The debate in Israel about the ground operation in the Gaza Strip is commanding all political and media attention as hundreds of thousands of reservists wait along the borders for the moment of truth.
Follow Israel Hayom on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram
Questions about the need for aerial softening, tunnel warfare, and defining the goals of the operation are being hurled into the air, and many find it altogether difficult to imagine how a large IDF ground operation in the Gaza Strip would look.
In the past few days, the American media have been abuzz with statements by senior US officials who are offering their Israeli peers points of comparison from another clash that's well known in Washington. In a talk with Defense Minister Yoav Gallant according to The New York Times – the American Secretary of Defense, Lloyd Austin, mentioned the battle that took place in the city of Fallujah, Iraq.
Video: 'It's a massacre' - Israeli kibbutz highlights destruction of Hamas attack / Credit: Reuters
"Actually, the United States fought two battles in Fallujah, in April 2004 and in November of that year, and both are relevant to an Israeli operation in the Gaza Strip," says Prof. Danny Orbach, military historian from the History and Asian Studies Departments of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. In Fallujah, situated in the "Sunni Triangle" of central Iraq, Islamist Sunnis launched an armed insurgency. The clumsy American attempt to enter the city and quash it ended in military and political disaster.
"It's specifically the First Battle of Fallujah that has much to teach us," Orbach says. "What happened is that the US was drawn into a response without preparations; it was simply swept into operating. The political echelon pressured the Marines to wade in without being prepared, without having intelligence, and in numerical inferiority to the insurgents. The insurgents also managed to block the roads and keep the Americans from bringing in reinforcements, while they themselves benefited from a flow of armed men from all over Iraq. The two Marine battalions that were sent to the city had to retreat after sustaining very heavy losses, and the US military recorded one of its most significant defeats in the twenty-first century.
"The fighting also became a media disaster when the American Air Force bombarded targets without intelligence and hundreds of civilians were killed. The Bush Administration was operating in a sensitive political situation and wanted to end the story fast. Instead, it got a story that was protracted and painful."
Invest in preparations
The Second Battle of Fallujah took place several months later. This time, the Americans came prepared. "They managed to enlist the Iraqi government in taking a larger part in the operation and even gave it a name in Arabic as the government requested. They came in with an impressive order of forces, lots of gear, and political patience, which is no less important." The reoccupation of Fallujah took a month and a half and a high toll in lives, but the insurgents' organizations were banished from the city, and control was handed over to the Iraqis.
Iraq provided another example of harsh warfare in urban terrain, an example that is hard to overlook ahead of the Israeli operation in Gaza: the battle for Mosul (2016–2017), controlled by the Islamic State. The population of the city, the second largest in Iraq, is about two million, approximating that of the Gaza Strip, and ISIS, which is often likened to Hamas, had plenty of time to dig in and organize for defense.
Even though the offensive was carried out by a coalition of the United States, the Kurdish militia, and other countries, it was the Iraqi army that shouldered the main burden of combat. ISIS fought for each and every building, booby-trapping the streets and using a ramified network of tunnels on the city's outskirts. "What the Iraqis did was occupy one neighborhood each time, take it over with special forces, cut off the routes leading to it, and move on to the next neighborhood," Orbach explains. It took the Iraqis, backed by US air support, nine months and thousands of dead until the city, totally laid waste, was finally cleared of ISIS.
Orbach concludes: "The most important thing you learn from the story of Mosul is that patience is needed here, both before and during the incursion, and willingness to realize that while there will be spot failures and there will be losses, ultimate victory is definitely possible."
Subscribe to Israel Hayom's daily newsletter and never miss our top stories!
