Israel learned its lesson the hard way in its war with Hezbollah in Lebanon more than two years ago. Hezbollah surprised Israel by destroying a tank, sinking an Israeli merchant freighter, and crippling an Israeli naval ship. Hezbollah responded by launching missiles — though largely ineffectively — into major civilian population centers like Haifa. This was the first attack on major Israeli cities since the 1967 war. The war ended with a UN-negotiated ceasefire and the general agreement was that it was a stalemate at best for Israel.
GROUND WAR?
“Is a ground war imminent? It appears that way. Israel has called up over 6,500 reservists, has massed both troops and tanks on the Gaza border, and has closed the area to journalists.”
Better preparation on the part of Israel
This time, Israel was much better prepared. Israeli intelligence identified and chose its targets long before they launched their attack. The Hamas regime in Gaza was caught completely by surprise and Israel has already taken out a number of critical targets and has killed several top Hamas leaders.
I have no doubt that Israeli has already chosen targets in Hezbollah-controlled southern Lebanon, Syria, and Iran. Keenly mindful of the outgoing Bush administration, Israel realizes that it cannot count on America support after Barack Obama is sworn in to office. Obama may surprise us all, but the Israelis obviously do not feel comfortable with waiting.
From Reuters:
“We have an all-out war against Hamas and its kind,” Israeli Defence Minister Ehud Barak said in parliament, using a term he has employed in the past to describe a long-term struggle against Israel’s Islamist enemies.
Broadening their targets to include the Hamas government in the Gaza Strip, Israeli warplanes bombed the Interior Ministry, which supervises 13,000 members of the group’s security forces. The building had been evacuated and there were no casualties.
Hamas, an Islamist movement that took over the Gaza Strip in 2007, defied the Israeli assaults, the fiercest in the coastal enclave since the 1967 Middle East war.
Its forces fired a rocket salvo into the Israeli city of Ashkelon, killing one person, the second such fatality since Israeli bombing began on Saturday.
Ground war?
Is a ground war imminent? It appears that way. Israel has called up over 6,500 reservists, has massed both troops and tanks on the Gaza border, and has closed the area to journalists. From AFP:
Israel made it clear the military offensive was just beginning and vowed it would destroy every building used by Hamas in the impoverished and overcrowded sliver of coastal land.
With Israeli tanks idling just metres (yards) away from Gaza, the army declared the area a closed military zone — a move that in the past has often been followed by ground operations.
Defence Minister Ehud Barak, who has warned of a possible ground attack, declared Israel was in “an all-out war with Hamas and its proxies,” but stressed that everything would be done to spare civilians.
…
“The goal of the operation is to topple Hamas ,” Deputy Prime Minister Haim Ramon said on Monday in televised comments.
Israel insists operations will go on as long as necessary.
“After this operation there will not be a single Hamas building left standing in Gaza, and we plan to change the rules of the game,” said armed forces deputy chief of staff Brigadier General Dan Harel, quoted by YNet News.
“We are hitting not only terrorists and launchers, but also the whole Hamas government and all its wings,” Harel told leaders of Israeli communities that are within range of rockets fired by Gaza militants.
New Israeli strategy to completely destroy enemies
Throughout the last three decades, Israel has always chosen to weaken their enemies rather than completely destroy them. If we are to believe Israel’s rhetoric, which has been backed up by its actions, it seems that Israel has changed its strategy and plans to completely destroy the entire leadership and infrastructure of the Hamas terrorist organization.
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