[Israel is deploying vastly disproportionate force in Gaza, in
keeping with an earlier UN fact-finding report that concluded that
the Israeli strategy had been “designed to punish, humiliate and
terrorise a civilian population.” It will fail. Again.]
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ISRAEL’S USE OF DISPROPORTIONATE FORCE IS A LONG-ESTABLISHED TACTIC
– WITH A CLEAR AIM
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Paul Rogers
December 5, 2023
Guardian
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_ Israel is deploying vastly disproportionate force in Gaza, in
keeping with an earlier UN fact-finding report that concluded that
the Israeli strategy had been “designed to punish, humiliate and
terrorise a civilian population.” It will fail. Again. _
A Palestinian boy carrying a baby in Rafah, Gaza Strip, December
2023, Mohammed Salem / Reuters
How to make sense of the sheer intensity
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Israel’s war in Gaza? One understanding is that it is the result of
the enduring shock of the 7 October massacre combined with a far-right
government that includes extreme elements. Yet this ignores another
element: a specific Israeli approach to war known as the Dahiya
doctrine
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It’s also one reason why the “pause” was never going to last for
very long.
First, let us take stock of the state of Gaza. After a seven-day pause
in the airstrikes, the war resumed on Friday. In the last three days,
bombing has been heavy, and the total death toll since 7 October has
risen to 15,899
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according to the Gaza health ministry, with at least 41,000 wounded.
Among the dead are 6,500
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including hundreds of infants.
Physical destruction in Gaza has been massive: 60% of the
territory’s total housing stock
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homes) is damaged, 46,000 of which are completely destroyed. The
seven-day pause may have provided limited relief from the
comprehensive siege but there are still serious shortages of food,
clean water and medical supplies.
Despite massive Israeli attacks backed by a near-unlimited
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of bombs and missiles and intelligence support from the United States,
Hamas continues to fire rockets. Moreover, it retains a substantial
paramilitary ability
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18 of the original 24 active paramilitary battalions intact, including
all 10 in southern Gaza.
Palestinian support for Hamas may also be growing
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the West Bank, where armed settlers and the Israel Defense Forces
have killed scores of Palestinians
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the war started. The Israeli government is absolutely determined to
continue and is accelerating the war, despite US secretary of state
Antony Blinken’s blunt warning to limit casualties and
vice-president Kamala Harris confirming
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“under no circumstances will the United States permit the forced
relocation of Palestinians from Gaza or the West Bank, the besiegement
of Gaza, or the redrawing of the borders of Gaza”.
That will count for little, given the extreme position of Benjamin
Netanyahu’s war cabinet, where the aim is to destroy Hamas. How this
will be attempted relates to the specific Israeli way of war that has
evolved since 1948, through to its current Dahiya doctrine, which is
said to have originated in the 2006 war in Lebanon.
In July of that year, facing salvoes of rockets fired from southern
Lebanon by Hezbollah militias, the IDF fought an intense air and
ground war. Neither succeeded, and the ground troops took heavy
casualties; but the significance of the war lies in the nature of the
air attacks. It was directed
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centres of Hezbollah power in the Dahiya area, in the southern suburbs
of Beirut, but also on the Lebanese economic infrastructure.
This was the deliberate application of “disproportionate force”,
such as the destruction of an entire village, if deemed to be the
source of rocket fire. One graphic description
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the result was that “around a thousand Lebanese civilians were
killed, a third of them children. Towns and villages were reduced to
rubble; bridges, sewage treatment plants, port facilities and electric
power plants were crippled or destroyed.”
Two years after that war, the Institute for National Security Studies
at Tel Aviv University published
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Force: Israel’s Concept of Response in Light of the Second Lebanon
War_. _Written by IDF reserve Col Gabi Siboni, it promoted the Dahiya
doctrine as the way forward in response to paramilitary attacks. The
head of the Israeli military forces in Lebanon during the war, and
overseeing the doctrine, was General Gadi Eizenkot. He went on to be
the IDF chief of general staff, retiring in 2019, but was brought back
as an adviser to Netanyahu’s war cabinet in October.
Siboni’s paper for the institute made it crystal clear that the
Dahiya doctrine goes well beyond defeating an opponent in a brief
conflict, and is about having a truly long-lasting impact.
Disproportionate force means just that, extending to the destruction
of the economy and state infrastructure with many civilian casualties,
with the intention of achieving a sustained deterrent impact
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The doctrine has been used in Gaza during the four previous wars since
2008, especially the 2014 war. In those four wars, the IDF killed
about 5,000 Palestinians, mostly civilians, for the loss of 350 of
their own soldiers and about 30 civilians. In the 2014 war, Gaza’s
main power station was damaged
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an IDF attack and half of Gaza’s then population of 1.8 million
people were affected by water shortages, hundreds of thousands lacked
power and raw sewage flooded on to streets.
Even earlier, after the 2008-9 war in Gaza, the UN published a
fact-finding report that concluded
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the Israeli strategy had been “designed to punish, humiliate and
terrorise a civilian population”.
The situation now, after two months of war, is far worse. With the
ground offensive in southern Gaza
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exacerbated by tens of thousands of desperate Gazans repeatedly trying
to find places of safety.
The immediate Israeli aim, which may take months to achieve, appears
to be eliminating Hamas while corralling the Palestinians into a small
zone in the south-west of Gaza where they can be more easily
controlled. The longer-term aim is to make it utterly clear that
Israel will not stand for any opposition. Its armed forces will
maintain sufficient power to control any insurgency and, backed by its
powerful nuclear capabilities, will not allow any regional state to
pose a threat.
It will fail. Hamas will emerge either in a different form or
strengthened, unless some way is found to begin the very difficult
task of bringing the communities together. Meanwhile, the one state
that can force a ceasefire is the US, but there is little sign of that
– at least so far.
_Paul Rogers is emeritus professor of peace studies at Bradford
University and an honorary fellow at the Joint Service Command and
Staff College_
_Contribute to The Guardian
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factual journalism. _This latest conflict marks the start of a
chapter that is likely to affect millions of lives, both in the Middle
East and further afield, for years to come. With reporters on the
ground, and others producing live blogs, videos, podcasts and photo
essays as the story unfolds, the Guardian is dedicated to bringing you
independent, fact-checked journalism 24/7. This is possible only
thanks to your support. If you believe in open, independent
journalism, please consider giving just once from €1. Thank you.
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