.

Why is it not used?

And why is this not done systematically? I still vaguely remember the news about the high award-winning Captain Palacios and his comrades, after years of harsh captivity as prisoners of war in the USSR, arriving on the “Semiramis” at the Barcelona port.

I am also very fresh with the views and statements of all kinds of the 15 British sailors and marines, in March 2007: after their capture in supposed Iranian waters, their illegal display (against the Geneva Convention) before the cameras, their emotional farewell to President Mahmud (it could be pronounced Mammoth) and to Iran and his return home, immediately selling profitable news exclusives, in exchange for sensitive data not being leaked to the public.

They are examples of what we can expect in general from the ultra-technical Western soldiers of the 21st century. Radicalized fanatical Islamists will be rubbing their hands and renewing their resolve, inside and outside our borders. Well, that’s why…