What's the plan in Gaza? Exactly?

Submitted by Devorgilla (United Kingdom), Jan 11, 2009 at 08:08

Yes, Olmert's a dud. I never understood why he gave up on control of the Gaza-Egyptian border. Maybe it's some kind of experiment with Egypt? This has been a disaster militarily, though diplomatically and politically Egypt has been more condemnatory of Hamas since and has also attempted to broker another cease-fire, but as an 'ally' Egypt is inept. Has Olmert forgotten the Six-Day War, and how easily Israel wiped out the entire Egyptian air force? It was like taking candy off a baby. How could Egypt have allowed the break-out from Gaza last year? Somebody was asleep on the watch... The cutting of fences? The bringing back of mattresses, motor-cycles as well as cooking oil, petrol, medicines? Sounds like massive incompetance (or worse) to me. Where did the Palestinians get the money for motor bikes? Doesn't sound 'starving' to me. Darfur, now, that's misery.

I never understood why he tolerated rocket attacks since 2005 and why he allowed the Hezbollah situation to develop in southern Lebanon, and why the pull-out from there. Another failed experiment? An attempt to build bridges with the paper-thin fragile Lebanese government?

And in the current action, I'm mystified why the bombing continues, awarding Hamas propaganda victories every day and stirring up world-wide anti-semitism. I'm also mystified as to why, when no western media are allowed in (apparently by Israel) our TV screens are filled with Israeli 'atrocities' in Gaza every day. Who's doing the filming? How is it getting out? Satellite? Mobile phones?

I'm not a military person but I would have thought that after an initial few days bombing action to demolish what military infrastructure Hamas had, the ground offensive would become much more like a policing action. Go into an area; seal it off; conduct house-to-house searches for weapons, tunnels, basements, take a census, etc.; then install a military presence and move on to the next area. Obviously the Egyptian border is where you would want to do most of this. It cannot be beyond the wit of man to detect tunnels with sonar devices and stuff archaeoligists use to figure if there has been ground disturbance. Ie. a high-tech, high-security operation. Apparently most of the missiles are remotely fired from tunnels with the detonaters (Hamas activists) being some distance from the launch site.

What has happened to the Israelis that they no longer fight smart?

Is it economics? If there are 10,000 IDF that's only one soldier to 150 Gazans.

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