Israel-Hamas Journal: Interview with Yaakov Amidror
IDF Major General Retired.
Discussion
This interview was behind a paywall and contains very valuable tactical detail about Israel’s plans for dealing with Hamas and Hezbollah, so I’m putting it behind a paywall here as well.
For reference, Yaakov was the National Security advisor to the prime minister of Israel, and head of the National Security Council from 2011-2013.
Prior to its ground invasion of Gaza, Israel is seeking to complete three tasks:
Via air raids, eliminate the list of targets they had before the war (this stage is almost complete)
Collect intel that allows them to eliminate leaders of Hamas
Prepare for the invasion of the ground forces. Prep in the south almost finished. Logistics there. Training done. Invasion is imminent.
Israel has created a safe zone in the south/center of Gaza, and wants as many civilians evacuated to this safe zone prior to the invasion. If it needs to delay the invasion by a few days, so be it. They want as many civilians out of the way. The problem is Hamas is doing everything it can to stop citizens from evacuating.
Despite the prospect of very difficult urban warfare that Hamas has spent two years prepping for, Israel has two advantages:
After the air force raids nothing remains on the ground, now the question is how they can identify the underground tunnels
The military is very well prepared. They didn’t rush in. Troops have been retrained for this urban warfare.
There are three stages of the invasion of Gaza:
First stage is very heavy and slow, with the most important factor being securing the forces and eliminating traps. Firepower moves first. Go to the places identified in advance as key for securing the area, then slowly extend the secured position. Two week operation.
Second stage is long: 2-6 months. Find and neutralize the underground tunnels. Find HQs, command/control centers, kill all the Gazaan Hamas leadership.
Third stage is long term. Going forward, Israel will destroy any and all nascent threats in Gaza. Key mistake was allowing Hamas to grow. Israel is doing something like this in Syria. Iranians want to build military capability in Syria, and Israel bombs targets on a weekly basis to eliminate this possibility.
Critical quote: “Something the world should understand is that from now on, Israel does not have any obligation to civilians in Gaza - not for food, water, or electricity. Israel will attack anything in Gaza that might be a future problem.”
Hezbollah threat:
• List of targets in Gaza took more than 10 days to bomb. The list in Lebanon is more than 10x longer than Gaza
• First step in Lebanon will be Air Force raids on the list of targets
• Now that air raids are largely over in the south, the Air Force can move to the north while ground forces go into Gaza
• Will take months to eliminate all the targets in Lebanon, and it will take munition help from the US to carry out the full list
• Hassan Nasrallah is solely responsible for launching an attack from Lebanon. Will take advice from the Iranians, but it’s his decision