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The war waged by Israel on… Gaza strip Its 100th day, including a ground operation that has been ongoing for more than two months, without any military resolution on the horizon.
The first goal of the war, as announced by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, was to eliminate Islamic resistance movement (Hamas), and the recovery of hundreds of Israeli prisoners who were in the grip of the Palestinian resistance.
After 20 days of violent firefighting in various parts of the Gaza Strip, Israel began a limited ground incursion, carried out by heavy machinery, a small number of soldiers, and a narrow time window, in what appeared to be a case of reconnaissance of the terrain and the battle environment.
While the limited forces were trying to determine the resistance’s readiness to fight, the larger and more equipped forces were standing on the borders of the Strip and ready to launch a maneuver that was traditional in terms of form and implementation mechanisms.
Israel adopted the method of continuous bombardment with anti-fortified bombs in order to intimidate and reach the tunnels, which it considers the most powerful weapons of the resistance. It carried out nearly 500 hours of flight and dropped about 20,000 tons of explosives, between 7 and 27 last October, when the ground operation began.
When the incursion began, Israel pushed its forces from 3 axes: Beit Hanoun in the north, and Beit Lahia in the northwest, with the aim of covering the area extending from the Mediterranean Sea in the west to the separation fence in the east.
From the center, the occupation forces crossed the agricultural lands from Juhr al-Dik to Salah al-Din Street, with the aim of cutting off the northern part of the sector in transverse lines while maintaining the fire cover of almost non-stop artillery, air and sea bombardment.
The resistance shows its hidden face
On the other hand, it was important Al-Qassam Brigades The military wing of Hamas and the rest of the resistance factions are more difficult in theory. Due to the lack of parity in the balance of power in terms of equipment, armament, and numbers of soldiers.
But the resistance showed a side of its face that often remained mysterious. Combat units with different tasks and multiple brigades appeared, with an effective system of communication, coordination, and issuing orders.
The resistance’s ability to quickly extrapolate the plans of the invading forces played a role in its favor, and enabled it to formulate a field action mechanism based on its knowledge of the nature and environment of the combat theater, whose area does not exceed 365 square kilometers, and is one of the most densely populated and built-up places in the world, and has been subject to a tight siege since. Almost 17 years.
Observers agree that just as the residents of the Gaza Strip know its details, the resistance also knows its land and keeps its hand, which is what caused the occupation forces to encounter harsh combat complexes.
And it was Al-Shujaiya neighborhood -Northern Gaza Strip- One of these nodes, where the elite infantry brigade besieged the Golani, inflicting on it losses that were the largest in its bloody history with the Palestinians.
In Bureij camp – in the middle of the Gaza Strip – and Khan Yunis – in the south – the occupation faced – and still is – fierce resistance that prevented it from achieving any field achievement, and inflicted on it painful human losses.
A new tactic without victory
With the beginning of the second month of the ground war, military operations expanded by attacking the south of the Gaza Strip, then attacking the central part almost simultaneously with the attack on the south.
Israel pushed the brigades that fought in the south of the Gaza Strip across Salah al-Din Street without being able to close in on the city of Khan Yunis or al-Qarara, where the attacking force stopped without making any progress.
The forces attacking these two areas suffered losses in soldiers and vehicles, which forced them to reorganize their forces, about two months after the ground operation, and they withdrew their brigades, the most prominent of which were “Golani“, and pushed 8 brigades to the south.
The United States estimates the number of Israeli soldiers in the north at about 50,000, according to what was reported by the New York Times.
In parallel with these reinforcements of the Israeli forces, the Al-Qassam Brigades intensified their attacks, relying on the policy of ambushes, minefields, and luring operations. Al-Qassam also modified its combat tactics, confirming the safety and continuity of the sequence of issuing and executing field orders, according to what appears from the pictures it broadcasts of the operations.
100 days after the start of the battle, field data indicate that the possibility of Israel achieving a military victory seems remote or unlikely, as the Hebrew newspaper Haaretz says.
