the intervention of IDF forces in Gaza promises to be perilous – L’Express

Investing the Palestinian enclave, where 2.3 million inhabitants live on a strip of land 41 kilometers long and 6 to 12 wide, constitutes an extremely perilous challenge for the Israeli army, even if, on paper, The IDF far outclasses Hamas’ capabilities. To the 169,500 professional soldiers of the Israeli army are already added at this stage 360,000 reservists out of a pool of 465,000. On the other hand, Hamas has, according to estimates, between 15,000 and 30,000 fighters, although its leaders in claim around 40,000.

The equipment of the two belligerents is equally incomparable. “Israel has a complete, modern and efficient army,” assesses General Jérôme Pellistrandi, editor-in-chief of the National Defense Magazine. It is over-endowed both in terms of heavy equipment and in stocks of munitions.” With a defense budget of $23.4 billion in 2022, the Jewish state surpasses the military spending of Iran, Egypt , Jordan and Lebanon combined. Its ground forces include no less than 1,300 Merkava tanks and nearly 1,200 armored personnel carriers. The air force can rely on some 345 combat aircraft – including including 36 latest generation American F-35s – whose dominance will not be contested, due to lack of effective enemy anti-aircraft defenses.

“The Israeli army has the possibility of carrying out operations in three areas: a land incursion, the continuation of airstrikes, and a possible penetration of Gaza by sea,” summarizes Héloïse Fayet, researcher at the Center for Security Studies of Ifri. “It is a valuable asset in a context where urban combat is very unfavorable to the attacker.”

Because Hamas has the advantage on the ground. “When we are on the offensive, urban combat is the most difficult of all,” says General Nicolas Richoux, former commander of the 7th Armored Brigade. “Numerical and technological superiority play a much lesser role, to the extent that the enemy can use all traps to his advantage.” The destroyed buildings and homes constitute as many potential shelters for the defender as a series of obstacles difficult to overcome for the attacker. An environment described as an “equalizer” by the armies, for its ability to smooth out the balance of power. “In an environment of this type, armored vehicles can quickly be blocked and become vulnerable targets,” continues General Richoux. Urban combat therefore relies above all on infantry: which consumes both a lot of ammunition and time. , and of men.”

Especially since Hamas has been honing its weapons for years. Gaza, like adjacent cities, is home to a maze of winding alleys ripe for ambushes and a vast network of tunnels – nicknamed the “Gaza Metro” – protected from Israeli strikes, where fighters, weapons and command centers are hidden. Far from being limited to a defensive role, these underground passages also house batteries of rocket launchers, capable, thanks to a system of traps, of returning to the surface to fire.

Aware of these threats, Israeli forces have been preparing for urban combat for years. “They do not arrive virgins,” adds David Khalfa, co-director of the North Africa and Middle East Observatory of the Jean-Jaurès Foundation. Regarding underground warfare, specific training has been put in place. place since 2014 with replicas of tunnels dug by Hamas, and special forces from the military engineering corps, trained to carry out the assault in conditions of compartmentalization and darkness using sensors, robots and combat dogs.” The Tsahal thus built in 2005, in the Negev desert , the artificial city of Baladia, to reproduce combat conditions in Gaza.

The other issue, crucial for the IDF, will be the protection of some 224 hostages scattered in the heart of this hostile environment. “They will not change Israel’s plans,” said Yaakov Amidror, researcher at the Jerusalem Institute for Strategy and Security and former national security advisor to Benjamin Netanyahu. “On the other hand, if we obtain the slightest information on the location of one or several hostages, the priority of the forces located nearby will be to do everything possible to free them.”

Added to this difficult equation is the risk for the Israeli army of seeing a second front open in the north, by the Lebanese Hezbollah, an ally of Iran, whose rocket attacks against the Jewish state have increased. since the start of the conflict. If a ground offensive by the terrorist group does not appear, for the moment, to be the most likely hypothesis, the maintenance of a climate of insecurity has the direct consequence of fixing thousands of Israeli soldiers on the Lebanese border. . Keen to deter regional escalation, the United States has dispatched two aircraft carriers to the eastern Mediterranean – including the USS Gerald Ford, the world’s largest warship.

Since its withdrawal from the Gaza Strip in 2005, Israel has intervened on the ground twice, in 2009 and 2014, first fifteen then nineteen days, losing ten soldiers during its first intervention and 66 during the second. . This time, the scale of the operation raises fears of a much heavier toll. “The level of loss could reach 15 to 20% of the forces deployed, anticipates David Khalfa, of the Jean-Jaurès Foundation. This is what the Iraqi forces faced during the recapture of Mosul from the Islamic State fighters in 2016 and 2017.”

The question of casualties among Palestinian civilians also arises, in a theater where they are as omnipresent as they are vulnerable. “If Israel’s achievement of its war goals leads to the deaths of thousands of them, tactical victory on the battlefield could turn into a strategic disaster for Israel, General Richoux warns. probably what Hamas is looking for.” The greatest risk for Israel is undoubtedly less that of a military defeat than a political one.