Israel’s Outside-the-Box Options

Excerpt

No one needs to lecture the Israel Defense Forces on the difficulties a large-scale ground incursion into Gaza will entail. As the IDF knows all too well from a number of major operations over the years, including 2008–9’s Cast Lead and 2014’s Protective Edge, ground efforts in urban terrain are costly for attackers even when the offensive force is larger, better trained, better equipped, and better supported than the defenders. For small units and individual troops, the regular alternation between contact with the enemy at greater distances (down long straight streets, for example) and at very close distances (around the corner, or waiting in the next room) is disorienting and imposes extreme psychological and physical demands. The complexity and three-dimensional nature of the often-mined terrain itself is also demanding—a problem that pulverizing enemy strong points can address but not entirely solve. Even when the attacker can isolate the overall target area, as the IDF will be able to do for Gaza, the going can be slow and difficult.

Further complications apply in this case. Hamas and its partners have had, in military terms, an infinity of time to prepare for the attack that is likely to come. Even if the attacks on 10/7 involved some level of miscalculation and their perpetrators are about to be victims of their own success, Hamas will have anticipated that a major ground incursion was a possible, even likely response, and will be ready. The underground dimension of the fight will be significant, not least due to the presence of an estimated 150 hostages, each one of whom is loved by a family that reasonably prioritizes his or her survival above all else.

Aaron MacLean, a Marine infantry veteran of Afghanistan and former Senate aide, is a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies and host of the podcast School of War.