Israel’s choice two weeks in the past to carry off on a full-scale invasion of Gaza and as a substitute perform a extra deliberate, phased floor offensive aligned with options from Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III to his Israeli counterparts, officers mentioned.
But Israel has additionally dropped hundreds of tons of bombs in its punishing air marketing campaign whereas defending its floor troops from Hamas ambushes. About three dozen Israeli troopers have died, a sign that the Israeli military is transferring cautiously on the bottom whereas warplanes and artillery pound targets.
Encircling Hamas in certainly one of its strongholds and slicing off its resupply traces and communications forces the group to make use of up current provides and exhausts its fighters, mentioned former U.S. commanders who’ve fought in city battles in Iraq and Syria.
Gen. Kenneth F. McKenzie Jr., a retired head of U.S. Central Command, mentioned the Israeli navy set 5 main targets for the Gaza marketing campaign: dismantle Hamas, decrease civilian casualties, scale back the dangers to its personal troops, recuperate the hostages and keep away from widening the struggle past Gaza.
Israel is reaching most of these objectives, General McKenzie mentioned, finishing up a centered marketing campaign to chop off Gaza City from the remainder of the enclave, suppressing Hamas rocket fireplace into Israel and, with U.S. help, looking for the hostages, lots of whom are believed to be held in an unlimited tunnel advanced — all of the whereas making an attempt to reduce civilian casualties.
“The Israeli campaign has been very deliberate,” General McKenzie mentioned.
Strategically, nonetheless, he mentioned that point “is not necessarily on Israel’s side.” Criticism of Israel is rising as reminiscences of Hamas’s Oct. 7 assaults fade and pictures of Gaza in ruins and of civilian casualties dominate news feeds. That is placing strain on the I.D.F. to inflict injury on Hamas as shortly as doable.
General Brown mentioned the longer the struggle goes on, the more difficult it’s going to turn out to be for Israel.
“Every conflict that I’ve been involved with throughout my military career, with the exception of probably Desert Shield/Desert Storm, has gone a lot longer than most people would have imagined,” he mentioned, referring to the 1991 Persian Gulf struggle.
Source: www.nytimes.com