First, the Muqata, with this analysis:
7:32 PM Interesting. Apparently, IDF Intellignce believes (based on the sources I’ve gleaned) that the largest Hamas Grad Missile bunker in Gaza is located…directly beneath the Gaza Shifa Hospital. Israel’s Channel 1 TV reports that the IDF has demanded the hospital be evacuated. Hamas, with its own “win-win” agenda is parading out the patients and dead (from the hospital’s morgue). From their standpoint, a bombed out hospital is just as much a PR victory, as shooting dozens of grad missiles at Israel. We’ll see how this plays out. (developing story)
Next, this article in the JPost:
“The combat vests are ready and the weapons are greased,” the first soldier said.
“Our parents are phoning, but we just don’t answer,” said another.
On Sunday, soldiers from a wide range of units deployed outside the Gaza Strip. Tanks from the 7th Armored Brigade deployed not far from the northern end of the border as infantry from the Paratroop and Golani Brigades arrived at bases throughout the South ahead of a possible ground incursion.
Is it going to be the same as it was two and a half year ago?
Defense officials said that while Hamas might have advanced anti-tank missiles, it would be more difficult for the terrorists group to use them effectively against Israeli tanks than it was for Hizbullah during the Second Lebanon War.
IDF assessments are that Hamas has smuggled into Gaza a significant amount of anti-tank missiles, including Russian-made models. There is also concern that Hamas has planted large bombs under main access roads into Gaza that it plans to detonate beneath Israeli armored vehicles.
“We’re better prepared today than we were in 2006,” one tank commander said. “This is what we’ve been training for.”
Doesn’t look like it. But I think we will wake up to a different war tomorrow.
There’s got to be a way to set those off without a direct hit so that legally and morally, it’s all on Hamas.
As a little historical sidelight, the 7th Armored Brigade is the same unit whose epic defense of the northern Golan in 1973 was one of the key factors in Israel holding back the Syrian attack and then turning to the offensive.
Now, decades have passed since then but still, I personally wouldn’t want to tangle with them.
The IDF is not composed of super warriors at whose very sight enemies will flee; thinking along those lines nearly led to disaster in 1973. But the IDF does seem to have one feature that is necessary to win wars–it learns from its mistakes.
I wonder of Hamas’s leaders are thinking that they may have miscalculated. If so, I hope it is their last thought as the Hellfires and pgm’s rain down on them.
“War is the remedy that our enemies have chosen, and I say let us give them
all they want.”
General William T. Sherman
“War is cruelty. There’s no use trying to reform it, the crueler it is the
sooner it will be over.”
General William T. Sherman