Israel strikes Hamas tunnels in Gaza Strip
Hamas has turned the Gaza Strip into a real fortress of barricades and tunnels stretching for 400 kilometers
The Israeli authorities describe the operation to destroy the Hamas terrorist group as a long war that will gradually expand. One of the main goals at the initial stage of the war is to destroy Hamas's military command and control bodies, which should weaken resistance to Israeli units advancing into the Gaza Strip.
Source. The Wall Street Journal writes about this.
As part of this tactic, the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF), according to its statements on Tuesday, struck 300 targets, including anti-tank posts and rocket launching points, and killed the commander of one of the battalions.
The strikes also targeted some tunnels, an extensive network of which militants use to store weapons, place command posts, provide cover during air strikes, move secretly and organize attacks on Israeli soldiers.
Ground operations are concentrated in the northern part of the Strip, in particular near Gaza City, which IDF spokesman Jonathan Conricus called "Hamas's center of gravity." Israeli units are advancing from the north of the Strip and have also entered it from the south and are moving towards the coast to cut off the cities of the Strip from the rest of the enclave and encircle it.
Hamas has turned the Gaza Strip into a real fortress of barricades and tunnels stretching for 400 kilometers, the Financial Times notes.
At the same time, the militants' military operations are decentralized, it is "a kind of cellular military structure where each unit operates independently," says Bilal I Saab, a researcher at the British Chatham House. According to him, the group does not have an official military doctrine, "its main approach is to cause as much damage and harm to the Israelis as possible."
"We were ready for an Israeli ground offensive even before we launched our attack," Ali Barakeh, a senior official in Hamas' political wing, told the FT last week, referring to the attacks on Israeli settlements that killed some 1,400 people and took more than 200 hostages. "Waging war in urban areas is much easier for us than war in the air – there is no comparison.
Background. According to US media reports, the US persuaded Israel to temporarily postpone a large-scale operation in the Gaza Strip.
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