Forbes | July 31, 2024

RAFAH, Gaza July 25, 2024—Departing from the border crossing Kerem
Shalom, at the intersection of Israel, Egypt, and Gaza this past week, I traveled
through this ancient city’s suburbs to the shores of the Mediterranean and
back—the first U.S. general officer (active or retired) to travel across Gaza
during this war.

Gaza presents an extraordinarily difficult adversary environment, yet the
Israel Defense Forces (IDF) are doing remarkable work in defending their
nation while protecting Palestinian civilian lives. Their integration of effects
from all domains to achieve their objectives while at the same time minimizing
risk to civilians is exemplary. Unfortunately, negative perceptions on social
media and elsewhere, based on a combination of disinformation, ignorance,
and anti-Semitism, indicates there is a wide gap between the reality I
witnessed and the perceptions promulgated in the media. Israel was brutally
attacked and is obligated to respond in a manner to prevent that from ever
happening again. War free of civilian casualties is not possible, but Israel is
doing all in its power to keep military effects focused on the Hamas terrorist
army.

Entering Gaza just past the Kerem Shalom crossing was a new road lined on
both sides with dozens of trucks, most of them carrying food. The road was
constructed by the IDF to make it easier to get food, water, fuel, and other
essential supplies to the civilian population. An Israeli Druze colonel in the
IDF, responsible for coordinating humanitarian access, explained that the
numbers vary on average between 200 to 240 trucks a day that enter Gaza to
deliver food and other humanitarian aid. Some days the number goes even
higher. At these levels, assertions that Israel is intentionally starving Gazan
civilians are simply not credible.

The average man needs 2500 calories a day to maintain a stable diet; the
average woman needs 2000. At current levels, there is enough aid entering
Gaza daily to support over a 3,000 calorie a day diet. But food insecurity
remains a challenge in Gaza, IDF officials say, because Hamas and criminal
gangs continue to hijack and steal relief supplies. If relief supplies are not
reaching civilians in Gaza, the fault lies with Hamas and its fighters.
Driving into the city of Rafah, I witnessed a substantial level of destruction.
Yet despite claims that excessive force applied by the IDF is the cause, an
informed understanding of military tactics and operations indicates that
reality is more nuanced. To understand the IDF’s actions, one must first
understand how Hamas operates. Fundamental to Hamas’ mode of operations
is its strategic choice to blend into the civilian population. It does so for three
reasons:

· First, to confuse and confound the IDF by deception.

· Second, to increase the probability that Palestinian civilians are killed in
error by the IDF by creating confusion between belligerents and
noncombatants.

· And third, to use Palestinian civilians as human shields as a means of
defense.

The fact is the killing of Palestinian civilians is a cruel and illegal element of
Hamas’ strategy. While there is no denying that civilians are dying because of
the unintentional collateral effects of IDF combat action, it is Hamas that
bears responsibility. They started this conflict with their October 7, 2023,
attack on Israel. Their tactics deliberately expose Palestinian civilians to
combat by pervasively embedding its fighters among the civilian population.
Combined, this means Hamas, not the IDF, is responsible for the civilian
casualties in this war.

Hamas counts on media coverage and attention to civilian deaths to shift
blame to Israel. The tactic they use to do this is to stash weapons, explosives,
or rockets into every structure where, or near where, they will be operating—
mosques, hospitals, schools, shops, apartment buildings, and personal
residences. They walk the streets in civilian clothes with no weapons, then
duck into a building knowing where weapons are stored and use them against
the IDF. They depart the building without any weapons, resuming their
civilian appearance. Under the laws of armed conflict, this methodology turns
each structure they use into a legitimate military objective subject to attack.
Some of these buildings are booby-trapped to kill IDF personnel if they enter
them.

The IDF take measures to minimize destruction when feasible and often
subject its own forces to substantial risk to mitigate civilian casualties. Indeed,
the IDF refrains from attacking Hamas operatives when they brazenly
interdict and steal humanitarian supplies to avoid additional killings and
violence.

The military activities I saw, and the processes and procedures that are in
place and followed by the Israeli military, are indicative that the IDF complies
with the laws of armed conflict. In those cases where there may be a question
of misconduct or errors in force application, they are investigated by a judicial
arm of the IDF separate from the chain of command and legal action
appropriate to the case applied. IDF personnel are legally held accountable for
their actions. Israel employs measures not just to comply with international
law, but because Israelis know that, whenever hostilities end, they will still be
living with the Palestinians as neighbors.

These perspectives are backed up with evidence. According to the Chair of
Urban Warfare Studies at Modern War Institute at West Point, John Spencer,
“Israel has done more to prevent civilian casualties in war than any military in
history.” His studies reveal that the ratio of enemy belligerent deaths to
civilian deaths in Gaza is on the order of 1 to 1.0-1.5. Others estimate that ratio
to be on the order of 1 to 2. World famous historian Lord Andrew Roberts gave
a compelling expose in the House of Lords to the same effect. In similar urban
terrain in Mosul, Iraq, from 2016 to 2017, the ratio was 1 to 2.5. The United
Nations estimates that the nominal ratio of belligerent casualties to civilian
casualties in wars of all types is on the order of 1 to 9. While the effects of
combat are not conclusive regarding the implementation of law of armed
conflict obligations, they are certainly relevant. It is hard to square the
accusations of indifference to Palestinian civilians and indiscriminate warfare
with these statistics.

Hamas also sought to gain a shielding effect from Israel’s obvious interest in
avoiding confrontation with Egypt. I drove past Hamas rocket launch
positions located feet from Gaza’s border with Egypt. Hamas positioned them
there using the co-location of their rocket launch positions and the border
knowing that the Israeli Air Force would not strike positions so close to Egypt.
This is the same logic Hamas and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad use for
occupying and using sites prohibited by the laws of armed conflict for their
military operations—hospitals, mosques, schools, United Nations (UN)
facilities, etc. It is important to realize that the law of armed conflict does not
categorically prohibit attack on such locations, and that when an enemy
transforms such locales into military objectives, such strikes are allowable.
This is often the case in Gaza as the result of Hamas’ pervasive efforts to
exploit these locations for military advantage.

In our move to the coast, we also drove over an underground city of
tunnels not unlike those used by subways and trains in New York City. For
years, Hamas has diverted resources intended for the betterment of the
Palestinian civilians to build this underground city to protect its terrorist
activities in Gaza. There, in underground bunkers, they produce rockets and
bobby traps; run command centers for the Hamas army leadership; imprison
hostages; store ammunition; and more. Troop assembly areas; smuggling
operations; operational maneuver; logistics operations; and even server farms
are housed in the Hamas tunnel system. And where does all the electric power
needed to keep this underground city operating come from? It is diverted from
civilian hospitals, apartments, offices, and even UN facilities.

That is why a critical IDF operational objective is to locate, destroy, or
otherwise seal off these tunnels. Hamas’ use of their tunnel city enabled them
to set the conditions for the October 7th attack in a concealed fashion. By
sealing off the terrorist tunnels, the IDF can force Hamas to move to the
surface where they can more easily be corralled. It is slow and difficult work as
this is where Hamas is holding many of the remaining hostages. But the IDF is
making progress. During my trip into Gaza, I visited an engineering unit with
the task of finding and then physically confirming the exact location of the
tunnels. Since going into Rafah, they locate on average two Hamas tunnels a
day. Once located, they turn over the mission of destroying the tunnels to
another unit expert in accomplishing that task.

Once we arrived at the shore of the Mediterranean, next to a suburb of Rafah
known as the Swedish village due to the source of its funding, I had the
opportunity to discuss IDF operations with a commander in the area. He has
been fighting since ground operations began in late October 2023 in northern
Gaza. He described the difficulty of the operational environment due to the
terror army of Hamas and its accomplices complete lack of concern for the
civilian population; their use of civilians as human shields and even for human
sacrifice; the vastness of the Hamas’ tunnel complex; the use of virtually every
structure in the area for weapons storage and application; the traps set in the
dense urban environment; and the tactics of the terrorists intermingling with
civilians dressed and acting the same.

The commander was confident, but realistic when asked about how long it
would take to break Hamas, answering that, “it will take time, but it can be
done.” He emphasized that this was a war—not a counterinsurgency
operation. There is a lot to unpack in that statement, but from one aspect it
became very evident during this visit that the IDF is competently integrating
all means to accomplish their objectives from all domains—air, sea, ground,
space, and the electromagnetic spectrum.

As we talked, the commander pointed out an Israeli Navy ship about a mile
and a half off the coast and spoke to how it was providing valuable effects to
the immediate fight. With machine gun fire echoing to the northeast of our
position we could still hear Israeli Air Force drones flying overhead, and
occasionally fighter jets tied closely to the actions of the Israeli Army on the
ground.

Effective telecommunications connectivity and command and control are
allowing multi-domain effects to be incorporated down to the company level.
This is not simply due to Israeli Army units “owning” their own multi-domain
capabilities but through integration of the lethal and non-lethal effects from
each of the traditional armed services. How those actions are conducted are
informed by the assessment, integration and distribution of the various means
of data collected by intelligence organizations then translated into situational
awareness and actualized by means across the electromagnetic spectrum.
From my experience it was evident that the IDF has achieved a level of
integration and an authentic understanding of how to genuinely apply
jointness—using the right force, at the right place, at the right time regardless
of the service components sourcing those forces.

While there are multiple alternatives proposed on how to arrive at an end state
of this war, one thing is certain—the IDF’s motivation, professionalism and
commitment to upholding the laws of armed conflict while mitigating the loss
of life to civilians. Thousands of phone calls, texts, leaflets, as well as roofknocking (dropping small munitions on top of buildings) are some of the
means of warning the IDF uses to notify civilians to evacuate Hamas occupied
structures prior to force application. I visited an IDF control center used to
integrate information from a variety of sources that closely monitors civilian
locations and movements throughout Gaza. The data is continually updated to
inform IDF operations to minimize unintended collateral damage as well as to
evacuate and separate the civilian population from combat operations to the
greatest degree possible.

There is no “moral equivalency” as implied by some when comparing Israel’s
“right to defend itself” with ending the war to stop “the death of far too many
innocent civilians” before Hamas’ capability to continue to threaten Israel and
its population is completely disabled. There is no such thing as “immaculate
war” where there are no civilian casualties. As noted previously the IDF has
executed caution and discipline in operational employment to have achieved
the lowest ratio of enemy to civilian deaths in history. No one knows the
horrors of war more than those who must fight it. But to stop before
eliminating Hamas’ ability to repeat the atrocities of 7 Oct would be foolish
and self-defeating. Hamas has no remorse in killing Palestinians living in Gaza
as that feeds the narrative and provides ammunition for the useful
idiots acting willingly or ignorantly on behalf of Hamas’ masters—the Mullah’s
governing Iran.

Not only should the people of Israel have great respect for the IDF, but so
should the peace-loving nations of the world. The IDF is purging the world of
a sect of barbarians who embrace hatred, sexual violence, and the most vile
and inhumane means to accomplish their goals. Hamas is only one element of
an alliance of evil—Hamas, Hezbollah, Houthi’s, radical Islamic militias in
Iraq and Syria, and Iran. Collectively these terrorist strongholds must be
dismantled. The sooner the world is free of the scourge of these factions, the
sooner the people subjugated by them can be free, and the world can become a
better place

Disclosure: Travel for my trip was supported by the Friends of Israel Initiative, a U.S.-based non-profit 501c3.

Read the Updated Version of this Article here: https://www.forbes.com/sites/davedeptula/2024/07/31/on-the-ground-in-gaza-what-i-saw-of-israels-military-operations/