The Real Gaza Massacre

[flagadajones]

http://www.strategypage.com/htmw/htinf/articles/20090119.aspx

The Real Gaza Massacre
January 19, 2009: The new Israeli combat tactics in Gaza were a great success. Between January 3rd, when Israeli ground forces first entered Gaza, until Israel declared a unilateral ceasefire on January 18th, Hamas fighters were useless against Israeli ground troops. So far, 13 Israelis and 1300 Palestinians have died in the fighting. Hamas combat units tended to be quickly wiped out. The Israelis were much more aggressive than they were two years ago in southern Lebanon, and this was largely the result of a training course all Israeli troops had to go through before entering Gaza, and growing anger at the ceaseless Hamas rocket attacks on Israel..

 

Two years ago, Israel opened a new urban warfare training center. The complex consists of 500 structures, including several multistory ones, duplicating what soldiers would encounter if they had to fight in, say, Gaza. The new center cost $40 million and was built with the help of the U.S. Army (which has a lot of recent experience fighting Arabs in urban areas). Israel already has several smaller urban training centers, built to give new troops some experience in what they might encounter in the Palestinian territories. But the 2006 operations in Lebanon showed that many reservists not only lacked urban warfare training, but also training tailored for conditions in Lebanon or Gaza. The new training center allows entire battalions to train together, as they would in an urban environment. The complex is covered with over a thousand sensors, mostly small vidcams, which capture the activities of the troops for playback and critique. American style MILES (laser tag) equipment is used to realistically recreate the effects of weapons. Other troops and local civilians are used to play the enemy, and civilians, in the training exercises. Although Israel doesn't use women soldiers in combat, women do serve as instructors for combat skills. In the new training center, they often play the role of the enemy, and the Israeli troops usually know when this is the case, because the women soldiers are quite good.

 

Most of the troops that went into Lebanon in 2006, had been pulling peacekeeping duty in the West Bank for the last few years, and were trained for that. This meant that the different kind of training required for Lebanon or Gaza had not been done for a long time. The Israeli troops in Lebanon adapted, but that took time. But there wasn't a lot of time and the war up there was soon over. It's different in Gaza. The troops go in knowing what to do and how to quickly do it. Moreover, the Lebanon operation was a surprise, no one expected it. But Israelis have been demanding for years that something be done to stop the thousands of rockets being fired out of Gaza. Israelis were pissed, and the troops went aggressively and determined to do something about it. The Gaza operations was the result of months of planning. For the Israelis, there were no surprises.

 

Hamas was not expecting the expert and aggressive behavior of the Israeli troops. Hamas propaganda had led their fighters to believe that it would be like Lebanon, with Israeli troops advancing slowly and uncertainly. Moreover, the Hezbollah fighters in Lebanon were better trained and led than their Hamas counterparts. Hamas had become complacent, tending to believe their own propaganda of Jewish inferiority to Arabs.

 

As a result, most of the claimed 20,000 Hamas gunmen have deserted their units, leaving only some of the officers (5-10 percent of each unit) to carry on. By the second week of January, Israeli troops were mainly encountering Hamas officers in combat. Hamas had made elaborate plans to hit the Israelis with snipers, ambushes, remotely controlled bombs and booby traps in houses. But there were few Hamas fighters around to do all this, and the plans fell apart.

 

Even a special unit of about a hundred fighters, that had received combat training in Iran, was quickly wiped out when they fought the Israelis. This was very embarrassing for Iran, which had promised to turn the 20,000 Hamas gunmen into a crack fighting force. Back in Iran, this failure was blamed on the Arabs, who Iranians generally despise as lazy and stupid. Hamas doesn't know who to blame, although many Palestinians believe Hamas had deceived itself, and disappointed all Palestinians, and the Arab world as well.

 

In retrospect, Hamas should have seen this coming. The Israelis tore apart Fatah fighters during West Bank battles in 2002. Those Israeli troops were trained to slug it out. It was after 2002 that Israeli troops began to specialize on counter-terrorism tactics, as Israel was desperate to halt the Palestinian suicide bombing campaign inside Israel. The Israelis did, but at the cost of their troops losing their conventional combat chops. Moreover, this time around Israel was using more UAVs (live overhead video of the battlefield, allowing commanders to more effectively deploy and command their troops.) There were also some new smart bombs and electronic warfare weapons. Hamas did not pay attention, were not prepared, and got blown away.

January 20, 2009: Israel has ended, for now, it's operations in Gaza. Their main goal appeared to be crippling Hamas combat power, and cutting the smuggling routes (the tunnels under the Egyptian border). Hamas suffered heavy losses, with dozens of buildings and compounds (used for barracks, weapons storage, bomb building and headquarters) destroyed. About 70 percent of the Palestinians killed were Hamas employees, including 350 who came out to fight the Israeli infantry. The failure of Hamas fighters to show up for the ground war was a big loss of face for the terrorists. Hamas has a major goal of killing Jews and destroying Israel, and their performance in the 22 day war made it clear that this terrorists organization was terrified of their victims. Only 13 Israelis were killed in the entire campaign, four of them to friendly fire. Losing a hundred people for each of the enemy killed is not making Hamas any more popular in Gaza. Hamas seemed to sense this, and sent death squads around to kill or wound Fatah supporters they thought might try to take advantage of the chaos.

 

Nevertheless, Hamas declared victory. It's traditional in the Arab world that, if you fight Israel and still have possession of your capital at the end of hostilities, you can declare that the Arabs won. No matter how many battles your troops lost, if you can still issue a press release declaring victory after the shooting stops, it counts as a win (apparently because the Israelis had the ability to utterly crush you, but were stopped by steely Arab resolve). This particular charade is growing threadbare with over-use, and this time around, even many Arabs are openly disappointed with the Hamas "defeat" (or "lack of victory.")

 

The Israelis did not go into the cities, where Hamas fighters would have had the biggest advantage. But this, and the extensive use of smart bombs only against Hamas targets, also greatly limited civilian casualties (about 400 dead and 1,500 wounded among a population of 1.5 million). In those cities, Palestinians openly expressed their anger at Hamas. To most Palestinians, Hamas brought the war on by constantly violating the June-December cease fire by firing rockets into Israel. Now more Palestinians see Hamas as terrorists who don't much care for the people they say they are supporting. Since Hamas took over two years ago, live has gotten worse for the residents of Gaza, and Hamas doesn't seem to care. Now it's obvious that Hamas can't even defend itself.

 

Israel believes that, unless there are better security measures installed on the Egyptian border, Hamas will build more tunnels and continue smuggling in long range rocket components. With that in mind, it should be remembered that there's only a ceasefire in place at the moment. The Israelis aren't quitting, they're just halting. And, despite the ceasefire, Hamas is still firing rockets, and shooting at Israeli soldiers. Israel has promised to respond if Hamas does not stop shooting. And the final blow is an announcement from the European Union that they will not contribute reconstruction funds for Gaza, as long as Hamas is running the place. Arab countries have pledged billions for reconstruction, but even these Arab countries want to attach strings to the cash, to hinder Hamas from diverting the money to other uses.

[Camel Jockey]

What does this have to do with bodybuilding?

Take it to the politics forum. I'm tired of the this Israel/Palestine shit. They can wipe each other out for all I care.

[flagadajones]

What does this have to do with bodybuilding?

Take it to the politics forum. I'm tired of the this Israel/Palestine shit. They can wipe each other out for all I care.

It's hapenning in the same world you live in moron 

I thought someone who voted for obonga would be more open minded toward the rest of the world 

[Camel Jockey]

It's hapenning in the same world you live in moron 

I thought someone who voted for obonga would be more open minded toward the rest of the world 

People come here for laughs(at least I do). There were already so many inauguration related topics, it seemed like more than enough politics for the day.

Take it to the politics forum unless you plan to talk about Israeli men in thongs.

[onlyme]

It's hapenning in the same world you live in moron 

I thought someone who voted for obonga would be more open minded toward the rest of the world 

Hey does your mom know you are playing on her computer.  You better get back to bed before you get grounded.

[slacker]

http://www.strategypage.com/htmw/htinf/articles/20090119.aspx

im with the jews on this one

[Peaking at 45 !!!]

What does this have to do with bodybuilding?




It has everything to do with bodybuilding! If the Hamas were into bodybuilding  they would be too busy training and eating 6 meals a day which would leave no time for terror activities ! Pretty basic stuff if you ask me !