Israeli-Palestinian Conflict and other Related Conflicts in the Middle East (read the rules in the first post)
- Thread starter phrozenflame
- Start date
— /// Fourth day of the war, October 10th, status update and major events:
– Israeli death toll surpasses 1000.
– Hamas is pushed out of most settlements around Gaza, except Be'eri, Kisufim and Nahal Oz.
– Hamas carries out sporadic marine landings on the beach of Zikkim, and assaults the adjacent IDF outpost.
– Israel approves calling up to 360.000 reservists into the IDF.
– Relentless bombing campaign of Gaza continues as in the previous days.
– Major rocket launches by Hamas towards Ashkelon.
– Al-Qassam fires a salvo of rockets from Lebanon into the Galilee, promting an Israeli response with artillery and white phosphorus.
– Hezbollah targets and destroys an Israeli Zelda M-113 APC across the Lebanese border in Avivim, and Israeli Apache helicopters strike a Hezbollah observation tower in retaliation.
– IDF mistakes members of the Israeli police for Hamas members in Ashdod, leading to a friendly fire incident.
– The Israeli occupied Golan Heights are struck by mortar fire from Syria, promting IDF artillery to fire at unidentified targets in the vincinity of the Syrian town of Quneitra.
@Middle_East_Spectator
– Israeli death toll surpasses 1000.
– Hamas is pushed out of most settlements around Gaza, except Be'eri, Kisufim and Nahal Oz.
– Hamas carries out sporadic marine landings on the beach of Zikkim, and assaults the adjacent IDF outpost.
– Israel approves calling up to 360.000 reservists into the IDF.
– Relentless bombing campaign of Gaza continues as in the previous days.
– Major rocket launches by Hamas towards Ashkelon.
– Al-Qassam fires a salvo of rockets from Lebanon into the Galilee, promting an Israeli response with artillery and white phosphorus.
– Hezbollah targets and destroys an Israeli Zelda M-113 APC across the Lebanese border in Avivim, and Israeli Apache helicopters strike a Hezbollah observation tower in retaliation.
– IDF mistakes members of the Israeli police for Hamas members in Ashdod, leading to a friendly fire incident.
– The Israeli occupied Golan Heights are struck by mortar fire from Syria, promting IDF artillery to fire at unidentified targets in the vincinity of the Syrian town of Quneitra.
@Middle_East_Spectator
This is a myth very carefully curated by IDF. IDF was never "good" just better than its opponents.
IDF had a huge advantage in organisation and morale which are always the two most important factors in any war. Organisation affects the ability to apply complexity in planning and execution and morale is responsible for the will to fight. All IDF's opponents had neither because Israel enjoyed the advantage of having a coherent purpose that was understood throughout all of society and that came from the legacy of European nationalism which shaped Zionism. The Arab countries didn't because their countries were still tribal constructs unified under political structures which were imitations of their European equivalents. In other words IDF had the same advantage over Arabs that French revolutionary armies had over their monarchical opponents.
But even then that was true of IDF until 1980s. After Oslo Accords de facto prevented the creation of Palestinian state the threat of a foreign military signing an alliance with Palestine was eliminated. Egypt signed a peace treaty and was happy to disengage. Jordan is worried about its own stability. Syria can only project power through a narrow corridor which contributed to instability in Lebanon but hasn't changed the situation. There were no more credible threats to Israel on its borders.
And that over time eroded that sense of purpose that made IDF personnel more effective than its enemy. With that came erosion of discipline and dedication to maintaining fighting potential.
The entire experience that IDF ground force has currently is from occupation. The last direct action was 17 years ago in 2006 in Lebanon and it ended poorly.
IDF hasn't participated in any larger ground operations since then and while the cadre maintains engagement and develops doctrine e.g. by assisting Azerbaijan vs Armenia it's not the same as having an entire force involved in combat. The problem of institutional knowledge exists on all levels of the institution. Hezbollah is experienced as a whole and their experience fits "train as you fight, fight as you train" principle. IDF can't do the same both in terms of skill and equipment.
The Military Balance 2021 lists IDF ground force at 126k with 26 of them being pro cadres and 100k conscripts. 26k and whatever number of officers in reserve - that's the entirety of professional cadre. The rest is regular people with 32 months of service (2 years, 8 months) who really hate that job.
Consider the reasons for putting the barrier around Gaza. It was not to prevent incursions but to reduce the manning requirement. Why did IDF reduce manning requirement? Because they were seeking to reduce the overall cost of maintaining military and shift resources to the West Bank where ever growing number of illegal settlements required protection. This illustrates a negative feedback cycle where diminishing capabilities require investment in technology to offset that reduction which further drives reduction in capabilities.
War in Ukraine demonstrates that quality of fighters is still the most important factor. Both Russia and Ukraine do best with their best troops in action. It's been four days and IDF still hasn't regained control over territory where Hamas put its fighters. Why? Because IDF has to perform all operations with conscripts who have very little experience in that type of combat and therefore will try to build numerical advantage, ensure information superiority etc etc. They are too cautious. They are afraid to die.
Hamas isn't.
IDF has one clear advantage - technology. However that advantage is most heavily concentrated in the two areas that can't help in combating irregular forces, especially in urban terrain: air force and navy. Along with air defenses this is also where majority of funding in recent years went
Air force is very useful against indirect threats and attacking Hezbollah targets in Lebanon or Syria or bombing Gaza but it's not helpful when IDF infantry fights in Israeli towns against Hamas infantry. Israeli air force can't do CAS well because it hasn't done it and isn't suited to that purpose.
If we take TMB2021 as source:
AIRCRAFT - 334 combat capable
- 16 F-15A
- 6 F-15B
- 17 F-15C
- 19 F-15D
- 25 F-15I (E)
- 50 F-16C
- 49 F-16D
- 98 F-16I (D)
- 24 F-35A
It's not that many if we consider attrition, let alone losses to missile strikes.
As for ground forces:
MBT:
330 Merkava IV and 160 Merkava III in active service with ~900 tanks of both types in reserve.
IFV/APC:
260 Namer, ~100 Achzarit (modified T-55 chassis), ~400 Nagmachon (Centurion chassis)
500 M113A2 (5,000 M113A1/A2 in store)
Artillery:
250 M109A5 in active serivce only (!) with 300+ artillery pieces in reserve.
This is the force that now needs to:
- secure northern border with Syria and Lebanon
- secure West Bank
- regain lost territory and secure Gaza
- enter Gaza and eliminate Hamas and Islamic Jihad
This is 300k over the active reserve limit. This means IDF announced general mobilisation of the population and we can expect more in the future.
It also means that they are very afraid of internal instability meaning an uprising in occupied West Bank and that they are expecting both heavy fighting and high losses in Gaza.
Also it's 9,8% of total population because conscription affects only Jews (7,18m) and minorities (550k) other than Arabs ~7,73m out of 9,8m. Combined with population of Gaza (2,4m) and West Bank (3m) that's ~7,4 million Arabs.
If we include 170k active service it's 12% but I'm not sure if active service isn't already included - see how Russia reports mobilisation numbers. But total mobilisation isn't unexpected.
This war is absolutely existential to Israel in its current form. If they lose it in any way it will mean likely declaration of independence for Palestine in West Bank and possibly withdrawal from Golan Heights. Not sure what happens in Gaza - that depends on how the operation there is conducted.
Beyond signalling presence and serving as tripwire in any escalation?
Two CGNs have between them 8-10 E-2s as well as all the AN/SPY-1 in escort to augment Israeli air defense radars. Hezbollah has an order of magnitude (if not two) more missiles than Hamas. It also may have more capable air defenses.
If you look at the number of combat capable fighters 334 is not that many and two carrier wings provide additional 100 fighters as a deterrent effectively releasing whatever IDF has signed off for south Lebanon.
If Hezbollah decides to enter the fight even in terms of exchage of fires it will be a meat-grinder for any force stationed on the northern border and while they won't cross the line for all the reasons that I listed previously they will keep poking IDF constantly to never give them a moment of peace. Hezbollah will want IDF to advance because they're prepared for defense. And Hezbollah of 2023 is incomparably more capable than Hezbollah of 2006.
Also let's not forget that Israel annexed Golan Heights in 2019 and the US is the only country that recognises it as Israeli territory.
Syria wants it back because Golan Heights provide access to the single most important resource in the region: fresh water. Israel and Jordan are two of the most water-deprived countries in the world, and Syria is not far behind.
According to livemap IDF bombed SAA positions near Golan Heights 2 hours ago.
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Hamas is a terrorist group. But what is the context here. You can’t expect me not to rebel if I live under occupation. If you treat me like a monster I’m going to turn into a monster.
Quite impressive for such small group.
I disagree with the killing of civilians from both sides by the Israelis and Hamas but I am quite impress by the tactics of this group.
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The death toll among Israelis has risen to about 1,200 — Hebrew Media
Looks like NATO is moving offshore as a show of force.
If the Russians really wanted to twist the knife, they'd find ways to sink a Five Eyes carrier as NATO did to Russian naval ships in the Black Sea.
I believe very few countries of the world used that label.
Anyways, Hamas was an Israeli creation
Israel actually had the ability to solve the root cause but instead they pushed more settlement and intensified the occupation.
With what plane? US Marine F35B.
