The True Game-Changer
The true game-changer in the region was Israel's defeat in south Lebanon in the 2006 July War. For 34 days, a seemingly unending stockpile of rockets drove Israelis into bomb shelters and halted daily life throughout nearly the whole country. When Israel's brutal air war failed to halt the rockets, a ground war was launched by the IDF.
If every war is to have its signifying battle - the July War was defined in Bint Jbeil. Israel's conscripted army and its reserves walked right into a prepared enemy that had changed the rules of the game - mixing guerrilla operations with conventional military tactics. In so doing, Hezbollah dealt Israel a psychological blow that carried the "spectacle" of defeat, as Israel's Haaretz newspaper characterised it.
According to Israel's Winograd Commission - tasked by the state with investigating the July War failings - the battle in Bint Jbeil was the turning point of the war, "a symbol of the unsuccessful action of the Israel Defence Forces throughout the fighting".
A successful model was in place, and Palestinians took note.
After Cast Lead, there was a switch in resistance approach in Gaza led by the Qassam Brigades. In short, away from the primacy of infiltration-type operations to a more dug-in position inside Gaza itself. And drastic upgrading of the rocketry, weapons and materiel.
It was Gaza's smaller-scale answer to Hezbollah, led by Qassam Brigades commander, Ahmed Jabari. Under Jabari, Hamas' armed wing transformed into a more structured and professionalised force. "This isn't a terror organisation anymore," said Minister for Home Front Defence Avi Dichter, two days before Jabari's assassination, "it's a bona fide army."
In addition to the rockets, Palestinians added anti-tank missiles of the sort that were used to devastating effect by Hezbollah in 2006. Anti-aircraft missiles looted from Gaddafi's caches during NATO's war in Libya emerged in Gaza across a well-trodden corridor from post-war Libya, through post-uprising Egypt and into the virtually independent Bedouin republic in the Sinai - where all roads lead to Gaza's lucrative tunnels network.
The tunnels were once hand-carved with trowels and only large enough for teenagers to navigate, but in recent years have become an industrial-scale project, large enough for cars and cattle, and various weapons-systems too.
And while it could be argued that Gaza's rockets were largely ineffective during the eight days of fighting, it takes some time to learn to use these weapons. Because there are nothing like test-ranges in the tiny enclave of Gaza, the rockets must be tested in battle. Still, as day after day of rocket barrages passed, it seemed inevitable that a deadly landing in a major city was getting closer.
That could not have been lost on Netanyahu, as the prime minister embarks on an election campaign that will be defined by this latest war in Gaza. A costly strike on Tel Aviv from Gaza would have been a problem for his campaign, and would have likely pressed Israel into a ground war against a transformed force with significantly improved capability.
Instead, Israel sued for peace with a ceasefire that reads very favourably to Palestinians. While Netanyahu avoided his Bint Jbeil moment, Israelis were forced to recognise a new day in Gaza.Via: "Al-Jazeera"
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