Israel on mission impossible to eliminate Hamas

Is Israel engaged in a “mission impossible” in Gaza? The stated aim of Operation Swords of Iron is to annihilate Hamas, but after more than two months of fighting and bombardment, that military objective would seem to be unrealistic. With the firepower and combat experience at its disposal, the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) will have started the full-scale war confident of its ability to destroy a terror organisation of 30,000-40,000 members, all within a strictly limited territorial area. However, as the world watched in increasing horror, it became clear that the only option open to the IDF for reaching the Hamas fighters operating underground was to bomb everything above them. In the process, more than 18,000 Palestinians, many of them women and children, have been killed. Israel claims around a third – more than 5,000 - were “enemy combatants”. The history of warfare in recent decades has demonstrated that initial military objectives can be overblown or beyond reach or, in some cases, subject to mission creep. The US-led war against the Islamic State (Isis) was in many respects a successful mission, although it took four years. In September, 2014, President Obama, in an address from the White House declared his intention to “degrade and ultimately destroy” Isis. In December, 2018, President Trump claimed Isis had been defeated. And yet, five years later, the Isis ideology remains a potent threat in many parts of the world . The terrorist organisation’s affiliated franchises are operating in Syria, Iraq and throughout Africa, especially Mozambique, Burkino Faso, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Nigeria and Mali, as well as in Afghanistan and Pakistan. It took the US-led coalition 20 years to accept that its overall objective of converting Afghanistan into a democratic nation capable of defending itself without outside help was a mission too far. The Taleban, only ever about 80,000-strong, was initially routed in 2001, but came back from their hideouts in Pakistan to challenge the western-backed Kabul government. In 20 years of war, the US-led mission had multiple objectives. But the priority ones were to ensure al-Qaeda could never again enjoy a safe haven in Afghanistan, that the Taleban movement be wiped out and the Afghan security forces trained and equipped to withstand all future challenges. In the two decades it took for the Taleban to return to power, after the collapse of the Afghan army, and watch their western enemies hastily withdrawing, more than 48,000 Afghan civilians were killed. In the war in Gaza, the IDF has systematically bombed the buildings highlighted on a comprehensive target list of locations where Hamas has been known to operate from in the past and during the current conflict. Yet Hamas is still operating as a fighting unit, it is holding about 130 hostages as a permanent brake on IDF combat missions, and the killing of so many civilians may now compel Israel’s war cabinet, under pressure from Washington, to change its tactics from wholesale bombardment to precision assaults by special forces. Lloyd Austin, the US defence secretary, warned two weeks ago that Israel risked “strategic defeat” if Palestinian civilians were not protected. He was criticised by Senator Lindsey Graham, a leading Republican hawk. Graham called him naive. However, the fate of Palestinian civilians is now at the heart of Washington’s concerns about the way Israel is prosecuting the war. A tactical victory, such as the killing of Yahya Sinwar, the Hamas leader in Gaza, and the elimination of his command structure, could prove to be a false dawn if the ideology of the terrorist-designated organisation spreads throughout the civilian population, and a new generation of fighters emerges.