Muhammad Daf's dilemma: This is how Hamas will try to surprise the IDF in the next confrontation

According to sources in the intelligence community, there is currently a war of minds between the commander of Hamas' military wing and the commander of the Southern Command.

While the terrorist organization is fighting for the restoration of operational capabilities and destruction in the Gaza Strip, the IDF is trying to uncover the next card that will draw the "operational mind" behind countless terrorist attacks and operations.

Amir Bohbot

25/12/2021

Saturday, 25 December 2021, 13:46 Updated: 13:48

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In the video: Chief of Staff Kochavi at the completion ceremony of the construction of the underground wall on the Gaza border (Photo: Amir Bohbot, Reuters)

A young tank platoon commander named Oded Basiuk set out in 1992 to rescue a tank crew that was hit by an anti-tank missile and caught fire in the village of Taibeh in southern Lebanon. Hezbollah.

In the moment of truth the lieutenant came out of the tank in a firefight and entered a minefield on foot to extract the force. After 14 years, he commanded the 82nd Armored Battalion during the Second Lebanon War, and with the cessation of the battles, his understanding of the meaning of the trick in the battle, his creativity and the importance of the war plans to prevent the exposure of his tanks to enemy fire sank. Five years later as an armored commander, he developed a combat technique in response to the operation of anti-tank squads in Lebanon and Gaza that received compliments from the IDF General Staff. Six years later, as commander of the 162nd Division, he devised a systemic fraud scheme against Hamas' military preparations and intentions by deploying forces for defensive missions and attacking a deep, branched underground line of defense along the Gaza Strip. The program was kept secret and received praise from the political echelon who saw the course of action and approved over the years every step of the way.

The idea was simple: to deceive Hamas and imagine a situation where in another moment the IDF would invade the Gaza Strip and carry out a very extensive ground maneuver to clear and occupy territorial cells. Air the lower city built in the last 20 years under the Strip. Above ground.

According to officers in the 162nd Division, the original plan at all stages was to kill hundreds of Hamas operatives.

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  It's the truth

IDF attacks in Gaza during Operation Guardian Walls, May 2021 (Photo: Flash 90, Atia Muhammad)

Four years later.

In May 2021, Hamas fired seven rockets at Jerusalem.

The political echelon has approved stopping the drift and embarking on a wall guard operation.

In the first two days, the IDF attacked 280 targets, killing two senior members: the head of the Islamic Jihad's rocket array and the head of Hamas' anti-tank arsenal in Gaza.

Above all, attacks with a combination of accurate intelligence and advanced technology of two tunnels in the southern and northern Gaza Strip, from which at that time dozens of terrorists were about to attack the back of the State of Israel, stood out.

Only on the third day did the real drama take place when Chief of Staff Aviv Kochavi decided to pull out of the drawer the plan he had devised and ordered it to be carried out in order to inflict severe damage on Hamas.

Numerous discussions have taken place in the Southern Command, in the Operations Division, the Intelligence Division and then around the General Staff table on how the phases of the plan should be operated.

Contrary to popular belief, it was decided to launch a skinny scam program whose required achievement is not killing hundreds of activists but severely damaging the ‘metro’ to deprive them of long-term capabilities and bury huge financial investments.

"We said then that if Hamas operatives were killed on the way it would be a bonus. No more than that. So there was really no disappointment but a retrospective miss that we could have done more," said a senior Southern Command reserve officer.

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To the full article

Towards midnight a very limited scope in relation to the original plan of tanks and anti-aircraft guns galloped to the perimeter fence in hopes that Hamas operatives would run to the tunnels to prepare for defense and attack but this did not happen. "L really intends to perform a ground maneuver to the depth of the terrain.

The Air Force attacked 150 targets that night and hundreds more the following nights and broke the heart of the Metro, but hundreds of the organization's fighters survived.

A double-digit number is included among those killed.

Speaking separately and deeds separately

Politicians previously exposed to the operational plan have spread the claim that the plan failed because it was supposed to kill hundreds of terrorists. The IDF's entreaties and explanations by the commanders in justice were to no avail and large sections of the public still think the move failed. The propaganda failed. Exercise the lean plan. Another argument raised by the General Staff is why they did not use greater force and carry out significant ground operations to convince Hamas that this is indeed a real land maneuver. To stop at the fence? What were they afraid of? "If the IDF had no intention of killing hundreds of Hamas operatives, why did they burn the scam," a senior officer in the land arm wondered.

"The IDF made two significant mistakes before the attack on the Metro and it has nothing to do with how the scam was carried out," said a senior land officer while handing over to the other critics. In the two days leading up to the scam, the token fell on the other side that something had changed. The IDF has the ability to destroy tunnels with terrorists inside.

This understanding made them apprehensive about getting into tunnels and not falling into the scam exercise trap.

Think before you act".

This is what the Hamas "metro" looks like

Watch the simulation: This is what the bombed-out Hamas "metro" project looks like

But speech apart and deeds apart. According to senior IDF officers, Chief of Staff Kochavi saw this plan as an ability to deny real military capability invested in Hamas, on which they had worked for many years, and so it was. The heart of the tunnel system collapsed. They were denied the ability to pull out the metro card in the upcoming campaign because it is a huge project that has lasted for years. Moreover, senior officers claim that the chief of staff acted wisely in promoting the attack on the Metro because otherwise the political echelon would force a ground maneuver on it to collect a price from Hamas in a way that might have complicated the IDF in an operation everyone knows how to start and no one There is no idea how it might end and how long it will last. Regarding the duration of the fighting, which lasted 12 days to date, senior IDF officials claim that if the then Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had not insisted on a targeted thwarting of Muhammad Daf, which did not succeed in the end, the duration of the operation could have been shortened by two days.

The criticism surrounding the scam exercise in Operation Wall Guard obscured the success of the real thing. Implementing Kochavi's ideas on combinations between the forces, arms and wings to pinpoint the attack and defense. Also everything that looked like blown-up plans on paper that would not be realized on a multidimensional attack from the ground, from the air, in cyber, on the spectrum (the field of radio waves), from the sea and more actually happened in the operation. Even the ghost squadrons of a ghost unit that operated along the fence received special and exceptional permission to move from the experimental phase to operational activity, exposing and attacking launching squads and more. Although this is a boutique capability that the IDF is having difficulty turning into industrial at the moment, a breakthrough has also been recorded. The dramatic schedules in a smart and deadly border project that includes defense robots in the northern Gaza Strip.

On these achievements the chief of staff can write down many merits. Operation Wall Guard was an experiment of successful future weapons of war. "Not everything is perfect.

Not everything ticked the way we wanted.

There are lessons to be learned and applied and in areas such as intelligence, rocket fire and mortar shells there are still gaps in intelligence and fire but the results are impressive and make it possible to prepare differently for the war against Hezbollah in the north.

It makes it possible to tell the story of the war in a completely different way thanks to the capabilities in the last operation, "said a senior officer in the land arm. The last question floating in the air is the question of ground maneuvering.

How to make the IDF maneuver deep into Palestinian territory in the next operation and charge a painful price for it. Page (Photo: official website,.)

The commander of the 98th Division, Brigadier General Ofer Winter, rightly made allegations against Operation Wall Guard that he distances the ground maneuver, since the IDF may fall in love with counter-fire (in various dimensions only not including ground maneuver) in a way that poses a danger to the ground army. According to other land officers, a generation of commanders is growing up in the IDF who looks at the general staff and at the political level falls in love step by step with shooting backwards, and does not realize the basics of maneuvering. Who has not experienced the war experiences of a general in Siuk and therefore will have difficulty producing trickery, deception and other war ideas with the same sharpness and quality. After all, everyone knows that the scope of battalions that have experienced combat is decreasing.

This is an in-depth and important discussion raised by the experienced officer because there is a lot in his words. At the moment, the commander of the Southern Command, Major General Eliezer Toledano, temporarily resolved the issue by saying in a closed forum this week that the operation was in line with the political echelon: to deny enemy capabilities and when it decides to occupy the territory Meanwhile, the biggest challenge lies ahead for General Toledano, who is required to produce a new operational plan for Gaza after using Basiuk's creative plan. "I want something else…," Major General Toledano told his subordinates at the first start-up hearing after the operation, at which point they talked about being left without a systemic fraud plan.

At least according to sources in the intelligence community, there is currently a war of minds between the commander of Hamas' military wing, Muhammad Daf, and General Toledano. According to them, Hamas is not fully digesting Operation Wall Guard and is still busy analyzing the IDF's capabilities to paralyze its special measures, which included attempts to move aircraft and submarines to Israeli territory, the subterranean wall against tunnels along the border and the ability to destroy Underground tunnels from the air while terrorists prepare for action, damage to cyber arrays and the ever-improving efficiency of Iron Dome batteries.

Hamas' biggest dilemma according to the Israeli intelligence community is how to get the IDF to maneuver deep into Palestinian territory in the next operation and exact a painful price from it: dead and abducted, just like the training scenarios it presented to everyone in the Gaza Strip this week. And when the use of laser is incorporated in a few years against rockets and mortar shells, the defense of the home front will be almost perfect.

Therefore, at least according to estimates on the Israeli side, Muhammad does not currently have a new operational card sheet to bypass the IDF's defense systems. Its production lines were bombed and its ten leading scientists who were responsible for developing special capabilities including in the cyber field were eliminated in air strikes thanks to accurate GSS intelligence.

The discourse among Hamas fighters about the use of tunnels exposed to attack in contrast to the past raises questions as to whether they will agree to use the remaining tunnels in the next operation.

Endless complex dilemmas

The chief of staff highlighted these points in closed talks, including Hamas' fear of launching a deadly barrage of rockets on the home front in the last day of the operation as he pledged to his men, as they intensify the achievements of Operation Wall Guard and more so what happened after. Because "the policy that was in front of Gaza will no longer be…" and in the same breath approved a new policy. A powerful attack on every balloon and rocket. Hamas passed many tests and kept quiet between them: another flag parade in Jerusalem, more than 30 killed in Judea and Samaria Prisoners, prisoners' strike in prisons, four months without Qatari grant to families in Gaza, five months without salaries for tens of thousands of officials, and interception of unmanned Hamas aircraft over the sea. Many reasons to respond with rockets and Hamas remained silent The achievement and magnitude of the deterrence with Hamas.

Alongside the military floor, a civilian revolution full of change is taking place for the citizens of the Gaza Strip under the idea of ​​an order sprouted by the IDF Coordination and Liaison Director in the Gaza Strip, Col. Moshe Tetro and with the approval of the Minister of Defense and Chief of Staff: Promote the series. , Approval to export goods, increase fishing space, promote economic projects such as recycling iron waste that will bring millions of shekels to traders, and approval for thousands of workers to enter Israel in order to calm the area and create horizons for the Palestinian public while basic problems, water, electricity and unemployment, not only unresolved The DCO of Gaza has other ideas for implementation at the instigation of the commander of the Southern Command, General Toledano, in order to calm the area.

The overarching goal is to allow a long and stable security period to reduce the intensification of the military arm.

Demolitions in the Gaza Strip after IDF attacks in Operation Wall Guard, May 2021 (Photo: Reuters)

But Gaza, like Gaza, is a maker of endless complex problems and dilemmas in which Yahya Sinuar is immersed. Criticism against him is growing in the Palestinian streets. After firing seven rockets Jerusalem and created around the narrative as the defender of Jerusalem IDF attacked thousands of destinations and the destruction of thousands of dwellings which have yet to be rehabilitated. The issue of POWs and MIAs is not progressive and money donations delayed.

Sinoar another carrying a hump in the last election which was saved at the last moment thanks to the Election Repeat, otherwise he would have been kicked from the top of the leadership. The two, according to estimates in the defense establishment, agree that the first stage is to stabilize Gaza but the real prize will be to occupy Judea and Samaria in stages.

Start from the bottom with social and political activity while taking advantage of the instability of the Palestinian Authority.

We are already seeing the great and unusual effort that Hamas is making to infiltrate universities in the West Bank through student associations, and on the other hand an effort to curb and eradicate the activities of the security forces, with an emphasis on Bir Zeit, a-Najah and the Polytechnic.

But the authority has bigger troubles.

Difficulties in economic liquidity, an acute shortage of donations, an internal divide in the doorway that expands towards the day after Abu Mazen, the arming of the Tanzim in a way that threatens governance, and the de-legitimization of Abu Mazen.

The assessment in the defense establishment is that Hamas will seek public attention with all its might, and it may demand it through unusual actions after Christmas in order to allow a comfortable economy and capture the foreign media.

A very sensitive point of reference for the IDF in readiness for all scenarios.

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