(Dan Tri) – Hamas’s system of traps and ambushes is causing Israeli soldiers participating in the ground campaign in Gaza to face increasing threats.
Israeli soldiers fighting in Gaza (Photo: Reuters).
Reuters reported that Israeli military casualties in Gaza were nearly double the number recorded in the ground military campaign that Tel Aviv carried out in 2014 in this strip of land.
Israeli military experts, an Israeli commander and a Hamas source described to Reuters how the Palestinian armed group used its large arsenal of weapons, its knowledge of the terrain and its vast network of tunnels to transform the Palestinian army.
Hamas possesses relatively diverse weapons for guerrilla attacks, including UAVs with grenades to powerful anti-tank missiles.
Since Israel’s ground campaign began in late October, about 110 Israeli soldiers have been killed as tanks and infantry advanced on cities and refugee camps, according to official Israeli figures.
During the 2014 conflict, when Israel launched a three-week ground offensive into Gaza, it recorded 66 soldiers killed.
`It is impossible to compare the scale of this war with 2014, when Israeli forces barely advanced more than 1km inside Gaza,` said Yaacov Amidror, a retired Israeli major general.
However, he admitted that Israel has not yet found a good solution for Hamas’s tunnels, a network that has been significantly expanded by this group over the past 10 years and is causing Tel Aviv to face a series of difficulties with its attacks.
Israel’s military campaign was launched after the October 7 attack by Hamas gunmen that killed 1,200 people and took more than 200 hostages.
Despite pressure from the international community, Israel announced that it would maintain the war until it achieved `absolute victory` against Hamas.
`It was a challenge from day one. We knew there would be a price to pay to complete the mission,` admitted Ophir Falk, policy advisor to the Israeli Prime Minister.
Hamas has frequently posted videos in recent times that it describes as attacks on Israel using shoulder-fired rockets, explosives, and UAVs.
An anonymous Hamas source told Reuters that the force’s gunmen sought to move as close as possible to conduct ambushes on Israeli soldiers, taking advantage of their knowledge of Gaza’s terrain.
Thanks to that, Hamas gunmen can move from one point to another or go down tunnels to attack, surprising Israel.
An Israeli commander, who participated in the war in 2014, said Tel Aviv’s expansion of the scope of its military campaign meant it sent more troops to Gaza.
Eyal Pinko, a former senior official of the Israeli intelligence agency, commented: `Hamas has made great strides in its efforts to build its forces since 2014.`
He said that Iran appears to have sent Hamas more modern weapons, such as Russian-made Kornet anti-tank missiles.
In response, Israel is trying to take advantage of its superior military capabilities, including the use of modern UAVs, to reduce the surprise of Hamas’s guerrilla attacks.
