Wednesday 3 January 2024

Israel going for precision strikes

After the mass bombardments of Gaza and the presence of thousands of troops from the Israel Defence Forces, it now seems the Tel Aviv government is switching to targeted precision strikes to eliminate Hamas. But precision strikes against the top Hamas leaders in Gaza are not going to be as easy as the attack on the Hamas deputy political leader sitting in a meeting in an apartment in the suburbs of Beirut. Of course it took exceptional intelligence to discover where Saleh al-Arouri was to make sure the drone missile was going to go through the right window. But the deputy leader of the Hamas political bureau, with close links to the military wing and to Hezbollah and Iran, was a relatively simple target. He was seen and identified by the drone operators in Israel and all they had to do was press a button. With the Hamas leaders in Gaza, identification was always going to be harder because they are underground. Whatever meetings they are attending are hundreds of feet below. Drones will neither find them nor kill them. The main two, Yahya Sinwar and Mohammed Deif, have remained out of sight since the IDF crossed over into Gaza and they are unlikely to emerge at any point. But with thousands of reservists now being sent home, the strategy is changing. Less fighting on a large scale and more intelligence-driven targeted attacks. This is why Netanyahu and his military commanders are warning the war could continue for many more months.

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