Dorcha Lee: Israel's army, in acting in defiance of Netanyahu, may well bring an end to the Gaza conflict
Fire from an Israeli strike that hit a tent area in the courtyard of Al Aqsa Martyrs hospital in Deir al Balah on the Gaza Strip on Sunday. Picture: AP/Abdel Kareem Hana
To be a real hero in Ireland, you have to be young, courageous, charismatic and preferably dead.
Michael Collins comes to mind.
This, of course, is not unique to our country.
For Hamas, the assassination of the organisation’s political leader, Ismail Haniyeh, has also created another hero, or, in the lexicon of such infamous organisations, another martyr.
New picture posters in his memory will, no doubt, appear in the region, with the halo-type aura to indicate he has gone to Jannah (heaven).
His passing will not be lamented in Israel.
He was, after all, a key decision-maker behind the murderous attack which killed an estimated 1200 Israelis on October 7 last.
Haniyeh was also a leading player in the Hamas negotiation team working on the proposed ceasefire deal.
His elimination is not exactly a confidence-building measure in the efforts to achieve a ceasefire, the delaying of which may have been the intention behind the attack.
However, the ultimate political aphrodisiac has to be surviving an assassination attempt, especially during an election campaign.
For his supporters, Donald Trump has his candidature for the US presidency dramatically endorsed by Almighty God himself.
In the aftermath of the assassination attempt on the Dear Leader, and the withdrawal of Joe Biden from the presidential campaign, his Republican party could have invited 'Jack The Ripper' to address a joint session of Congress and got away with it.
Since the Victorian serial killer was no longer available, they went ahead with their long-standing invitation to embattled Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Does the truth really matter when you are speaking to the converted?
As a defence analyst, I listened to Netanyahu’s speech.
It was surreal.
The representatives enthusiastically applauded his every comment, in a Pavlovian manner, including his Freudian slip of the tongue that “the Gaza war had the lowest ratio of combatants to non-combatants in the history of urban warfare”.
At face value, this actually means the ‘highest ratio of civilian casualties to combatants’.
However, it is clear from his follow-up comments that what he meant to say was ‘the lowest ratio of Gazan civilian casualties to Hamas terrorists’.
If he had referred to the lowest ratio of Israeli combat fatalities to Palestinian non-combatants, (killed) then it would have been a valid point.
Last week, the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) announced 331 of its soldiers had been killed since its ground offensive in Gaza began in late October.
The Hamas-controlled Gaza Ministry of Health (GMH) currently puts the overall number of Gazan dead at over 39,550.
The number of Hamas combatants killed is believed by UN agencies and foreign NGOs to be about 10% of the total fatalities, or about 4,000.
The IDF estimates are about three times higher, saying 30% of the GMH figures of dead were combatants.
Given for every fatality there are probably two to three times that number wounded/injured, this is consistent with the IDF assessment, two months ago, that 90% of Hamas’s military capabilities had been degraded.
However, that assessment was wildly inaccurate, as shown by the intensity of IDF engagement with Hamas targets in most sectors of Gaza over the past two months.
The Institute for the Study of War suggests the real figure is somewhere between the estimates of the IDF and foreign agencies.
Obviously, even accepting 30% of the dead were Hamas fighters, it is an acknowledgement that at least 70% of the dead were innocent men, women and children.
In the course of his address, Netanyahu never directly acknowledged that the vast majority of Gazan dead were innocent civilians.
Instead, he inferred the dead were mostly Hamas combatants.
He quoted an IDF commander in Rafah, who said 1,203 terrorists had been killed by the IDF, in the Rafah area, and only two dozen civilians died when a Hamas weapons depot exploded.
Netanyahu’s narrative has been roundly contradicted by successive IDF spokesmen, who have long acknowledged there have been heavy civilian casualties in the Gaza war.
The IDF explained the reason is that Hamas is using the Gazan civilian population as human shields.
Hamas is locating much of its command, operational and logistical infrastructure, in densely populated areas, close to schools, hospitals, markets and residential areas.
While true, it still does not explain why the IDF, with its wide range of military options available, chose the options that resulted in such a high level of civilian casualties, higher than civilian casualties in the current Russo-Ukrainian war.
An explanation of sorts might lie in how the IDF perceives its mission.
The first priority in war is always the accomplishment of the mission, and the second priority is the welfare of the troops.
In the case of the Israeli army, which relies heavily on reservists, the second priority must take into account, more so than usual, the extent to which Israeli public opinion will tolerate battlefield casualties.
Israel is a more open society than many of its Arab neighbours and concealing its casualties would be virtually impossible.
As a result, the IDF has been conducting a risk-aversion strategy in the case of the Gaza operation, maximising its superior firepower to minimise casualties among its own personnel.
An additional factor was the need to avoid, where possible, casualties among the hostages being held by Hamas and its affiliated militias.
The IDF has consistently said it has tried to avoid excessive casualties among the civilian population of Gaza.
This it manifestly failed to achieve.
While Hamas is guilty of war crimes in using the civilian population as human shields, the IDF will have to explain that the tactical gains achieved in each particular engagement justified the high loss of innocent lives.
Use of disproportionate force is a war crime.
There was a time when military war criminals would claim “they were only following orders”.
Since failure to comply with orders, in wartime, could merit the death penalty, the usual recourse was to blame the political decision-maker.
However, since the Nuremberg Trials, the military leadership are also held responsible for what they do or fail to do.
The IDF is keenly aware the International Criminal Court (ICC) has jurisdiction for investigating war crimes and crimes against humanity in the Israeli-occupied Palestinian Territories.
While Israel is not a member of the ICC, its citizens can be arrested in a growing number of jurisdictions on foot of an ICC warrant.
It is interesting to note the IDF has taken decisions against government directions in the course of this war.
Israel may be a democracy but the Government’s relationship with the IDF is, to put it mildly, special.
Just three weeks ago, in defiance of Netanyahu’s direction not to halt offensive operations against Hamas, the IDF conducted long tactical pauses to facilitate access of humanitarian aid to the Gazan population.
This may have been prompted by legal advice to the IDF to uphold humanitarian law.
Subsequently, aid organisations said the measure was ineffective, as the 12km strip of highway was not secured against looters.
It did show, however, that the IDF is capable of implementing such pauses without compromising its operations.
This may be significant in the context of implementing a phased ceasefire.
To reassert his political authority, Netanyahu may well need to replace his defence minister and chief of staff.
Until he does so, we can assume that, in certain circumstances, the IDF is prepared to act against government direction.
This opens up the possibility that the IDF may eventually ‘call the shots’ that will bring this conflict to an end.
- Dorcha Lee is a retired army colonel and defence analyst
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