Middle East
Report: Israel faces endless guerrilla war in Gaza
The Israeli army says it has begun a new military operation in Khan Yunis. photo
© Naaman Omar/APA Images via ZUMA Press Wire/dpa
According to US media, Israel is having difficulty achieving its war goals. There is a lack of a clear strategy. There has also been criticism of the army’s actions from Washington.
According to a media report, Israel’s army is in danger of being drawn into an endless guerrilla war by the Islamist Hamas in the Gaza Strip due to a lack of an obvious strategy. The Israeli armed forces are fighting in more and more places in the Gaza Strip that they had previously taken and from which they had withdrawn, the Wall Street Journal reported. This shows how much Israel is fighting to eliminate Hamas and bring the Palestinian coastal area under its control.
With its war goal of eliminating Hamas militarily and politically, Israel’s leadership has set a high bar that will be difficult to achieve, Yossi Mekelberg, Middle East analyst at the London-based think tank Chatham House, told the newspaper. “Anything below that will be perceived as a failure.”
The Israeli army said it began a new military operation in Khan Yunis in the south of the Gaza Strip on Sunday. The aim of the operation in the west of the city is to “continue to destroy terrorist infrastructure and eliminate terrorists in the area,” the military said in a statement. The Palestinian Red Crescent emergency service reported that Israeli troops had surrounded two hospitals. An Israeli soldier was killed in another operation at Shifa Hospital in the city of Gaza in the north of the coastal region, the army said. The army had already been involved in fighting in these locations in recent months and had said that the Hamas formations in these areas had been defeated and disbanded.
Israeli leadership disagrees on further strategy
Israel’s war efforts are being hampered by the fact that there is no plan to stabilize the coastal area after the defeat of Hamas militants, wrote the Wall Street Journal. Now, with much of Gaza destroyed and Hamas fighters reemerging and using guerrilla tactics, Israeli leaders are divided over what a coherent war plan should look like, they said. According to a media report, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken also warned Israel not to continue the war in the Gaza Strip without a clear strategy. Israel’s security and its place in the world are in danger, Blinken said at a meeting with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the news portal “Axios” reported a few days ago.
Israel needs a coherent plan, otherwise it will get tangled up in an uprising that it will not be able to get under control, Blinken said last week at the meeting with Netanyahu and the War Cabinet. If the war continues as it is, Hamas would remain in control of the Gaza Strip or anarchy would break out, resulting in even more terror. Netanyahu responded that “we will have our hands full for decades,” the news portal reported.