Whenever the ongoing war between Hamas and Israel ends, it will be studied with great interest by military planners.
The war’s outcome remains unclear at this point. Even when it ends, if such wars ever do, assessments will differ on the basis of the facts selected and the weight those facts are given.
For instance, there will be a debate over which fact to be given more weightage: the number of Palestinian civilians killed in Israeli aerial bombing or that Hamas’ October 7 attack has put the Palestinian issue on the front-burner again. Or even that the US-supported efforts to normalise Israel’s relations with its Arab neighbours sans any concessions to the Palestinians are at best moribund, at worst dead in the water.
But leaving the big politico-strategic questions aside, I find it a matter of deep interest to analyse the operational side of this ongoing war and see how an outnumbered light infantry (Hamas) has so far fared against aerial and artillery strikes, 24/7 drone surveillance, heavy armour advances (Tanks/APCs/D9 bulldozers) and direct firing, combat sappers, snipers, special operations forces and naval shelling from vessels blockading Gaza.
The amount of firepower available to Israel is obvious. So, what’s the situation on the 66th day of this war? Let’s begin with some positioning.
RT @swilkinsonbc "Hamas releases new footage of resistance operations in Khan Younis where the past 24 hours have been deadly for israeli troops | @Majstar7 pic.twitter.com/P0VNghV1d4"
— Richard Hardigan (@RichardHardigan) December 10, 2023
Planning for battles and executing those plans offer many dilemmas. One that stands out is finding the right balance between task completion and innovation. Officers and soldiers generally understand that the first casualty of any battle is the operational plan. To quote Mike Tyson, “Everyone has a plan until they are hit in the face.”
This is not to say that planning is unimportant. If anything, it is crucial, both for defensive and offensive operations. Operations are multilayered and multifaceted and everyone involved, from fighting to support elements, is crucial to the undertaking.
There are fundamentals and principles gleaned from experiences in the field, from the ground up. Drills and SOPs are important. But the conduct of war is constantly changing and asymmetric warfare requires something more than drilled responses. It requires innovation, improvisation, thinking soldiers at all levels, most importantly at levels where actually fighting is going on.
Planning for battles and executing those plans offer many dilemmas. One that stands out is finding the right balance between task completion and innovation. Officers and soldiers generally understand that the first casualty of any battle is the operational plan.
In other words, while planning can ground itself in the science of mathematics, war fighting is not just science. It’s an art. Losing sight of that fact normally comes at the cost of blood.
We witnessed the difference between central planning and initiative at the level of fighting echelons in the initial phases of Russo-Ukraine War. Russian troops waited for orders from higher command echelons. The Ukrainians, from what we know, took the initiative as the battle unfolded.
In his 1869 Instructions for Large Unit Commanders, Helmut Karl Bernhard von Moltke (the Elder) wrote as follows:
“In general, one does well to order no more than is absolutely necessary and to avoid planning beyond the situation one can foresee. These change very rapidly in war. Seldom will orders that anticipate far in advance and in detail succeed completely to execution.
“The higher the authority, the shorter and more general will the orders be. The next lower command adds what further precision appears necessary. The detail of execution is left to the verbal order, to the command. Each thereby retains freedom of action and decision within his authority.”
Strategic literature has noted that German junior officers during war-games routinely received problems that could only be solved by disobeying orders. Orders would specify the result to be achieved but not the method. This evidently put more emphasis on initiative than obedience. It also meant “mistakes were tolerated as long as they came from too much initiative rather than too little”.
For Moltke, the key principle was that “the subordinate is to act within the guidelines of his superior’s intent. Knowing his superior’s intent, the subordinate thus works toward achieving it.”
Let’s get to Hamas at this point. We now have a broad understanding of the strategic objectives: pull the IDF in and attrit it; use the spectacular attack to refocus international attention on the Palestinian issue; involve the Arab street to put pressure on Arab states; develop an understanding of the issue and show Israel up as a settler-colonial, apartheid state; influence international opinion; emerge as the undisputed leader organisation of the Palestinians; make clear that Israeli violence will beget a reaction.
Within this broader framework, as the war continues, are further objectives, such as leveraging Israeli hostages for a ceasefire, delivery of international aid to Gaza and release of all Palestinian prisoners. Simultaneously, if the ceasefire doesn’t happen, to attrit the invading force.
This is where tactics come in. It is clear that Hamas has prepared long and hard for this war. Four factors stand out: sustainment (the most crucial in any war, especially a drawn-out one); development and employment of anti-tank weapon systems and tactics; subterranean network used for sanctuary, movement, attack and exfiltration; deploying small groups which reconnoitre, engage and neutralise targets innovatively.
Body cam and other cam videos put out by Hamas on the social media show how they film Israeli soldiers, moving and/or resting, from their hideouts. There are also videos of tanks in the outer perimeter and tanks inside the contested zones being targeted and taken out.
It is difficult to determine whether the explosion is caused by the tank’s explosive reactive armour or the tank has been incapacitated since the Hamas attackers have to immediately exfiltrate after the strike. But there’s increasing video evidence of partial or full destruction of Merkavas and Namer APCs. That Hamas has studied the tank closely and gave its fighters a handy guide identifying the tank’s vulnerable points — ammo storage, turret ring and belly — shows the fighters know how to engage Israeli armour and have practised it.
Additionally, like the Ukrainians, Hamas fighters have also retrofitted commercially-available drones with bomblets and dropped those on Israeli armour. This is why we see footage of some Merkavas fitted with a metal roof and hardwired mesh for protection against a projectile hitting the tank from the air.
Ideally, Hamas would have liked, after inflicting losses on Israel and the IDF, to get a ceasefire under international pressure. That has not happened and it is safe to say that Hamas miscalculated on how long and how many civilian deaths it would take before the US, Israel’s backer, says, enough.
A very important point to note about the increasing capabilities of groups like Hamas and Hezbollah is technological knowledge. They are not ragtag groups armed only with the ubiquitous AKs. They are also adept in using Soviet/Russian-origin anti-tank weapons systems, shoulder-fired RPGs as well as ATGMs and MANPADS (though there are no reports thus far indicating Hamas using them against Israeli helicopters). Expert observers have also noted the use of tandem-charge anti-tank projectiles and explosively formed projectiles (EFPs) which are shape charges and are highly effective even against heavy armour.
But all these are separate pieces of the puzzle. In a fight technology gets wedded to the fighter. The fighter has to know what he is supposed to do and how to employ his weapon or the system. The commander of the small unit has to figure out how to create force asymmetry. The basic idea is to make the enemy fight like you want him to fight — and on your terms.
The IDF, on the other hand, has not fought a war since 2014. The Financial Times quoted Major General Yitzhak Brik, a former military ombudsman, as warning that Israel was “not ready for war”. It’s instructive that Israel constituted a commission of inquiry after the IDF’s poor performance against Hezbollah in the 2006 Lebanon War.
Much of the report remains classified but there have been summaries of its findings. It identified a number of weaknesses at all levels. The IDF worked on addressing those weaknesses. Among other things it constructed a middle-size urban town to train troops for battle against semi-regular adversaries in an urban environment. However, it has continued to rely on aerial ground attacks and armour and mechanised infantry. That remains a weakness.
Armour without effective infantry support in a built-up area, especially after aerial ground attacks have created rubble on the ground, remains badly exposed to anti-tank weapons — now also drones. To this is added Hamas’ subterranean advantage for movement, attacks and ex-fil.
This said, tactical and technological innovations may still not win the battle for Hamas. Ideally, Hamas would have liked, after inflicting losses on Israel and the IDF, to get a ceasefire under international pressure. That has not happened and it is safe to say that Hamas miscalculated on how long and how many civilian deaths it would take before the US, Israel’s backer, says, enough. As things stand both Israel and the US are committed to destroying Hamas’ military capabilities. Whether that can be done and how is a separate debate.
In the absence of any immediate ceasefire, Hamas would need the exact reverse of that — a drawn-out conflict. But that would depend on Hamas’ losses, how long it could sustain the fight and what losses it could inflict on the IDF. Also, in the event that it cannot hold out any longer, whether Hezbollah would be prepared to escalate vertically.
That remains an open question.