Why Israel cannot replicate the 1982 siege of Beirut in Gaza
The Gaza Metro!
Benjamin
Netanyahu initially vowed to decimate Hamas and hinted at expelling the entire
Palestinian population from Gaza. In his eagerness to upstage Netanyahu, Biden urged
that destroying Hamas was Israel’s duty. Biden’s harangue was targeted at the
Democratic Party’s voters – US elections are scheduled in 2024.
The Hamas attack on Israeli towns surrounding Gaza on
October 7 has provided a pretext for Netanyahu’s plans for the complete ethnic
cleansing of Gaza. A report published by the Misgav Institute for National
Security & Zionist Strategy advocates exploiting the West’s furor over the
Hamas attack to accomplish a long-held Zionist goal of expelling the entire
Palestinian population from their ancestral land. They consider
the current situation as a unique and rare opportunity to evacuate the whole
Gaza Strip in coordination with the Egyptian government.
The Israeli report estimates that in 2017 there were 10 million available apartment units in Egypt, of which half were built and the remaining half were under construction. Presently, there is enough accommodation available to settle about 6 million residents in Egypt. Around $5 to 8 billion will be required to purchase the needed housing units from the Egyptian government for re-settling the Palestinians uprooted from Gaza. Furthermore, the injection of such a large amount of money into the Egyptian economy would provide an enormous and immediate advantage to President Sisi’s regime. It appears that this ethnic-cleansing plan is based on a similar logic to that of the “Abraham Accords,” involving the infusion of massive sums towards despotic regimes to write off the Palestinian issue. But this time, it is not just about slow annexation and Bantustanization through “economic peace”
The Israelis, for the
last half a century, have been working on Bantustization. They have splintered
the West Bank, dotted it with Jewish settlements, and encircled the Palestinian
cities and villages, reducing them into several Bantustans (A term used by the
white rulers in apartheid South Africa for the Black African towns surrounded
from all sides by white settlements). Israelis have failed to achieve their
objective of cleansing the West Bank from Palestinians. The Palestinian
population in the occupied Arab territories has swelled to more than one
million people.
However, Netanyahu’s initial cockiness
was diluted when he realized the impracticability of his ambition. Perhaps the consequences
of the 1982 IDF siege of Beirut forewarned Netanyahu that his ambition would
lead the IDF into a viper’s nest in Gaza. Netanyahu now talks about only
expelling Hamas from Gaza, and Biden meekly seconds him. The thrust of Israel,
backed by the US and the EU, is to somehow persuade Egypt and Jordan to accept
the Hamas into their territories. Both these countries have refused.
Looking back, one finds that Israel defeated the regular Arab armies and
PLO in the 1948 and 1967 wars. The 1973 War was a strategic defeat for Israel
because, consequently, Israel had to vacate the Sinai Peninsula, Sharm el
Sheikh, and part of Golan Heights. Thereafter,
paramilitary organizations started mushrooming in Arab countries.
Palestine Islamic Jihad (P IJ) was established in 1979 by two
Egypt-based Palestinian activists influenced by the Muslim Brotherhood. They
escaped to Gaza in 1981 after the assassination of President Anwar Sadat. Islamic
Jihad continues its operations from Gaza.
In 1982 Hezbollah, a Shia militant organization backed by Iran, rose in
Lebanon from the ashes of PLO. In 2006, Hezbollah fought the Second Lebanon War with Israel.
After the 1973 Arab- Israel War, it was the first time IDF had suffered heavy
casualties, this time at the hands of an Arab militia, not a regular Arab Army. Hamas is a Sunni Islamist political and
military organization created in the Gaza Strip in 1987, While Hamas is
headquartered in Gaza City, it also has a presence in the West Bank where its
secular rival, Fatah, exercises control.
Will Israel succeed in expelling
Hamas from Gaza?
In 1982 PLO was expelled from Beirut
through a UN-brokered deal. It then re-established itself in Tunis. PLO was
forced to leave Beirut, not because of IDF, but because of the non-Israeli
anti-PLO forces in Lebanon- the Christian Phalangists and the Syria/Iran-backed
militant organizations. The Israeli siege
of Beirut had begun on 14 June 1982 after IDF completed the encirclement
of the city the previous day. The Israelis chose to keep the city under siege
rather than forcibly capture it, as they were unwilling to accept the heavy
casualties that the intense street fighting required to capture the city would
have resulted in. Israeli forces bombarded targets within Beirut from land,
sea, and air, and attempted to assassinate Palestinian leaders through
airstrikes. The Israeli Navy maintained a blockade on the port of Beirut
with a ring of missile boats and patrol boats supported by submarines.
Contrarily, there are no significant anti- Hamas militias in Gaza. IDF
does not want to get embroiled in - hand-to-fighting in Gaza like it was forced
in the first and second Lebanon wars. And Hamas is in no mood to vacate Gaza.
It is because, unlike in 1982, it has nowhere to go – both Egypt and Jordan
have refused to accept any Hamas elements on their soil. Whether or not
Hezbollah joins the war, Israel will face the threat of a two-front war. The
Israel- Saudi deal, backed by the US, has become a pipe dream. This is why the
much bragged about Israeli offensive against Hamas has lost its steam.
The Gaza Metro!
Since 2005, Hamas has built an underground city beneath Gaza.
It is a vast network of tunnels used for
bypassing the Israeli blockade on movement of eatables and utility items into
Gaza, and for fighting the Israeli occupation. The underground tunnel network allows Hamas and
other militant groups to store and shield weapons, gather and move
underground, communicate, train, launch offensive attacks, transport hostages,
and retreat without being detected by Israeli or Egyptian authorities. This
network of tunnels is colloquially referred to as the Gaza Metro.
The tunnel system runs beneath many Gazan towns and cities, such as Khan Yunis, Jabalia, and the Shati refugee camp. Typically, tunnel access points are hidden inside buildings, such as private homes or mosques, or camouflaged by brush, which impedes their detection via aerial imaging or drones. Access points and routes, starting in several homes or chicken coops, join together into a main route, and then branch off again into several separate passages leading into buildings on the other side.
According to BBC News:
The cross-border tunnels tend to be rudimentary, meaning they have barely any fortification. They are dug for a one-time purpose - invading Israeli territory. The tunnels inside Gaza are different because Hamas is using them regularly. They are constructed for prolonged warfare and equipped for a longer, sustained presence. The Hamas leadership uses the permanent infrastructure as command-and-control centres. They are equipped with electricity, lighting, and rail tracks.
The Gaza Metro is the reason Israel is hesitant to launch a large-scale ground invasion of Gaza. Till today, the IDF has inducted an armored brigade plus into Gaza. The Israeli losses in the city are estimated at 60 tanks and APCs. During the tank and APC losses alone, the IDF has suffered heavy casualties.
Saleem Akhtar Malik
6 November 2023
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