FLASH
Shkruar nga Pamfleti
The great difficulty will be the labyrinths of alleyways of the refugee camps. The most dangerous challenge will be urban guerilla warfare...
The X-hour for Israel's ground offensive in the Gaza Strip could begin as early as tonight. The military vehicle is practically ready.
As in other cases in the past, the first selected troops are expected to advance towards residential areas of Gaza where Hamas tunnels and positions are concentrated using night vision goggles. Commandos will arrive in dinghies from the sea to the beaches. And everything will be monitored step by step by hundreds of drones to report and possibly strike nests of resistance.
Israel's numerical and qualitative superiority over Hamas is overwhelming. We are talking about over half a million men, including the regular army and more than 300,000 reservists, many of whom were sent to patrol the West Bank and eastern areas of Jerusalem.
Israeli media are happy not to release details at this time. But the soldiers talk to each other. We know that not far from the southern command center in Zikim, which was captured by the Hamas attack on October 7 between the sand dunes that separate the southern outskirts of Ashkelon and the northern barrier of Gaza, several tank units are positioned.
Others are in bases further south towards Rafah on the border with Egypt and above all not far from Be'er, the massacred settlement, from where they can access the Wadi Azza trails, which in about ten kilometers allow them to reach in the Mediterranean by cutting the Belt into two sectors.
It seems that at this point they will repeat what they already did during Operation Cast Lead between the end of December 2008 and January 2009: they will dig a deep trench with bulldozers to restrict the enemy's movements.
Soldiers tweet or post on Instagram that they are in their positions in the "otef Gaza," the five- or six-kilometer-deep zone that surrounds the almost 9-kilometer average width by 42-kilometer length of the Strip. The paratroopers were on the front line, along with selected groups from Golani and Givati.
The great difficulty will be the labyrinths of alleyways of the refugee camps. The most dangerous challenge will be urban guerilla warfare: Hamas jihadists are condemned to death.
Israeli generals studied the battles in Mosul and Raqqa against ISIS in 2016-18. We will soon know if they have learned their lesson. / Adapted "Pamphlet" from "Corriere della Sera"
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