Former Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett (whom we interviewed on The Late Debate a few weeks ago) has just released his plan to defeat Hamas.
Bennett is no longer in government, so he is able to speak freely.
And the fact that this plan is now out in the open does not appear to lessen its chances of success.
The plan revolves around NOT doing what Hamas and the rest of the world expect Israel to do. Instead, Israel would lay siege to Gaza in such a way that puts all the pressure back on Hamas, and on Israel’s detractors around the world, to resolve the situation.
I was intrigued by this plan when I read it. It’s smart.
Here it is …
The Siege of Gaza means the suffocation of Hamas operatives in tunnels, occupation of a security strip inside Gaza until Hamas surrenders, demilitarization of the strip and the release of the abductees.
The key is not to act in the way that Hamas expects us to act and prepared for us to act.
Publicizing the siege plan scares and stresses Hamas leaders and will be a catalyst to bring about results base assumption: For 15 years, Hamas prepared a vast tunnel system, an underground state, precisely against the entry of Israeli forces.
When Hamas carried out Black Sabbath, it was exactly expecting a "cast lead" style ground response and the other operations.
Hamas is counting on us entering every bunker and every tunnel with tweezers in order to exact a heavy blood price from us.
Iran, Hezbollah and Hamas want us to invest many forces deep in the Gaza Strip so that we have fewer forces available for another campaign, in the north and also in Judea and Samaria and more.
Hamas wants us to get involved during the entry, which will force us to cause heavy collateral damage of killing Gazan children, etc., so that the world will force us to stop.
Hamas has probably removed many assets, including leadership and commanders to the south of the Gaza Strip, leaving simple activists in the north of the Gaza Strip to quarrel with us.
We must not act according to the expectation of Hamas
The siege plan for Hamas in northern Gaza:
1. To surprise and not go deep into the Gaza Strip as Hamas expects us to do, but to impose a complete siege on the north of the Gaza Strip, dry up and suffocate the Hamas terrorists in the tunnels until they are forced to leave.
2. To create a new security strip 2 km deep into the territory of the strip along our entire border, a permanent strip. This is through the use of massive firepower and ground forces, and engineering. Imagine bulldozers simply leveling the area.
3. Continuously use firepower on Hamas all over the Strip. Israel conducts a continuous series of targeted ground operations with enormous firepower, to separate neighborhood from neighborhood from Hamas. There is no need to hunt down every Hamasnik in a hole and a tunnel.
4. The residents of Gaza stay in the southern half of the Strip or outside the Strip until the end of the war: when Hamas disarms unilaterally and releases all the hostages. This, of course, according to international law, to preserve their lives. Countries around the world can take in the refugees—temporarily, of course—until Hamas surrenders and the war ends. Between 6 months and 5 years.
5. In the south of the Gaza Strip, humanitarian corridors are allowed, and we allow (but do not give ourselves): water, food, medicine. This is as required by international law.
6. Do not allow any drop of fuel to enter the entire strip. Without fuel there are no tunnels because there is no ventilation and no lighting. Every drop that enters the Gaza Strip goes to Hamas. Fuel = fighting. So not a bit.
7. Strategic patience: make the passing time work in our favor. We have all the time in the world.
8. After initial ground operations, 250,000 military personnel must be released home as soon as possible, in order to release economic-civil pressure, to restore the economy and life to order. We must not just stress ourselves artificially just because we called up 350,000 reservists.
9. Any country in the world that expresses pain over the situation of the refugees in the south is invited to temporarily host refugees (Scotland, Egypt, Turkey, etc.).
10. Avoid collateral damage as much as possible, which could interrupt the Israeli operation before achieving Hamas's surrender.
Advantages of the program: - Trickery and surprise: this is exactly the opposite of what Hamas has been preparing for for a decade.
Contrary to what he expects us to do. Hamas believes that we have a breathing space of 4-5 weeks inside Gaza and then we will leave, as has always happened in the last decade. - Dehydrates Hamas operatives.
Imagine "Muhammad" a Hamas operative who is currently waiting for us in the tunnel, alert and ready. Under siege, he will be forced to wait for months in his humid tunnel, wet, hungry, depressed, and when the fuel runs out, the tunnel will go dark, and there will be no oxygen: his family may be in the mud in the south of the Gaza Strip or in Egypt or Belgium: what am I doing here?
Transfers the pressure from Israel to Hamas; Passing the lever from Hamas to us. Right now all the leverage is with them. the abductees They will play and play us. This thing turns the bowl and basically the lever goes to us.
The Hamas leadership will find itself in a dilemma: either Hamas or the state of Gaza. If Sinuar does not disarm he will go down in history as the one who destroyed his country and brought a historical disaster on his people.
Dramatically reduces the chances of Hezbollah involvement:
a. They have no specific trigger to go to war.
b. Israeli forces are kept fresh and free to strike in Lebanon.
A sustainable political line of defense: until the Israelis do not return home, neither will the Gazans return home. Everyone is going home together: Israeli hostages are returning home to Israel, families from the Gaza enclave will return only with the disappearance of Hamas, and the residents of Gaza will also be able to return because the war is over and the danger to their lives has passed.
The program was tested by DBA experts and meets all the tests of international law.
Sounds like a very practical as well as a tactical plan.
Probable won’t satisfy everyone but to me as an ex soldier, it makes sense.
Blocking the tunnels is a thought. Naphtali Bennett seems like a really switched on man