Alwaght- The ongoing bombardment of Gaza and the inhumane war on the Palestinians have drawn calls from people around the world for all-out support to Gaza. As war on Gaza unfolds, the Tehran-based Andisheh Sazan Nour Institute for Strategic Studies held a meeting on the ‘course of Gaza war’, revealing part of the realities of the Gaza conflict. West Asia and International affairs expert Saadullah Zaree had mentioned some newly obtained documents from Tel Aviv that show the invasion of Gaza was pre-planned. Here is a detailed report of the meeting.
Operation Al-Aqsa Storm is separate from war on Gaza
Opening the meeting, Mr Zaree said that there is a huge difference between the Operation Al-Aqsa Storm and the Israeli invasion of Gaza. In its invasion, Israeli regime killed over 11,000, about 70 percent of them children and women. In ongoing war, despite the existence of international laws on war, we are witnessing the destruction of houses. Many houses in the northern part of the Gaza Strip and especially Gaza City have been damaged, either destroyed 100 percent or damaged 30 to 70 percent. Therefore, the Operation Al-Aqsa Storm and the invasion of Gaza are two separate categories. Although some consider one to be a cause of the other and consider the Gaza war as a consequence of the Al-Aqsa Storm, it has been proven by the documents obtained from the Israeli prime minister office and the Israeli intelligence agency that this is not the case and the massive attack on Gaza was pre-planned.
Discovering documents determining the reason of Gaza war
Mr Zaree added that the obtained documents suggest that the Israelis that months before Hamas operation have been grappling with internal political crises and were teetering on the brink and deeply divided socially had come to the understanding that there are no prospects for a settlement for their crises. Protests and political tensions in Tel Aviv streets lasted for 10 months with large number of people taking part. On the other hand, Israel has had a big failed project called normalization with the Arab world. The project was put on hold for two years and they saw major cause of this two-year hiatus in the failure to settle the Palestinian case. The Israelis believed that they needed to totally eliminate the Palestinian cause for the normalization to move ahead faster. They believed that the key to settlement of the Palestinian case is elimination of the obstructive factor of resistance. The resistance factor projected rays of hope to Palestine, with Tel Aviv believing that normalization and consequent deepening of it is impossible without eliminating the factor of Palestinian resistance to the occupation. As a result, heavy-handed operation against Gaza-based movements, particularly Hamas, was put high on the agenda.
Three Tel Aviv scenarios in the secret documents
Again referring to the secret documents obtained from Tel Aviv, Mr Zaree went on saying that “according to the seven-page document we observed, the Zionists designed three scenarios for Gaza.”
First scenario: Bombardment and full occupation of Gaza and removal of the residents and the temporary transfer of them to the Sinai desert, and then the screened return of the Gaza population to the enclave by obtaining guarantees and making it clear that this returned population have nothing to do with the resistance groups in Palestine. Then, repeating in Gaza the West Bank administration model. The West Bank is governed by a combination of the Israeli army and the Palestinian Authority, with the security being under the control of Israel. It is divided into twenty separate parts. The Israelis want to implement the same model in Gaza for them to stay immune to armed Palestinian struggle.
Second scenario: The second scenario was that if Israel fails to permanently occupy Gaza and fails to adopt West Bank model in Gaza, it attacks the enclave, undermine the resistance groups there and assign its administration to the Palestinian Authority to suppress the Palestinians by the Palestinians.
Third scenario: The third scenario is temporary occupation of Gaza and adoption of common political arrangements in the enclave with Egypt and Jordan and with participation of the UN chief’s envoy, in a way that this federal-like administration is executed in association with the two Arab countries and uproots the resistance.
According to Mr Zaree, each of these three scenarios has been pondered in Israel’s intelligence system and details exist in the mentioned document, and the ways out of each of these scenarios are also mentioned. In fact, even if Operation Al-Aqsa Storm was not carried out, the Israelis had planned a heavy military operation against Gaza for the early months of 2024, and of course Hamas operation put it forward.
Course of war
Mr Zaree also commented on the course of war, saying that the Israeli military operation started roughly from October 8 and then Israeli military prepared for ground offensive. It took almost two weeks for the army to prepare to enter Gaza. Israel deploys three divisions to realize the mentioned scenarios and as the operation moved on, it added four operational brigades that are under the command of these three divisions. They encircled Gaza with these forces and since about 19 days, they have continued entry to Gaza from four paths, two of which are from the north, namely from Zikim crossing. And the other two are from Beit Hanoun in northeast and Al-Barij in the south. The operation in Al-Barij was for military maneuvering and uplifting the morale of troops. The neighborhood is for farming and uninhibited and its east to west is just six kilometers. The Israeli regime claimed division of Gaza based on this plan. The tanks advanced in this neighborhood unchecked and the Israelis managed to progress in this six-kilometer area. But this advance is of no value because the main hotspot is the north and Gaza City.
On the northern and eastern fronts, the Israelis managed to move ahead some 1 to 1.5 kilometers and impose an encirclement on the north and northeast. By the way, the north and northeast have been under Israeli occupation for decades and the operations of the past two weeks only enabled them to advance just 1 kilometers or a little deeper in these suburbs which are uninhibited and farmlands in which the Israeli military has managed to advance using heavy air, ground, and naval fire.
Israeli challenges in Gaza
Mr Zaree went on that Israel’s problem starts where there are population and buildings and operational movement becomes difficult, and for this reason, after 17 days, the Israelis have not been able to capture the small northern area. Therefore, the Israelis used the heliborne tactic and penetrated into areas in the east of Gaza to claim penetration into the city, while the armored forces still remained near the border and the army from the northern areas, including the Shafa Hospital area, seized small points and pretended they reached downtown Gaza. But this was not true and the clashes are going on fiercely. The Israelis started bombing the area to move their forces, and in the same place where they made a heliborne operation, their fighter jets had already bombed around Rantisi Hospital. That is, first they bombed and created a scorched earth, and then they made a heliborne, which was not successful either.
How war is going on: Tanks vs Men
Now the war goes on in a way that the Israelis blindly attack neighborhoods without any investigation and without having a bank of targets and just to avenge, leading to the martyrdom of children and women. The Israelis put pressure on these areas with ground forces and aerial bombardment. The important point is that on the contact line, the clashes between the resistance fighters and Israeli armored forces are highly intense. It is a tank vs. man battle. While the Israeli side has advanced tanks, the Palestinian fighters confront the Israeli tanks and ranks with guerrilla war tactics and RPGs, according to Mr Zaree.
Israeli casualties doubled in ground offensive
Concerning the Israeli occupation’s casualties, the expert maintained that considering that each armored vehicle or tank carries three troops and having in mind that on average 22 tanks or vehicles are hit daily, we can conclude that the Israeli fatalities are three times more than those of Palestine on the battleground and three Israeli troops are killed for a Palestinian fighter. So, every day almost 40 Israelis are killed which is the biggest casualty in the history of Israel. In the West Bank where clashes are ongoing between the Israeli forces and the Palestinian youths, every day at least five Israelis are killed. Add to this the daily killing of seven Israeli troops on average on the northern front by Hezbollah.
Commenting on the goals of the Israeli occupation, Mr Zaree held that what is clear is that the Israelis have failed to realize their war goals as they set Hamas obliteration as their goal. After 17 days of ground offensive, missiles of Hamas and other jihadi groups are still fired at the occupied territories and Gaza administration has not changed and there are no signs suggesting a change in the Gaza administration and Israel has not scored any strategic points. But this issue does not give any certain prospect of war developments and everything is tied to the state of resistance in Gaza. Now, two unequal forces are fighting each other. The war is unequal but the force with stronger resistance wins. The past experiences show that Gaza that went through such situations several times over the past 75 years can win this time and determine the war developments. The air superiority is not decisive here. The ground battle is decisive. The air superiority mattered when the war was with Arab armies in the past. Now things have changed. Now any time a fighter can get out from a tunnel and attack the tanks and disappear. Actually, this war is non-classsic and the resistance of the Palestinian side is the determining factor in it. We believe that the Israeli army has entered a circle of defeat and cannot make any gains as it did not over the past two weeks.
Resistance camp’s reaction to Gaza war
Concerning the Resistance camp, Mr Zaree said that in the Resistance camp that includes Iran, Iraq, Lebanon, Syria, and Yemen, the operations are deterrence-based, and the Islamic Republic of Iran or others in the bloc have never been the first attackers. In all of wars of the past two decades, a member of the bloc was waged war at. In the 2006 war, Hezbollah, regardless of the capturing of Israeli troops, was not the beginner of the war and it was the Israelis that attacked first. In recent war, too, Israelis started the war. In Yemen, too, the Saudis were the starters of war. Indeed, the policy of Iran and the allied resistance movements is principally not based on starting of conflict as tensions serve nobody’s interests. So, since the beginning, it was said that the responses come proportionate to actions of the enemy on the battleground.
The second issue is that there is a red line on the battleground. The red line is maintaining of the popular Palestinian resistance and saving their resistance power. Also, maintaining the organization of the resistance and jihadi groups on the battlefield matters to avoid damage to their resistance power and Tehran made this clear since the beginning. If the Resistance camp feels that the Palestinian resistance is taking damage, it will step up its actions. Since the day one, Hezbollah has been engaged in the conflict on the northern front and Yemen’s resistance also fired missiles at Israel’s south. The Iraqi resistance follows its job of pressing the main supporter of Gaza war, namely the US, in Syria and Iraq. So, all branches of Axis of Resistance have been engaged without any delay and the deeper engagement of them has been in line with the course of developments, though the Palestinians are the center of gravity and the job of others is to provide effective help to them to prevent victory of the occupiers. This strategy is followed by the Resistance camp’s branches and swings back and forth according to Gaza developments.
Global support to Gaza
The head of Andisheh Sazan Nour Institute for Strategic Studies in his closing comments mentioned the political side of Gaza developments and the global support to the Palestinians, saying that the political scene in Gaza developments is two parts. One part is public and the public opinion is moving in favor of Palestine and against Israel. This includes the recent London rallies in which over half a million people took part. They are a unique spectacle in London and we are seeing the same thing in the American cities and even American universities that train and educate future generation of managers of the US. Now the whole of Latin America, the whole of Africa, the whole of the Islamic world and the Arab world, and more than 90 percent of the Asian continent and a large part of the Europe are supporting Palestine, and the Zionists are caught in an unprecedented isolation at public, elite, and academic levels. In fact, the support for Palestine has reached the level of the elite society of the Western countries from the public, despite the fact that in the past 75 years, a lot of effort was made for Palestine to be forgotten.
The second level of political aspect of Gaza war has to do with states and governments. In this area, despite the calls for ceasefire, we can see a diversion of some countries as they stress the need for two-state solution or return to Oslo Accords and expansion of Palestinian Authority’s coverage to Gaza. These calls are irrelevant to Gaza and the Palestinians and they actually do not care about them. President Bashar al-Assad of Syria made it clear in joint Arab-Islamic emergency summit in Riyadh that such calls make no sense now. The two-state solution is neither accepted by the Palestinians nor by the Israelis. Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas recently admitted that Tel Aviv has no faith in formation of an independent Palestinian state.
The current developments have turned Palestinian cause into the main global issue. The world is calling for practical steps to help Palestine and perhaps Rafah crossing will be opened forever in the future.
