Post 2 of 6: The 6 unspoken phases of Operation Swords of Iron
6. I agree with @SpencerGuard that it is possible to destroy the military capability of Hamas. They might still exist after the war, but Hamas will no longer be capable of the type of complex cross border raid they did, for the next decade. As I said earlier, there are 5 phases:
(a) Phase 0, shaping with raids in an attempt to rescue hostages, but only getting some intel.
(b) Phase 1, commencement of ground operations with a 3 pronged attack, whose goal for the next phase is to cut-off Gaza city from the south — to enable a classic hammer & anvil move. That's a standard tactic on any battlefield, says Gian Gentile, a senior historian at the Rand Corp, and a retired colonel in the U.S. Army. "Isolating an objective is a basic approach to war-fighting," he says. As a surprise, the 1st hostage was also rescued early in this phase.
(b) Phase 2 has started & the clock is ticking for the next rescue attempt. On 31 Oct 2023, Israeli fighter jets conducted a massive airstrike on a section of the Jabalia refugee camp just north of Gaza City. The Americans are flying 6 unarmed Reapers/Predators for ISR support, while the IDF are flying even more UAVs in Gaza. Most American observers are wondering why there are so few forces — in fact, the IDF forces in Gaza city is too small to occupy that cut-off area. This is a feature, not a bug of the IDF plan.
(c) Phase 3 & 4 will be the longest phases of the ops. In phase 3 of the Israel-Hamas war, Israel may decrease the scale of its air campaign and shift focus on tactical ground operations. Part of these 2 phases are to create a new security strip 2 km deep into the territory of the Gaza strip along the entire border — Palestinians will not be allowed there. Imagine bulldozers simply leveling the area. Will talk more about it when it occurs.
7. This volte-face on the 3 Nov 2023 speech by Hassan Nasrallah is a big relief. It has been suggested that President Biden's posture made Hassan Nasrallah rethink about opening another front to attack Israel. The 3 Nov 2023 speech by Hassan Nasrallah, has the potential to be one of Joe Biden's biggest foreign policy successes. Two aircraft carriers and "don't" rather focus the mind.
8. Biden and his top aides have in the past week have adjusted the administration’s public message to emphasize concern for Palestinian civilians and U.S. efforts to get them humanitarian relief. "I think the humanitarian conditions on the ground are an Achilles heel for the operation," he says. "That needs to get addressed, and addressed very, very quickly," Alex Plitsas (a non-resident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council) said.
9. NPR has
interviewed American military experts but I believe that the coverage seems to mis-understood the IDF. This is in part because NPR has its own view & they interviewed Marc Garlasco.
(a) Garlasco used to work for HRW, & he is smearing the IDF’s targeting process without actual information. As expected Garlasco said, "I'd say Israel is playing pretty fast and loose with the laws of war right now."
(b) As others have noted, Israel is not engaged in the "deliberate mass killing of civilians". I will repeat that as many times as needed despite the obtuse trolling to the contrary.
(c) The more objective, Gian Gentile, a senior historian at the Rand Corp, and a retired colonel in the U.S. Army said, "warfare in general is highly destructive against civilians, and it becomes even more so in a dense urban environment like Gaza City."
(d) In a statement, the UN’s human rights office appeared to echo those concerns, warning that strikes on the Jabalia camp "could amount to war crimes." Given that the 15 member Human Rights Council has appointed Iran's ambassador to the U.N. in Geneva Ali Bahreini as the chair of the two-day meeting, the unending accusations of Israeli war crimes — should come as no surprise.