Israel's Gaza invasion, for eyes and ears in Iran
Sun, 04 Jan 2009 18:59:14 GMT
By Mohammad Davari, Press TV
 |
After six months of scrupulous planning, the Israeli army on Dec. 27 finally launched brutal airstrikes on the beleaguered enclave, which has been under an Israeli blockade since mid-2007.
More than 450 Palestinians were killed, the latest of whom lost their lives on Saturday when a Gaza mosque was bombarded. At least 2,300 others were rushed to packed hospitals after being wounded in the attacks. Medics had a hell of week tending to the constant flow of the injured while struggling with insufficient medical supplies.
A week of intense bombardment, however, failed to stop retaliatory rocket attacks launched by Hamas fighters from the Gaza Strip, Israeli officials said.
On Saturday night, Tel Aviv finally gave the go-ahead to thousands of Israeli troops and an undisclosed number of tanks massed along the 60-kilometer Gaza border to sweep into the Palestinian land.
Thus began the invasion of Gaza.
An army statement claimed the objectives of the ground campaign was "to destroy the terrorist infrastructure of Hamas, while taking control of some of the rocket launching sites" that the Palestinian fighters use to fire at southern Israel.
In televised comments, Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak, who warned, "This will not be easy", promised a lengthy fight.
Considered a terrorist group by Israel and the US, the democratically elected government of Gaza, Hamas has vowed to "fight until the last breath."
"We will not abandon the battlefield, and we will stay on the thorny course," a Hamas spokesman, Ismail Radwan, said in a statement aired on the Palestinian television station Al-Aqsa.
"Your incursion to Gaza will not be a picnic, and Gaza will be your cemetery, God willing. You have no choice but to end this aggression and end the siege without any condition. You will not live in peace until our Palestinian people live in peace," he maintained.
Hamas is said to be fighting to end an 18-month medieval Israeli blockade, which had created a humanitarian crisis in Gaza even before the start of the Israeli onslaught last Saturday. Russia's Foreign Ministry said the movement would agree to stop its rocket attacks on southern Israel, if Tel Aviv lifted the blockade, permitting the densely populated strip's life to return to normal.
Nonetheless, Israel is fighting more than one front in its fight with Hamas. Not only does it aim to establish peace for its citizens in the south, as the officials in Tel Aviv continue to insist on; it also hopes to re-establish its military credentials with its regional foes.
The disastrous 2006 defeat in Lebanon had turned the "respected" army men of Israel into a laughing stock in the Middle East.
Tel Aviv had long been admired for its air prowess. The 2006 war with Hezbollah, however, brought much shame to Israel. Military commanders were widely accused of being afraid to use ground forces in battles after waiting too long to order an incursion into neighboring Lebanon.
"The Israeli army needs to address the problem created to its deterrence in 2006. The army has to change its image among its enemies that it is afraid to use ground forces," Efraim Inbar, director of Bar-Ilan University's Begin-Sadat Centre for Strategic Studies, was quoted by AFP as saying.
"There is no choice but to use ground forces. It does not necessarily need to be a large scale invasion, maybe just special units or localized incursions but the army needs boots on the ground," he continued.
Israel needs to prove its might against its main foe, Iran.
Prior to and shortly after the victory of Barack Obama in the US presidential election in November, the war of words escalated between Tel Aviv and Tehran.
Israel accuses Iran of developing a military nuclear program, while the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) signatory denies the charges. Officials in Tehran contend that the only aim of their program is the civilian applications of the technology.
Meanwhile in Tel Aviv, high-ranking officials, chief commanders as well as retired generals and military experts all agree that Israel is the one that ultimately has to deal with Iran. Many of them argue that they should resort to a pre-emptive strike on nuclear infrastructure in Iran to retard the country's nuclear progress -- which they envisage will allow the Iranian government to wipe Israel off the map.
The flawless execution of its war on Gazans will help Israel flash its teeth to Iran -- although war on the defenseless residents of Gaza and their rustically equipped protectors can in no way prepare the Israeli army for a conflict with the Iranian army.
The war on Gaza, which could easily be stretched until the Democratic US president-elect takes office on January 20, could also win Tel Aviv the backing of the US for a potential war on Iran.
President-elect Obama is yet to comment on the ongoing Gaza carnage, but there is no doubt that he is closely "monitoring" the latest developments in the presentation being conducted by Israel's armed forces against Hamas fighters and those 1.5 million civilians living in the coastal sliver of Gaza.
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