Analysis
Israel’s Shifa raid shows its grip is slipping as
a ‘forever war’ looms
Jason Burke
in
Jerusalem
Retaking of Shifa complex shows Hamas militants,
despite heavy losses, are still operational in northern Gaza
Mon 18 Mar
2024 11.45 EDT
The latest
raid on al-Shifa hospital reveals that the Israeli military’s hold on the areas
of Gaza supposedly cleared of Hamas militants is considerably more tenuous than
the country’s political leaders have claimed – and suggests the region’s
military superpower is facing its own “forever war” in the territory with
enormous costs for everyone involved, particularly civilians.
The
fighting around the Shifa hospital and its eventual seizure was the climactic
moment of the first phase of Israel’s offensive in Gaza, launched last year
after Hamas killed 1,200 and captured 250 people, mostly civilians, in a
surprise raid on 7 October. There was bitter argument over whether the
hospital’s buildings and basements had been used by Hamas as a covert command
centre, as Israel claimed, but none over the strength of Israel’s control of
the site when its soldiers moved in on 15 November.
Three
months later, Monday’s raid is an implicit admission that this control seems to
have slipped.
It is clear
that Hamas is operating in parts of northern Gaza that were supposed to have
been cleared by Israeli forces a long time ago. In February, there was fighting
in Zeitoun, a neighbourhood of Gaza City, and al-Shati camp, further up the
coast. There have even been clashes in Beit Hanoun, which was one of the first
places overrun by Israeli forces at the very beginning of the war.
Three
things are happening. One is that, though Hamas has sustained heavy casualties,
it still has enough men under arms and sufficiently functional command systems
to launch sporadic attacks on Israeli troops when circumstances are right. Its
extensive tunnel system helps here. These cause little damage and few
casualties but will add to pressure on Israel in any talks over a ceasefire and
hostage for prisoner exchange. They will also help Hamas frame the conflict’s
eventual outcome as a victory.
A second is
that Israel has demobilised most of its reservists and transferred key regular
units to its northern border or the occupied West Bank. The current phase of
its offensive in Gaza involves targeted strikes and raids instead of massed
confrontations. For economic and political reasons, Israel’s strategic planners
had few options, but this means there are few troops permanently on the ground
in northern Gaza. Most are confined to so-called ‘bastions’ on the outskirts of
population centres or at strategic points such as road junctions.
The third
is that war – like nature – abhors a vacuum. Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli
prime minister, has refused to discuss seriously any realistic plans for
governing in Gaza after the war and is apparently content to allow swaths of
the territory to slide into chaos in the weeks or months Israel achieves his
stated war aim of “crushing” Hamas.
But others
are filling the yawning governance gap. There are criminal gangs, major
families with their own quasi-militia, informal neighbourhood committees set up
by desperate civilians and, inevitably, Hamas. The militant Islamist
organisation has run Gaza since 2007 and its structures, overt and covert, are
deeply embedded. So too are its ideas.
This has
not escaped even friends of Israel. The annual Threat Assessment of the US
Intelligence Community, published last week, predicted that Israel “probably
will face lingering armed resistance from Hamas for years to come, and the
military will struggle to neutralise Hamas’s underground infrastructure, which
allows insurgents to hide, regain strength, and surprise Israeli forces”.
There is
now a situation of deadly stasis in Gaza. Neither the Israelis nor Hamas are
likely to reach their ultimate objectives, however defined, anytime soon. A
ceasefire could take many weeks or may not be possible at all. Meanwhile, more
than 31,000 people have been killed in the Israeli offensive, mostly women and
children, according to local health authorities, and famine looms.
Netanyahu
has said that once Israel’s forces have destroyed their enemy’s forces in
Rafah, the southernmost town in the territory and where more than a million
displaced are sheltering, then the war will in effect be over. Benny Gantz, a
member of Israel’s war cabinet, recently told US officials: “Ending the war
without clearing out Rafah is like sending a firefighter to extinguish 80% of
the fire.”
Monday’s
raid on Shifa makes clear that, despite the grey ash and rubble across so much
of the territory, the fire in Gaza is not fully extinguished anywhere.
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