Last Friday, after two weeks announcing an invasion to "destroy Hamas" that could last months or even years, Israeli troops and armored vehicles entered Gaza amid bombardments with unprecedented intensity and frequency that killed hundreds of Palestinians. The next morning, one of the Israeli army spokesmen, Richard Hecht, told reporters via videoconference that it was more of an incursion. Hours later, Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said the move marked a "new phase of the war" and troops would remain in Gaza "until further notice."
Since then, Israel has conducted its invasion with an aura of secrecy, aware that military interests – surprise effect, lack of definition, etc. – clash with the access, transparency and clear message sought by the press and public opinion. While the army makes vague announcements and censors the information of local military correspondents, its men advance through the tiny Gaza Strip without haste: a lightning offensive is incompatible with negotiations to free the more than 200 hostages, with logistical preparation for a "long war" – as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has defined it – and with waiting for the arrival of US aid. in case it ends up leading to a regional conflict.
The announced "great invasion" may not be such. "The current operation is significant, but it may not be as big as previously thought. The strategy may consist of several similar ones over time, not one definitive one. A lot of people expected a kind of pre-announced assault, but that's not how things work," Chuck Freilich, a former deputy national security adviser to the Israeli government, a professor at Columbia University and Tel Aviv University, and author of three essays on Israel's security, said by phone.
Eitan Shamir, director of the Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies at Bar Ilan University (outside Tel Aviv) and an expert in military strategy and command, thought that Israel would favor a "swift and deep" invasion to cut off and cut off the different parts of the Strip, in a classic military strategy. However, it is seeing a "slow and phased" advance that avoids its own casualties and "gives time to the possibility of reaching some agreement with Hamas for the release of the hostages." "It's about going little by little, working each part well," at a pace that will take months.
Yoav Zitun, military affairs correspondent for the Yediot Aharonot newspaper, said on Monday that "if the army continues to advance at its current pace, it could take six to 12 months to complete the operation," compared to "initial estimates that the war would involve two to three months of fighting."
At the moment, it is not known how many soldiers are deployed, by which units, with what means and in which parts of Gaza. Only that they have remained inside Gaza since Friday, that the ground deployment has been growing and that it is supported by air and naval fire unprecedented for decades that has caused more than 8,300 deaths, mostly minors and women. The army broadcasts short, edited videos of the armored vehicles advancing, apparently through agricultural, coastal or abandoned areas.
The troops, who are well protected, seem to be looking for traps that can be set for them by Palestinian militiamen, who know the terrain. Also tunnels and information about the hostages. On Monday, the army announced the first release in a rescue operation, that of a soldier, Colonel Uri Magidish.
Urban Warfare
The fact that the tanks are already at the gates of Gaza City does not mean any rapid movement, given the size of the Strip. The northern part – and especially the central part – are so narrow that barely a kilometer separates the eastern border from the first streets of the capital. The line of armored vehicles that could be seen, in images released on Saturday by the army, descending from north to south along the beach of the Mediterranean Sea, will run into a scenario of urban warfare if it continues just four or five kilometers. Some experts estimate the daily advance at 100 meters.
The key target is the capital. And to do so, it is advancing from the north with bulldozers, smoothing large parts of territory and destroying buildings left standing by aerial bombardments. Especially in that area, the military aviation has wiped out entire city blocks, as aerial images show.
"It hasn't been a lightning response, as on other occasions. She's cautious," Freilich says. One of the reasons, he stresses, is that Israel was "very unprepared" to invade a territory on which it lacked intelligence and which is controlled by a movement, Hamas, whose military capabilities "had greatly underestimated". He had no choice, he adds, but to spend time training the more than 300,000 mobilized reservists, assembling a powerful force, and waiting for the U.S. deployment to cover his back.
Meanwhile, Israel bombs massively from the air, which allows it to cause great destruction with hardly any risk of casualties of its own. "The way in which fire was opened," Chief of Staff Herzl Halevi said, "led to the fact that, when our forces arrived, some of the enemy were already wounded, others were dead and some were unable to operate. Some have fled, others are still there and our forces are fighting them."
Artillery hit the "deepest point in Palestinian territory since the war began" on Sunday, an unnamed military commander told the Maariv newspaper. Video has been posted on social media of a soldier placing an Israeli flag on the roof of a Gaza hotel, which has been geolocated about three kilometers from the border. A voice identifying the battalion is said to be "on the beach" and "in the heart" of Gaza "three weeks after" the attack, in which Hamas and Islamic Jihad killed some 1,400 people, mostly civilians. "We will not forgive, nor will we forget, nor will we stop until victory."
Propaganda videos are also circulating, disseminated by the militias, showing direct hits by projectiles on armored vehicles. The Israeli army has not, however, reported a single soldier killed (only wounded) since Friday, although there have been no direct shootings. In today's type of combat, few Israeli soldiers usually lose their lives, given the enormous asymmetry of means between them. "We haven't encountered much resistance at the moment. They have only shot at us from a distance and we are afraid to charge the troops. They are facing a huge curtain of fire," another soldier told the Maariv newspaper, referring to the "use of massive firepower on a scale not seen since the Yom Kippur War" 50 years ago. The Israeli military has reported the targeted assassinations of minor Hamas leaders and, in the abstract, the "neutralization of dozens of terrorists."
Shamir does not believe that the months of offensive will exhaust the international support that Israel has today because of the scale of the October 7 attack and the images of the killings. "As long as humanitarian aid continues to flow [to the south], as the U.S. requested, and there is no humanitarian crisis with people going hungry, there will be demonstrations, yes, but I don't think the governments of the world will prevent it. And even if they try, the key is the United States."
Last Thursday, just before the invasion, one of the country's most influential journalists, Ilana Dayan, interviewed Barak Hiram, the commander of a division (99) with infantry, armor, artillery and special forces. Created in 2020, it trains in reconstructions of Arab towns and cities, with Palestinian flags or images of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah. Dayan concluded by asking him where he saw himself in a week's time:
"I hope deep inside [Gaza].
"And a year from now?"
"Maybe still deep inside."
Follow all the international news on Facebook and X, or in our weekly newsletter.
Subscribe to continue reading
Read without limits
Read more
I'm already a subscriber
_