Israel’s Ground War Against Hamas: What to Know
In the current conflict, Israel already suffered a significant information warfare defeat on Tuesday, when Hamas claimed that an Israeli air strike on a hospital in the Gaza Strip had killed five hundred people. Israel, backed by the United States and independent intelligence analysts, presented compelling evidence that the explosion was due to an errant Palestinian rocket. But by that point the damage had been done: the so-called Arab street had been enflamed, even moderate Arab regimes denounced Israel, and the leaders of U.S. allies Jordan and Egypt refused to meet with U.S. President Joe Biden during his trip to Israel. Israel, like other liberal democracies, will remain at a disadvantage in the “battle of the narrative” when fighting against illiberal adversaries who have no compunctions about lying.
A possible second front. Lebanon’s Hezbollah is poised on Israel’s northern border with an arsenal of some 150,000 missiles and rockets. So far, Hezbollah has not joined in a major assault on Israel, but Israeli analysts fear it could do so once Israeli ground forces enter the Gaza Strip. A two-front conflict would be a nightmare for Israel.
Post-combat stabilization operations. Known in the U.S. military as “Phase IV,” this is where U.S. efforts in both Afghanistan and Iraq foundered badly for lack of preparation and resources. Israeli media have reported that the government has been struggling to come up with a Phase IV plan of its own. And no wonder: there are no good options. If Israel simply attacks Hamas and then leaves—as it has done in the past—the terrorist organization will be able to regenerate itself. But Israel has had little desire to reoccupy the Gaza Strip after exiting in 2005, and the Palestinian Authority seems to lack the capabilities and will to govern in place of Hamas. Trying to establish a Palestinian Authority government in Gaza, with help from Arab states, is probably the least-bad option. But if that fails, Israel may have no choice but to occupy Gaza itself. That, in turn, could leave Israeli soldiers vulnerable to a grinding guerrilla war of the kind they faced in Lebanon between 1982 and 2000.
How did previous Israeli incursions into Gaza in recent history fare?
The Israeli ground incursions into Gaza in 2008–09 (Operation Cast Lead) and 2014 (Operation Protective Edge) were much more limited in scope and duration. Israeli forces did not try to take Gaza City in either case. These operations were part of a strategy known as “mowing the grass,” which saw Israel try to reduce the threat from Hamas rather than seek to eliminate the group. In both instances, the IDF degraded Hamas infrastructure while also inflicting substantial collateral damage on Palestinian civilians, but Hamas emerged stronger than ever. The high cost of the October 7 terrorist attack—the greatest loss of Jewish life in a single day since the Holocaust—makes the “mowing the grass” strategy untenable from Israel’s perspective. Now it will struggle to make good on its goal of eradicating Hamas.
What sort of weaponry and fighting should be expected as the ground incursion gets going?
Israel has the best-equipped and best-trained armed forces in the Middle East. It has already called up more than 360,000 reservists (in addition to 160,000 active-duty service members) and the whole of its armored corps (reportedly, more than one thousand main battle tanks). Israel is likely to mount a combined-arms assault on Hamas utilizing every element of military power—infantry, armor, artillery, naval vessels, and aviation (fixed wing and rotary, manned and unmanned)—all backed by a vast intelligence-gathering apparatus (which, however, failed to detect the 10/7 attack).
While Hamas lacks most of those high-end military capabilities, it does have rockets and drones. As a skilled guerrilla force, it will try to neutralize Israel’s firepower advantage by using hit-and-run tactics that employ improvised explosive devices, rocket-propelled grenades, mortars, AK-47s, and potentially anti-tank missiles and even anti-aircraft and anti-ship missiles. Hezbollah, which employs similar tactics, managed to fight the IDF to a draw in 2006. Hamas will try to emulate Hezbollah’s relative success, and it is estimated to have as many as https://www.ft.com/content/32bc687b-1385-401b-a60a-7320848ceb16?shareTyp.... Click or tap if you trust this link.">40,000 fighters under arms. (Hamas’s ally Palestinian Islamic Jihad is said to have another 15,000 combatants.) Israel will have one key advantage: the Gaza Strip is so small that Israel will be able to cut off Hamas from resupply from Iran or other outside supporters. But it is clear that Hamas has already stockpiled a formidable array of weaponry.
What are the biggest unknowns? What are some indicators to watch for?
There are many unknowns, including how Israel will deal with the Hamas tunnel network, how skillfully Hamas will fight, whether a growing civilian toll in Gaza will force Israel to suspend its offensive, whether Hezbollah will join the battle, and what Israel will do to stabilize Gaza post-Hamas. Perhaps the biggest unknown is whether this war will spread across the region to include Hamas’s sponsor, Iran. The United States has sent two aircraft carrier battle groups to the eastern Mediterranean to deter Iran and Hezbollah, but no one can foresee if that strategy will succeed.
Max Boot is Jeane J. Kirkpatrick Senior Fellow for National Security Studies at CFR. This article is published courtesy of the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR).
