Israel-Hamas War 2023

[OttoVonBismarck]

Looks like the Northern situation is being described as a "mass drone infiltration" with air space warnings across Israel's north. Israel security is saying "some of the aircraft are carrying people" (which I don't even know what that means, maybe weird paraglider shit like Hamas did down South, not sure.)

[OttoVonBismarck]

OvB - total aside here - my understanding is that there's non-trivial smuggling across the border between North Korea and China; people and goods.

There is, but apparently Kim got crazy about it during covid--he was reportedly beyond paranoia levels afraid of it, and he has done a lot to completely shut it off in the last 3.5 years.

[Josquius]

Border controls being imperfect - true. You'll never completely stop smuggling.
But it helps a lot that Egyptian border guards are likely to be very underpaid, poorly controlled, and, very sympathetic to the Palestinian cause in general and probably to the broader idea of violence being necessary.

OvB - total aside here - my understanding is that there's non-trivial smuggling across the border between North Korea and China; people and goods.

There is, but apparently Kim got crazy about it during covid--he was reportedly beyond paranoia levels afraid of it, and he has done a lot to completely shut it off in the last 3.5 years.

Yes. The recent bbc interviews with north Koreans (worth looking up) report this has been the case in recent years. With lots of negative effects.

[Gups]

But it helps a lot that Egyptian border guards are likely to be very underpaid, poorly controlled, and, very sympathetic to the Palestinian cause in general and probably to the broader idea of violence being necessary.

Gotta be impressed with your knowledge of teh opinions of Egyptian Border guards. Any factual basis for it?

[crazy canuck]

As I said very early on, it wouldn't surprise me if the Israelis knew about this beforehand. This conflict ticks a lot of boxes in Netanyahu's "things I need to do" list.

1. Unity government
2. Popular support
3. World permission to exterminate Hamas with extreme prejudice

An inquiry may come 2-3 years down the road, but by that point other things would have happened. Bibi is a lot like Trump that way, shit doesn't stick.

And add number 4 - blame the intelligence failure on lefty officers.

[Barrister]

Also, Egypt has historically helped Israel enforce the long running "blockade." In theory the blockade has always intended to only block materials that can be used to develop weapons or military capacity, but some technology and supplies that have both civil and military uses, are blocked as well. Egypt has helped enforce that by inspecting cargo going into Gaza and following Israel's rules on what is allowed in and isn't allowed in.

Anyone expecting Egypt to just help the Palestinians by opening their pockets or borders, that is not going to happen.

Yeah.

Relations between Egypt and Israel have never been exactly warm, but they've had peace between the two countries since  1979 and they have a very workmanlike relationship.  Remember the reports that Egypt actually warned Israel about the attacks.

The notion that Israel is going to try and just ethnically cleanse Gaza and force the Palestinians into Egypt is ridiculous.  First of all it would be a humanitarian tragedy and war crime.  But secondly Egypt wants nothing to do with the Gaza Palestinians and would probably take it as an act of war.

That being said though - I have no idea what Israel is actually planning to do.  They don't really have any great options.

[Sheilbh]

Thanks for the summaries OVB.

My moral problem with the total siege is what is the point? Requiring unconditional surrender of Hamas and the populace? So what if they get it? It's not like Hamas won't stockpile their weapons anyhow and start guerilla warfare once the IDF is there.

This is to Jake's question - I don't know what their goal is. And the language I've seen of turning it into a city of tents suggests that they're not sure what an achievable goal is that isn't, basically, just massive retaliation.

I think any state would and would have to retaliate after Saturday's attack. But I'm not sure retaliation is enough for a military far less a political strategy. Hopefully a national unity government can push some of those questions as the opposition have a lot of people with a lot of security experience.

On Egypt from my understanding they've tightened the border even more since Saturday. I think the US has been asking them possibly to facilitate a humanitarian corridor - not least to get Western citizens in Gaza out (for example the in-laws of Scotland's First Minister, who are Palestinian and were visiting family). But Egypt's in a huge financial crisis right now with an IMF bailout, inflation at 40% - I believe it was one of the world's largest importers of Ukrainian grain. So if Western countries want Egypt's support on that we'll probably need to pay (and from a European perspective there will probably be a desire not to see any Palestinians fleeing Gaza ending up in, say, Libya).

As I said very early on, it wouldn't surprise me if the Israelis knew about this beforehand. This conflict ticks a lot of boxes in Netanyahu's "things I need to do" list.

1. Unity government
2. Popular support
3. World permission to exterminate Hamas with extreme prejudice

An inquiry may come 2-3 years down the road, but by that point other things would have happened. Bibi is a lot like Trump that way, shit doesn't stick.

To be clear I don't think it's that. I think Netanyahu's strategy and coalition were based on the fact that Hamas were contained in Gaza and not able to do anything that threatened Israel. Apparently there was also a view that they'd basically gone soft and were focused on economics. That was a misinterpretation of an uptick in requests for passes into Israel for work many of those recent requests appear to have been Hamas. That meant Palestine wasn't a front page story - which enabled Netanyahu's strategy of basically containing the issue and working with Arab leaders in the Middle East and domestically focusing on the West Bank and expanding settlements.

It sounds like Egypt warned them and domestic security services may have too (I think it probably is relevant to his assessment that Netanyahu had been dismissing serious security figures as basically "deep state" opponents). It is very difficult for any of us to change a base assumption - such as actually Hamas aren't contained and they're planning a major attack that Iron Dome can't stop. Because that undermines Netanyahu's entire foreign and domestic policy strategy. I don't think he knew and thought he'd benefit, I think he was warned and decided on balance that it probably wasn't true and his assumptions (and the experience of the last ten years or so) were still correct.

But when a leader gets that wrong on security then it's catastrophic.

[Legbiter]

That being said though - I have no idea what Israel is actually planning to do.  They don't really have any great options.

My guess is a couple of months of air strikes on Gaza while they plan how to send ground forces in to root out Hamas. Then a ground invasion of Gaza itself and some kind of occupation.

[OttoVonBismarck]

Israel occupied Gaza from 67-05, so I don't see any logistical reason it couldn't be done again. The premise of withdrawing was that under a cost benefit analysis it was a lot cheaper to just wall them off, but if that has changed it could re-orient Israel's thinking on it.

That doesn't, of course, move us to any kind of ultimate resolution to the conflict, but it isn't without precedent.

[Barrister]

That being said though - I have no idea what Israel is actually planning to do.  They don't really have any great options.

My guess is a couple of months of air strikes on Gaza while they plan how to send ground forces in to root out Hamas. Then a ground invasion of Gaza itself and some kind of occupation.

And invasion / occupation of Gaza would be a nightmare.

[Barrister]

Israel occupied Gaza from 67-05, so I don't see any logistical reason it couldn't be done again. The premise of withdrawing was that under a cost benefit analysis it was a lot cheaper to just wall them off, but if that has changed it could re-orient Israel's thinking on it.

That doesn't, of course, move us to any kind of ultimate resolution to the conflict, but it isn't without precedent.

Google suggests the population of Gaza in 1967 was 394,000.

Estimated population now is close to two million.  All in 88 square miles.

[OttoVonBismarck]

2005 was many years after 1967 FWIW, and the population of the West Bank is several million as well, which Israel also occupies.

[PJL]

It does look like Netanyahu was warned that Hamas was going to do something big by the Egyptians / Israeli security services, but most likely dismissed it as nothing serious. After all, all Hamas could do in the last 15 years was lobby rockets at Israel. Sure that was terrifying during the hours they did it, but it rarely lasted more than 2-3 days before it calmed down again. What could they do behind the wall?

Also I wonder if Israeli society at large (not just Netanyahu) was suffering from Magniot Line syndrome - the barrier around Gaza providing a false sense of security? I mean just how close was the festival to the barrier and ditto the kibbutz and other affected settlements nearby?

[Barrister]

2005 was many years after 1967 FWIW, and the population of the West Bank is several million as well, which Israel also occupies.

Maintaining control over a territory is significantly different than establishing control over a territory.

[OttoVonBismarck]

I don't want to minimize an occupation--but just to put things in military perspective. If that is the route the Israelis went, there would be an initial "battle" phase. This phase cannot be interminable--Hamas has a certain number of fighters and weapons, and they are not infinite. Israel has more fighters and far more ability to continually regenerate supply.

Lessons from major urban "conquests" of the 21st century say the battle could last a month. It could last 10 months. Israeli losses could be reasonably expected to range from 500 to 2500-3000 or so. These are not small numbers, but in the context of a major mobilization and what would be spoken of as a major war by Israel's leadership, it is not anything Israel or a similar sized country could not bear.

Once the battle phase ends, the true occupation phase begins. The number of soldiers needed to hold Gaza will be far less than the number required to take it. There are tons of things that can be done to pacify and suppress the ability of a population to resist occupation.

The occupation will incur a long term human cost for both Gazans and IDF, who will always be at risk of ambush / sniper fire from underground fighters, but again--in the context of a nationstate these are not intolerable. Israel dealt with such for decades.

When the U.S. occupied Baghdad, population 6.2 million, they allocated 6 brigades for the task. And whilst several major battles broke back out in Baghdad during the occupation, those forces did hold the city for years.