Israel at War – End of Week 2: Eliminating Hamas’ Nukhba Terrorists and Preparing for a Ground Operation
Amir Rapaport summarizes the second week of fighting, ahead of the next big phase
Amir Rapaport
| 19/10/2023
On Wednesday afternoon, Major General (res.) Yossi Bachar left his post at the IDF Southern Command in Be'er Sheva for a short while. The Command’s deputy commander went to kibbutz Dvir, in the northern Negev, to attend the funeral of his mother, who was murdered in Kibbutz Bari on October 7th.
Bachar himself participated in the heroic battles to liberate his kibbutz, jumping out of bed as Hamas launched its attack that fateful morning. He didn't have time for mourning this week. Immediately after the funeral, he returned to the Southern Command’s war room to continue planning the ground operation in Gaza, together with another reservist commander, Brigadier General (res.) Moshe (Chiko) Tamir – who had previously served as the commander of the Golani Brigade and the Gaza Division. This was the spirit of the time.
This is the zeitgeist.
The next phase
Will there be an IDF ground operation in the Gaza Strip? Everyone involved in planning this war estimates that there is no choice. It will happen. It is difficult to envision a scenario in which the defense establishment achieves the war outlined by the cabinet –dismantling the Hamas regime – without a ground maneuver, which includes the extraction of Hamas leaders from the underground tunnels and their elimination.
How can this be done? This is the great planning challenge entrusted to the Deputy Commander of the Southern Command, Bachar, and the operation planner, Tamir. Their key will be significant use of force – from the air, sea, and land, with advanced technological means. In any case, patience will be required. A lot of patience, endurance, and the use of tactics as much as possible.
Is the time that passes until the ground operation beneficial or harmful?
To a certain extent, the more the ground operation is delayed, the more the nerves of the forces will be strained, as will international legitimacy. A near diplomatic disaster occurred this week, with Hamas almost succeeding in pinning the civilian casualties in the Gaza City hospital – which was hit by an Islamic Jihad rocket – on Israel.
In the meantime, the second week of the war was dedicated to preparations for the ground maneuver. The political leadership has begun to prepare the public (as usual, through leaks) that this will not be a quick and easy operation. The eradication of Hamas and a comprehensive "cleansing" of the area could take months, and perhaps even years. For comparison, terror attacks went on for two years after the 2004 Operation Defensive Shield, in a decreasing manner.
The reduced security cabinet, with ministers from Benny Ganz’s National Unity party, delved into the military plans (the Tuesday night meeting lasted for more than 7 hours), going beyond any precedent in terms of a political discussion required for an operation.
The air shuttle of leaders from the United States, Germany, France, and the United Kingdom, was intended to show the world that Israel has a green light from the Western axis for a ground operation in Gaza, with all the difficult implications that will accompany it.
With the Americans, there are many more issues on the table, from securing the weaponry arriving via air, which possibly includes munitions previously not supplied to Israel, to coordinating calming messages given the arrival of the US aircraft carriers in the region.
The "Israel" brand has experienced a dramatic decline in value for months, reaching a crisis point in the last two weeks. From President Joe Biden's perspective, not only is Israel's deterrence capability now important, but also his message to the leaders of Iran and Hezbollah is clear: DON'T.
On the ground, opposite the Gaza Strip, the IDF and the Shin Bet continue their pursuit of the remaining terrorists who crossed the border nearly two weeks ago. On Wednesday, they apprehended a weary terrorist who surrendered easily. There are undoubtedly a few more still hiding here and there.
Preparations for a ground operation were apparent: armored personnel carriers, mobile artillery, tanks, radars, and countless hummers speeding between greenhouses and orchards, loaded with weaponry, along with pizza trays and take-out bags. This too is part of the zeitgeist: the people of Israel shower their soldiers with love – and food.
The IDF is training and mobilizing its forces. No less than 350,000 reservists have been called up for service alongside the regular army. Until the H-hour, the command will approve plans for the divisions, the divisions for the brigades, the brigade commanders to the class commanders, and so on.
The aerial bombardment
All the while, the aerial bombardment of Gaza has continued, in order to facilitate the entry of ground forces when the time comes. Thousands of targets have already been hit –more than during Operation Protective Edge and Operation Guardian of the Walls combined.
Most of these strikes are directed from dedicated fire control centers. In each of them, there are representatives from the Shin Bet, who participate in target identification and give the green light for their immediate attack.
In contrast to previous operations, the IDF has not launched warning rockets intended to alert civilians according to the "roof knocking" protocol. Shin Bet agents are still reaching out to Gaza residents and asking them to evacuate buildings, sometimes even entire neighborhoods, before strikes. The goal is not to achieve a large number of casualties but to target specific objectives while minimizing collateral damage.
This way, on Tuesday, an accurate missile strike killed Ayman Nofal, the commander of Hamas’ central divisions in the Gaza Strip. Nofal was considered the highest-ranking Hamas operative to be killed since the beginning of the war up to this point (there are more to come).
Nofal was number four in the military hierarchy of Hamas and a direct commander of the Nukhba force (Hamas commando unit) responsible for the massacres in kibbutz Be'eri and at the trance party near Re’im.
Generally speaking, the Shin Bet is currently managing two parallel war rooms for hunting Hamas in Gaza. In one, the objective is to systematically eliminate all Hamas operatives, at all ranks, with a focus on the most senior figures.
In the other war room, the focus is on hunting down and targeting all members of the Nukhba unit who personally participated in the attacks within Israeli territory, right up to the very last of them. To achieve this, the many visual images from the capture of the territory by Hamas are being analyzed.
Every Hamas member who has been documented will either be killed or arrested, sooner or later, even if it takes years. Their time will come, just as Israel had marked the operatives involved in the Munich Olympics massacre (albeit in much larger numbers) more than 50 years ago.
The hunt for the massacre participants has already begun with bombings of their homes. Within this context, several members of Ismail Haniyeh's family were killed this week in an airstrike on their home in Rafah. The defense establishment claims that they were active Hamas members and that it wasn’t just a punitive measure.
The Shin Bet has been conducting efficient interrogations of those arrested, which may shed light on the difficult question regarding the fate of the 203 Israelis held in the Gaza Strip (the current number of hostages at the time of writing). On behalf of the prime minister, Brigadier General (res.) Gal Hirsch has been leading this effort.
The IDF has two commands handling the issue: one, headed by Major General (res.) Lior Carmeli, deals with liaising with the families of the captives, while the other, led by Major General (res.) Nitzan Alon, gathers intelligence.
In addition to the IDF's military efforts, there is an incredible endeavor by some of the brightest minds in the Israeli high-tech industry who have come together at the Tel Aviv Expo, developing means to aid in the rescue of the captives.
As an aside, the ground operation planner in the IDF for the Gaza Strip, Brig. Gen. Moshe (Chiko) Tamir, is named after his grandfather, Moshe Duvdevany, who was considered missing in action from the War of Independence for over 50 years, until his grave was discovered under the name "John Doe" in the Nachlat Yitzhak cemetery in Tel Aviv.
From the public diplomacy point of view, the fact that Hamas and Islamic Jihad are holding women, children, and elderly people, as well as citizens of over 20 different countries, is considered a liability rather than an asset as far as Hamas is concerned.
However, in recent days it seemed that the chances of releasing some of the captives as a humanitarian gesture appear to be low. Israel’s compliance with the United States' request to allow food and water to enter the southern Gaza Strip through the Rafah crossing from Egypt, without receiving any sign of life from its hostages (except one), has sparked controversy.
The cabinet held a heated debate on the matter, but Israel ultimately aligned with the American position. It's possible that there are also behind-the-scenes negotiations occurring, far from public knowledge and the families of the captives. Time will tell.
And this too: One of the busiest commands in the IDF these days is currently located in Camp “Shora” near Ramle. It's hard to believe, but even two weeks after the start of the war, they are still engaged in identifying the bodies, many of whom were severely mutilated.
Leading this grim mission is the head of the Military Rabbinate's Unit for Identifying Fallen Soldiers, Yossi Katsenelenbogen, who was the first soldier of the Haredi (ultra-Orthodox) Nahal Brigade 23 years ago. In his civilian life, he now works as a contractor.
On the civilian front, the government, in general, continues to exhibit helplessness, and is not the one leading the effort to rehabilitate the displaced communities, both in the south and now also in the north.
One of the issues emerging is related to a decision taken about four years ago to dissolve the regional councils within the National Emergency Authority under the Ministry of Defense and to lay off most of its employees, shifting the responsibility to liaise with local authorities to the Home Front Command. The Home Front Command, as a military organization, is not particularly adept at handling this aspect.
One more thing: Just a few weeks before the war broke out, the Minister of Defense held an assessment of 400 casualties on the Home Front in the event of a multi-front war. This number is a far cry from the actual scale of the disaster that has unfolded. No one was prepared for such a catastrophe.
Meanwhile, in Northern Israel
During the preparations for the next stage of the war in the South, the situation in Judea and Samaria (the West Bank) only appears to be calm. The number of warnings about planned attacks is record-breaking, and one should assume that successful attacks will be executed while the ground forces are on the move.
Thanks to the IDF and Shin Bet’s thwarting efforts, over 60 Palestinians have been killed in the West Bank since October 7th.
Regarding the Arab citizens of Israel, that arena has been almost fully calm, except for a few protests that erupted on Tuesday evening when Israel was blamed for the bombing of the hospital in Gaza. The protests subsided as the truth was revealed.
The big question is what will happen in the north, where, in recent days, there have been dozens of fire exchanges, some lethal, between Israel and Hezbollah. Hezbollah even fired rockets at Kiryat Shmona.
Despite Hezbollah’s provocations, Israel remains committed to its decision to avoid a two-front war. However, the decision on whether another front will open will be made on the axis between Beirut and Tehran, not in Jerusalem. Will Nasrallah take the step that could lead Israel to respond with full force?
In the meantime, there is a growing consensus that without the clear US alignment with Israel and Biden's poignant message, accompanied by the American aircraft carriers, we might have already been in the midst of a multi-front war. How will Hezbollah respond when Israel launches the ground operation in the Gaza Strip? That, too, remains uncertain for now.
Unity
Until things become clearer, preparations for war are underway in the North as well, where there are no fewer reserve forces than in the South.
"This is a war for our home," said the Chief of Staff, Lieutenant General Herzi Halevy, to Major General Ori Gordin, the head of the Northern Command, on Tuesday. The meeting took place against the lush northern backdrop. With binoculars sticking out of his vest, Halevy looked just like he did when he commanded the General Staff Reconnaissance Unit.
"Each and every one of us is going to do everything, including risking our lives, because this is truly a battle for our home, for our civilians, for our sovereignty, for our deterrence, for our future. We must reach the point where every encounter will result in victory. If Hezbollah makes a mistake and attacks – then destruction, destruction, destruction," emphasized Halevy.
Back to the south. The tension is showing. Some of the commanders are already running out of patience, feeling that they are being restrained. Even at the political level, everything is not smooth, and the defense minister conveys in his words that there will be no way to avoid a ground operation at all.
Currently, morale on the ground is high. Every encounter with fighters reinforces this, showing how disconnected those who continue to engage in social division have become. Female and male fighters, religious and secular, a minimum level of politics. Who can believe that right before Simchat Torah, we were still arguing wholeheartedly over prayer in the heart of Tel Aviv?
At least we’ve achieved unity in this war.
Click here for the original column in Hebrew
Amir Rapaport summarizes the second week of fighting, ahead of the next big phase
On Wednesday afternoon, Major General (res.) Yossi Bachar left his post at the IDF Southern Command in Be'er Sheva for a short while. The Command’s deputy commander went to kibbutz Dvir, in the northern Negev, to attend the funeral of his mother, who was murdered in Kibbutz Bari on October 7th.
Bachar himself participated in the heroic battles to liberate his kibbutz, jumping out of bed as Hamas launched its attack that fateful morning. He didn't have time for mourning this week. Immediately after the funeral, he returned to the Southern Command’s war room to continue planning the ground operation in Gaza, together with another reservist commander, Brigadier General (res.) Moshe (Chiko) Tamir – who had previously served as the commander of the Golani Brigade and the Gaza Division. This was the spirit of the time.
This is the zeitgeist.
The next phase
Will there be an IDF ground operation in the Gaza Strip? Everyone involved in planning this war estimates that there is no choice. It will happen. It is difficult to envision a scenario in which the defense establishment achieves the war outlined by the cabinet –dismantling the Hamas regime – without a ground maneuver, which includes the extraction of Hamas leaders from the underground tunnels and their elimination.
How can this be done? This is the great planning challenge entrusted to the Deputy Commander of the Southern Command, Bachar, and the operation planner, Tamir. Their key will be significant use of force – from the air, sea, and land, with advanced technological means. In any case, patience will be required. A lot of patience, endurance, and the use of tactics as much as possible.
Is the time that passes until the ground operation beneficial or harmful?
To a certain extent, the more the ground operation is delayed, the more the nerves of the forces will be strained, as will international legitimacy. A near diplomatic disaster occurred this week, with Hamas almost succeeding in pinning the civilian casualties in the Gaza City hospital – which was hit by an Islamic Jihad rocket – on Israel.
In the meantime, the second week of the war was dedicated to preparations for the ground maneuver. The political leadership has begun to prepare the public (as usual, through leaks) that this will not be a quick and easy operation. The eradication of Hamas and a comprehensive "cleansing" of the area could take months, and perhaps even years. For comparison, terror attacks went on for two years after the 2004 Operation Defensive Shield, in a decreasing manner.
The reduced security cabinet, with ministers from Benny Ganz’s National Unity party, delved into the military plans (the Tuesday night meeting lasted for more than 7 hours), going beyond any precedent in terms of a political discussion required for an operation.
The air shuttle of leaders from the United States, Germany, France, and the United Kingdom, was intended to show the world that Israel has a green light from the Western axis for a ground operation in Gaza, with all the difficult implications that will accompany it.
With the Americans, there are many more issues on the table, from securing the weaponry arriving via air, which possibly includes munitions previously not supplied to Israel, to coordinating calming messages given the arrival of the US aircraft carriers in the region.
The "Israel" brand has experienced a dramatic decline in value for months, reaching a crisis point in the last two weeks. From President Joe Biden's perspective, not only is Israel's deterrence capability now important, but also his message to the leaders of Iran and Hezbollah is clear: DON'T.
On the ground, opposite the Gaza Strip, the IDF and the Shin Bet continue their pursuit of the remaining terrorists who crossed the border nearly two weeks ago. On Wednesday, they apprehended a weary terrorist who surrendered easily. There are undoubtedly a few more still hiding here and there.
Preparations for a ground operation were apparent: armored personnel carriers, mobile artillery, tanks, radars, and countless hummers speeding between greenhouses and orchards, loaded with weaponry, along with pizza trays and take-out bags. This too is part of the zeitgeist: the people of Israel shower their soldiers with love – and food.
The IDF is training and mobilizing its forces. No less than 350,000 reservists have been called up for service alongside the regular army. Until the H-hour, the command will approve plans for the divisions, the divisions for the brigades, the brigade commanders to the class commanders, and so on.
The aerial bombardment
All the while, the aerial bombardment of Gaza has continued, in order to facilitate the entry of ground forces when the time comes. Thousands of targets have already been hit –more than during Operation Protective Edge and Operation Guardian of the Walls combined.
Most of these strikes are directed from dedicated fire control centers. In each of them, there are representatives from the Shin Bet, who participate in target identification and give the green light for their immediate attack.
In contrast to previous operations, the IDF has not launched warning rockets intended to alert civilians according to the "roof knocking" protocol. Shin Bet agents are still reaching out to Gaza residents and asking them to evacuate buildings, sometimes even entire neighborhoods, before strikes. The goal is not to achieve a large number of casualties but to target specific objectives while minimizing collateral damage.
This way, on Tuesday, an accurate missile strike killed Ayman Nofal, the commander of Hamas’ central divisions in the Gaza Strip. Nofal was considered the highest-ranking Hamas operative to be killed since the beginning of the war up to this point (there are more to come).
Nofal was number four in the military hierarchy of Hamas and a direct commander of the Nukhba force (Hamas commando unit) responsible for the massacres in kibbutz Be'eri and at the trance party near Re’im.
Generally speaking, the Shin Bet is currently managing two parallel war rooms for hunting Hamas in Gaza. In one, the objective is to systematically eliminate all Hamas operatives, at all ranks, with a focus on the most senior figures.
In the other war room, the focus is on hunting down and targeting all members of the Nukhba unit who personally participated in the attacks within Israeli territory, right up to the very last of them. To achieve this, the many visual images from the capture of the territory by Hamas are being analyzed.
Every Hamas member who has been documented will either be killed or arrested, sooner or later, even if it takes years. Their time will come, just as Israel had marked the operatives involved in the Munich Olympics massacre (albeit in much larger numbers) more than 50 years ago.
The hunt for the massacre participants has already begun with bombings of their homes. Within this context, several members of Ismail Haniyeh's family were killed this week in an airstrike on their home in Rafah. The defense establishment claims that they were active Hamas members and that it wasn’t just a punitive measure.
The Shin Bet has been conducting efficient interrogations of those arrested, which may shed light on the difficult question regarding the fate of the 203 Israelis held in the Gaza Strip (the current number of hostages at the time of writing). On behalf of the prime minister, Brigadier General (res.) Gal Hirsch has been leading this effort.
The IDF has two commands handling the issue: one, headed by Major General (res.) Lior Carmeli, deals with liaising with the families of the captives, while the other, led by Major General (res.) Nitzan Alon, gathers intelligence.
In addition to the IDF's military efforts, there is an incredible endeavor by some of the brightest minds in the Israeli high-tech industry who have come together at the Tel Aviv Expo, developing means to aid in the rescue of the captives.
As an aside, the ground operation planner in the IDF for the Gaza Strip, Brig. Gen. Moshe (Chiko) Tamir, is named after his grandfather, Moshe Duvdevany, who was considered missing in action from the War of Independence for over 50 years, until his grave was discovered under the name "John Doe" in the Nachlat Yitzhak cemetery in Tel Aviv.
From the public diplomacy point of view, the fact that Hamas and Islamic Jihad are holding women, children, and elderly people, as well as citizens of over 20 different countries, is considered a liability rather than an asset as far as Hamas is concerned.
However, in recent days it seemed that the chances of releasing some of the captives as a humanitarian gesture appear to be low. Israel’s compliance with the United States' request to allow food and water to enter the southern Gaza Strip through the Rafah crossing from Egypt, without receiving any sign of life from its hostages (except one), has sparked controversy.
The cabinet held a heated debate on the matter, but Israel ultimately aligned with the American position. It's possible that there are also behind-the-scenes negotiations occurring, far from public knowledge and the families of the captives. Time will tell.
And this too: One of the busiest commands in the IDF these days is currently located in Camp “Shora” near Ramle. It's hard to believe, but even two weeks after the start of the war, they are still engaged in identifying the bodies, many of whom were severely mutilated.
Leading this grim mission is the head of the Military Rabbinate's Unit for Identifying Fallen Soldiers, Yossi Katsenelenbogen, who was the first soldier of the Haredi (ultra-Orthodox) Nahal Brigade 23 years ago. In his civilian life, he now works as a contractor.
On the civilian front, the government, in general, continues to exhibit helplessness, and is not the one leading the effort to rehabilitate the displaced communities, both in the south and now also in the north.
One of the issues emerging is related to a decision taken about four years ago to dissolve the regional councils within the National Emergency Authority under the Ministry of Defense and to lay off most of its employees, shifting the responsibility to liaise with local authorities to the Home Front Command. The Home Front Command, as a military organization, is not particularly adept at handling this aspect.
One more thing: Just a few weeks before the war broke out, the Minister of Defense held an assessment of 400 casualties on the Home Front in the event of a multi-front war. This number is a far cry from the actual scale of the disaster that has unfolded. No one was prepared for such a catastrophe.
Meanwhile, in Northern Israel
During the preparations for the next stage of the war in the South, the situation in Judea and Samaria (the West Bank) only appears to be calm. The number of warnings about planned attacks is record-breaking, and one should assume that successful attacks will be executed while the ground forces are on the move.
Thanks to the IDF and Shin Bet’s thwarting efforts, over 60 Palestinians have been killed in the West Bank since October 7th.
Regarding the Arab citizens of Israel, that arena has been almost fully calm, except for a few protests that erupted on Tuesday evening when Israel was blamed for the bombing of the hospital in Gaza. The protests subsided as the truth was revealed.
The big question is what will happen in the north, where, in recent days, there have been dozens of fire exchanges, some lethal, between Israel and Hezbollah. Hezbollah even fired rockets at Kiryat Shmona.
Despite Hezbollah’s provocations, Israel remains committed to its decision to avoid a two-front war. However, the decision on whether another front will open will be made on the axis between Beirut and Tehran, not in Jerusalem. Will Nasrallah take the step that could lead Israel to respond with full force?
In the meantime, there is a growing consensus that without the clear US alignment with Israel and Biden's poignant message, accompanied by the American aircraft carriers, we might have already been in the midst of a multi-front war. How will Hezbollah respond when Israel launches the ground operation in the Gaza Strip? That, too, remains uncertain for now.
Unity
Until things become clearer, preparations for war are underway in the North as well, where there are no fewer reserve forces than in the South.
"This is a war for our home," said the Chief of Staff, Lieutenant General Herzi Halevy, to Major General Ori Gordin, the head of the Northern Command, on Tuesday. The meeting took place against the lush northern backdrop. With binoculars sticking out of his vest, Halevy looked just like he did when he commanded the General Staff Reconnaissance Unit.
"Each and every one of us is going to do everything, including risking our lives, because this is truly a battle for our home, for our civilians, for our sovereignty, for our deterrence, for our future. We must reach the point where every encounter will result in victory. If Hezbollah makes a mistake and attacks – then destruction, destruction, destruction," emphasized Halevy.
Back to the south. The tension is showing. Some of the commanders are already running out of patience, feeling that they are being restrained. Even at the political level, everything is not smooth, and the defense minister conveys in his words that there will be no way to avoid a ground operation at all.
Currently, morale on the ground is high. Every encounter with fighters reinforces this, showing how disconnected those who continue to engage in social division have become. Female and male fighters, religious and secular, a minimum level of politics. Who can believe that right before Simchat Torah, we were still arguing wholeheartedly over prayer in the heart of Tel Aviv?
At least we’ve achieved unity in this war.
Click here for the original column in Hebrew
