Advance into Gaza

The Challenges of Israel’s Pending Operation

Source: Twitter / x

You now see Gaza from afar, soon you will see it from the inside. The order will come.

Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant

An Israeli advance into Gaza, which many have forecast since the 7 October Hamas attacks, appears to be on the cusp of being launched. Israeli ground forces have been occupying assembly areas for over a week, and many will be moving to their lines of departure for the assault.

On Thursday, Major General Yaron Finkelman, the commander of the Israeli Defence Force’s Southern Command, described how Israeli forces are finalizing their battle preparation and shaping operations ahead of a likely Gaza operation. He described how:

Our manoeuvres are going to take the war into their territory. We are going to defeat them in their own territory.

This Israeli Defence Force (IDF) operation in Gaza has been impending since the murderous Hamas incursion into southern Israel. A massive call up of reserves, resulting in many more reservists reporting for duty than expected, has resulted in almost the entire Israeli armoured force being mobilised, and multiple other brigades and divisions being readied for combat operations.

Such an attack into Gaza, while generally being described as a ground operation, will be a much more than a land combat operation. While there will indeed be a very large ground force employed for the Gaza operation, this will also be supported by the Israeli Air Force and its Navy. At the same time, the different intelligence services of Israel will be involved in collecting sensitive and open-source information in a meshed civil-military approach, analysing that information and disseminating it to tactical, strategic and political decision makers.

Concurrently, Israeli diplomats will be working hard to sustain support for Israel from its friends and partners, while also seeking to mitigate the impact of ground operations with countries in the Middle East and beyond.  Israel, which will have learned from the strategic influence campaign of Ukraine and Russia since February 2022, is sure to implement a campaign to inform and influence many different regional and global audiences. Finally, Israel’s defence industry will be stepping up production of indigenously manufactured munitions and other war materiel.

As such, this will not be just a ground campaign – it will be a national, multi-dimensional war effort. And in the conduct of this national war effort, there is likely to be multiple challenges for Israel. While it is possible to produce an almost endless list of tactical, operational, strategic and political issues that might hinder or harm Israel’s security and its conduct of Gaza operations, I believe there are five main challenges in the days and weeks ahead.

Five Key Challenges

Challenge 1: Aligning political purpose and military objectives. The most important element of any military operation is purpose. The ‘why’ of military endeavours is orders of magnitude more crucial than the ‘how’, ‘who’, ‘when’ or ‘where’. This is because people respond to and are inspired by purpose. It is purpose that binds units together and sees soldiers willing to risk their lives, or to give their last full measure of devotion, in the service of their nation and their fellow citizens. As Lawrence Freedman has recently written: “The most important question is what is to be achieved. Assuming that Israel can fight its way to Gaza City, which would be the most likely objective of a major incursion, what then?”

This purpose must ultimately be derived from political, not military, objectives. It is the most fundamental rule of warfare. As Clausewitz wrote two centuries ago: “The political view is the object, war is the means.”

Thus, the impending military operation that will be executed by the Israelis in and around Gaza must have clear political objectives. The discussion about Israel’s political objectives for a Gaza operation have been covered by multiple commentators in the past two weeks. Some useful articles are here, here, here, and here.  With these as context, the political objectives for Israel might incorporate the following:

1. Destruction of Hamas as a military threat to Israel and as a political threat to regional stability.

2. Restoration of deterrence against attacks by all actors, including Hezbollah and Iran, and to revive Israeli confidence in their security forces.

3. A more stable Gaza that, as Raphael Cohen describes, is “something better than it was”.

4. The reinvigoration of the process to normalise ties with Saudi Arabia and build on the Abraham Accords.

5. Maintain the support of the United States as a strategic security partner.

But it is not enough to Whether this includes the destruction of Hamas commanders, soldiers, facilities and supply dumps, or the deterrence of other regional actors, alignment between political and military actions will be vital in the weeks ahead. However, as has occurred throughout history, once wars begin military actions can take on a life of their own. Activity at the tactical level can begin to inform and influence strategy and policy.

And while Israel will require clear military objectives, they will also need to ensure there are sufficient forces – in quantity and quality – to meet those objectives. This was a significant failure for Putin in February 2022; his political aspirations, and the military means allocated to achieve them, were not in synch. The Israeli’s must ensure they don’t make the same mistake.

Measuring progress in the achievement of political objectives will be also imperative. How will we know when they are met? This question is crucial because it will inform the Israeli government about war termination and ceasefires. Can Israel achieve its political and military objectives before a ceasefire is eventually forced upon it?

Ultimately, the outcome of Israel achieving its political objectives must be a reset in the Israel – Palestinian relationship. The strategy employed by Israel in recent years – Mowing the Grass – has failed and a new approach is needed. As RAND expert Raphael Cohen has written:

“Mowing the grass” embodies more than just strategic fatalism; it also reflects a large measure of hubris. At its core lies the assumption that Israel can control the rheostat in Gaza, hitting Hamas just hard enough to deter it from attacking Israel but not so hard that Gaza implodes into chaos or explodes into a regional war. Israel's mowing-the-grass strategy finally failed spectacularly on October 7.

It is hard to see what that new, post-war strategy towards Gaza might look like, however.

Challenge 2: The challenge of imperfect awareness.  Clausewitz, in Book I, Chapter VII of On War wrote that “activity in war is movement in a resistant medium.” Everything, regardless of whether it is close combat or policy making, is impeded by the impact of imperfect awareness of the tactical, strategic and political environments. Modern technology may provide more visibility of events, but it does not always improve our wisdom about the background of those events, or the array of motivations of the people and organisations involved.

This will be the situation in any IDF attack into Gaza. Despite the very impressive advances in the collection of information, and the use of advanced digital battle command and control systems by the Israelis, uncertainty in combat will still be a significant factor. This uncertainty is magnified by the physical environment. Urban operations, with limited sight lines, the presence of civilians, the uncertainty about the locations of civilian hostages, and the multi-level buildings and subterranean infrastructure, absorb large numbers of troops while at the same time restricting their movements and situational awareness.

Consequently, with a multitude of overhead sensors and even squad-level drones and reconnaissance systems, seeing around the corner or into the next building is a perilous undertaking. It is for this reason that Israel’s heavy main battle tanks will be a vital element of the infantry-tank-engineer combined arms teams that will provide the vanguard of ground operations. In an environment where surprise is very likely, it is always preferrable to put lots of armour between soldiers and the sources of surprise.

Maintaining awareness is no easier at the political level. Despite Israel’s very fine intelligence services, there will be much scepticism about their insights over the coming weeks because of the massive intelligence failure in the lead up to the 7 October attacks. There are a variety of good articles on this topic if you wish to dig deeper. But, more than ever, Israeli leaders will need good strategic and political intelligence.

Israel will want to understand how its key security partners in Europe and the United States are thinking about the Gaza operations, and how strong their political and diplomatic support might be and how long it might last. The Israeli government will also be watching its regional neighbours – Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, UAE and Qatar among others – for their reactions to Gaza combat operations. And Israel will be desperate to ascertain information on Iranian, Syrian and Hezbollah intentions for the coming weeks. All of these unknowns will inform intelligence collection but will also influence the pace and quality of Israeli government decision-making in the period ahead.

Source: Google Earth

Challenge 3: A Changed Military Environment. While the Israeli military has always been excellent at learning, and remaining at the forefront of tactical and operational theory, even it was surprised by the multidomain assaults conducted by Hamas on 7 October. The simultaneous, large-scale air, sea, ground and information operations executed by Hamas that day imposed tactical and operational shock on the Israelis. This was a deliberate outcome of the Hamas operations to blind border fence sensors and to infiltrate border posts and destroy their communications networks.

Hamas is likely to employ similar measures to deceive, counter and break down Israeli command and control networks during any attack on Gaza. Operating in the urban environment is always tenuous for awareness and communications. Hamas, seeing how successful their ‘counter command and control’ operations were on 7 October, will have learned from this and will apply improved tactics in Gaza.

At the same time, the Cambrian Explosion in autonomous systems – driven by the war in Ukraine – has also been exploited by Hamas. Their attacks on 7 October featured drones dropping munitions on border sensors and armoured vehicles. Israeli troops, who are experts in the use of their own drones, will be expecting an environment where enemy drones will also be ubiquitous. Not only will this enhance the situational awareness of Hamas commanders and fighters, it means that Hamas can more effectively exploit its subterranean network to move fighters to the right place at the right time – or to move them away from threats they cannot handle effectively.

The threat from uncrewed aerial systems has already been anticipated by the Israeli’s, who have begun installing protective cages on the roof of tank turrets in the lead up to their Gaza operations. They will also be likely to be issued with array of electronic countermeasures to degrade the threat from Hamas drones. Active protection systems on armoured vehicles will also help improve survivability. But it impossible to remove all threats. As a result, the closing of the ‘detection to destruction’ gap observed during the war in Ukraine is highly likely to feature in any assault into Gaza by the IDF. It will necessitate rapid tactical learning and adaptation, just as the Ukrainians have since February 2022.

On top of all this, the Israeli’s will need to deal with the full array of traditional threats inherent in the urban environment. The Israelis are well-training in the art and science of urban warfare, but no preparation for war is perfect. Combat takes place at much closer ranges that other forms of combat operations. The need for very close cooperation between dismounted infantry, engineers, artillery and armoured vehicles (as well as armoured bulldozers) is crucial. This is to minimise the threat of anti-armour weapons and to enhance the survivability of Israeli ground forces.

And, because of the degraded situational awareness in urban environments and the speed at which threats can appear, quick thinking and decisive leadership is required. These leaders, who may only have sporadic contact with their superior headquarters due to jamming or the challenges that urban canyons pose for tactical communications, must exercise good judgement and appreciate that their actions might appear on international news media within minutes of occurrence. This places significant pressure on leaders at all levels. Their understanding of purpose, strategic context and the ethical application of violence to guide their actions will be vital.

The battlefield has evolved since Israel’s last large incursion into Gaza. They will have learned from the war in Ukraine but will also need to adapt quickly to ensure the IDF doesn’t not suffer massive casualties.

For another excellent analysis of the military challenges of Israel’s pending attack into Gaza, this article by John Spencer is well worth a read.

Challenge 4: Civilians and hostages. One of the most obvious and difficult challenges for an Israeli assault into Gaza will be the presence of civilians. Gaza is one of the most densely populated locations on earth. As we have witnessed over the last few days, even with warnings from Israel, many citizens of Gaza have either been unable to move to safer locations, have been impeded from doing so, or as is always the case in urban operations, are unwilling to leave.

The IDF ensures that legal advisers review military targets and make recommendations to military commanders on the ramifications under international law of engaging or destroying targets.  However, this process is made much more difficult because Hamas often hides in civilian structures and stores munitions in civilian buildings such as schools in the Gaza strip. And, further complicating things, the scale of likely combat in a ground assault means that commanders will rarely have the time or resources to constantly consult with legal officers. While this might be a useful solution during airstrikes, close combat operations have different time pressures.

This does not excuse the targeting of civilians. There is no excuse for the deliberate killing and wounding of civilians. But, the great tragedy of the current situation is that the entanglement of Hamas and civil society in Gaza makes civilian casualties inevitable. As Benjamin Wittes has written:

Hamas is deeply embedded within the civilian population and infrastructure. There is no antiseptic operation possible that will clear Hamas out of Gaza. So, to accept the Israeli right of self-defence, or even to accept the obvious reality that Israel will defend itself, is to accept that a high level of human suffering will take place.

Therefore, the challenge of civilians in urban areas that are contested is a significant one. In every previous Israeli incursion into Gaza, there have been civilian casualties. This time will be no different.  And all those tunnels built under Gaza by Hamas are very unlikely to be used to protect civilians.

Killing and wounding civilians is not only a moral challenge. It is a strategic one.

Every report of civilian casualties, rapidly reported by traditional and social media, further engages and enrages interested audiences in the Middle East region and beyond. The recent allegations of an Israeli bombing of a hospital in Gaza, since disproved, is but one example (and the BBC has already apologised for its initial coverage). Such reports result in protests and social unrest – something that no regional country wants (besides Iran, of course). And, as the Gaza hospital issue demonstrates, such civilian casualty events – regardless of who is to blame - can compromise strategic dialog between leaders who are desperate to find solutions to the violence.

The final element of this challenge will be the presence of hostages. Over 200 Israeli citizens and soldiers (as well as some foreign citizens) were abducted by Hamas on 7 October and spirited across the border into Gaza. The hostages are likely to have been separated and dispersed across multiple locations in Gaza. Not only is this a political challenge for the Israeli government, but every soldier also who enters Gaza will have this issue in the back of their mind. The last thing that an infantry soldier or tank commander wants to do is fire upon a Hamas location and inadvertently kill Israeli hostages.

Overall, the challenge of the pervasive presence of civilians in Gaza operations will be extraordinarily difficult for the Israelis to manage. And it is magnified by Hamas, who began this war to prompt a high civilian casualty attack into Gaza by Israel.

Israeli armoured bulldozers. Source: MilitaryLeaks.com

Challenge 5: Balancing different fronts. While most attention at the moment is being paid to Israel’s preparations for a likely assault into Gaza, this will not be the only front that is concerning Israeli leaders.

The most obvious other contemporary threat is that posed by Hezbollah in the north. Hezbollah is thought to possess upwards of 150 thousand rockets of varying ranges and quality. It is a threat that is an order of magnitude beyond that posed by Hamas. As a 2022 article described the challenge:

Where Gaza militants can now launch some 400 rockets a day at Israel during heavy fighting, he said Hezbollah is believed to be capable of firing 10 times that amount…Even with Israel’s air defenses intercepting over 90% of incoming fire, the Israeli military estimates that as many as 7,000 rockets would strike built-up areas in a future war stretching several weeks.

Not only does this quantity of weapons offer the potential to overwhelm Israel’s air and missile defence system, but the Hezbollah use of this arsenal might also be used to prompt an Israeli assault into southern Lebanon.

Hezbollah has a large ground force, with somewhere between 50 and 100 thousand fighters organised mainly into light infantry units. While this is not a force that might be used in an attack into northern Israel, it has been very effective previously in defensive operations. Given the recent innovations in digitised battle command, meshed civil-military sensors and autonomous systems, they are sure to leverage these to maximum advantage.

As large and as capable as the IDF is, the Israeli government will not want to be fighting on this second front if it is decisively engaged in Gaza combat operations. But, if Hezbollah and its supporters in Iran see an opportunity to open a second front against Israel, they might do so. Israel’s political and military leaders will be ensuring that they have sufficient forces in northern Israel to deter such an attack.

A range of other actors, including the Syrians and Iranians, also pose a threat to Israel.

It is not only the physical domain that will be challenging for the Israelis. An important other ‘front’ is the global fight for influence. Hamas has played in this arena for some time. As a recent report by the Center for Strategic and International Studies notes:

Propaganda plays a critical role for Hamas as it seeks to shore up its popularity. The most common Hamas propaganda themes concern justifying the group’s place within the Palestinian community and legitimizing its rule in Gaza… In its propaganda campaigns, Hamas uses various technologies to legitimate its governance in Gaza and demonize Israel.

Information warfare has already been a key element of the nascent Hamas-Israel War. Hamas began its attacks by livestreaming its callous and barbaric murders of civilians. It has used information warfare to attribute the deaths of all people in Gaza directly to Israel, even when its faulty rockets were at fault. In an era where speed of reporting counts, verification can often take second place to getting a story broadcast.

Therefore, the information fight will be a key fight in this war for Israel. Not only must it leverage strategic influence operations to sustain the moral support it received after the 7 October attacks, it must also ensure high levels of transparency and accountability in its forthcoming operations in Gaza. Concurrently, it will need to combat the surge in misinformation operations and cyber-attacks that accompanied Hamas’ assault into southern Israel. And finally, Israel’s information operations must complement its vital diplomatic operations in the region in beyond.

At the Precipice of Combat

Israel has a very large combat force once it mobilises its hundreds of thousands of reservists. It has a very capable armoured force, excellent armoured engineers and a fine air force. But, many of these advantages are reduced, and sometimes neutralised, in a desperate fight to root out a terrorist organization in a very densely populated urban environment.

The pending Gaza operation will tax the Israeli Defence Force, and pose profound physical, moral and intellectual challenges. Given the magnitude of the recent military mobilization, this is a fight in which every Israeli family has a direct stake. Many Israeli soldiers will be killed and wounded.

But should the Israeli assault into Gaza eventuate, it will be citizens of the Palestinian enclave that will suffer most. They will be, in many instances, in the direct path of a ferocious attack, despite IDF efforts to reduce civilian casualties and collateral damage. Hamas designed its appalling attacks of 7 October to achieve exactly this outcome.

Back to Major General Finkelman’s comments from Thursday. Besides describing potential future operations in general terms, he also said the following:

The [Israeli] assault is going to be difficult; it’s going to be long, it’s going to be intense.

This is exactly the historical experience of close combat, particularly when conducted in urban terrain. The coming weeks and months are likely to be very bloody, uncertain and full of tactical and strategic surprises.