Israel-Gaza War: 2008 and Today

solarz

solarz

Brigadier
I'm not interested in hashing the tired old reasons for the conflict. Instead, I'm interested in the military performance of Israel and Hamas. In 2008, Israel struck a resounding tactical victory, with only 13 deaths to 1400 Hamas fighters killed.

What's particularly interesting is that this battlefield is a dense urban environment, precisely the kind of "nightmare scenario" for the more technologically advanced side.

It's true that Israel has had a lot of experience fighting in Gaza, and has had decades on gathering intelligence against the Palestinians. Nevertheless, Hamas really dropped the ball in that fight.

So with Round Two (round N?) coming up soon, how do you guys think both sides will perform? Will Israel again deal a crushing defeat to the Palestinians, or is Hamas capable of surprising the Israelis this time?

Any thoughts?
 
asif iqbal

asif iqbal

Lieutenant General
Well Iron Dome seems to have intercepted many of the rockets

Some got through so they are deploying another Regiment, they downed already hundreds of rockets

Israeli military is designed for urban warfare to meet the requirements and threats they will face
 
plawolf

plawolf

Lieutenant General
It is completely inaccurate to describe all the Palestinians killed in 2008 as Hamas fighters. Not even the Israeli military thought to make such an outlandish claim.

PCHR broke down the casualties as:

- Militants and police officers: 491

- Civilians: 926

Total wounded: 5,303

The Israeli ground operation was characterized by the wholesale razing of large sways of parts of Gaza and entire neighborhoods leveled with bulldozers. Israel didn't so much as fight in an urban environment as they did turn an urban environment into flattened rubble to fight on. It was at best an excessively brutally crude tactic and at worst a calculated act of collective punishment and hence a war crime.

Israeli rules of engagement within Gaza was also ridiculously lax, with pretty much anyone that the Israeli soldiers saw as legitimate targets unless they were positively and undisputedly identified as civilian non-combatants. If the Israelis saw someone and didn't know if they were civilians or militants, they opened fire to make sure.

All of that accounted for the disproportionately large civilian death toll and massive destruction of civilian buildings and infrastructure despite the fact the Israeli military had all the trappings of state of the art precision guided weapons and targeting systems.

The 2006 Lebanon War was an actual example of what happened when the Israelis tried to conduct urban warfare in the traditional sense of the term, and that did not go so well for the Israelis.
 
I

icbeodragon

Junior Member
plawolf said:
It is completely inaccurate to describe all the Palestinians killed in 2008 as Hamas fighters. Not even the Israeli military thought to make such an outlandish claim.

PCHR broke down the casualties as:

- Militants and police officers: 491

- Civilians: 926

Total wounded: 5,303

The Israeli ground operation was characterized by the wholesale razing of large sways of parts of Gaza and entire neighborhoods leveled with bulldozers. Israel didn't so much as fight in an urban environment as they did turn an urban environment into flattened rubble to fight on. It was at best an excessively brutally crude tactic and at worst a calculated act of collective punishment and hence a war crime.

Israeli rules of engagement within Gaza was also ridiculously lax, with pretty much anyone that the Israeli soldiers saw as legitimate targets unless they were positively and undisputedly identified as civilian non-combatants. If the Israelis saw someone and didn't know if they were civilians or militants, they opened fire to make sure.

All of that accounted for the disproportionately large civilian death toll and massive destruction of civilian buildings and infrastructure despite the fact the Israeli military had all the trappings of state of the art precision guided weapons and targeting systems.

The 2006 Lebanon War was an actual example of what happened when the Israelis tried to conduct urban warfare in the traditional sense of the term, and that did not go so well for the Israelis.
Click to expand...

Basically they took the mongol method.

Well, it makes sense why their fatalities were so low then.
 
cn_habs

cn_habs

Junior Member
[video=youtube;8kAyqbKwd1o]http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=8kAyqbKwd1o[/video]

Iron Dome looked amazing there. I guess the Israelis concentrated their batteries near urban areas for maximum kill rate.

I totally would have ran for my life seeing so many rockets roaring towards me.
 
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MwRYum

MwRYum

Major
plawolf said:
It is completely inaccurate to describe all the Palestinians killed in 2008 as Hamas fighters. Not even the Israeli military thought to make such an outlandish claim.

PCHR broke down the casualties as:

- Militants and police officers: 491

- Civilians: 926

Total wounded: 5,303

The Israeli ground operation was characterized by the wholesale razing of large sways of parts of Gaza and entire neighborhoods leveled with bulldozers. Israel didn't so much as fight in an urban environment as they did turn an urban environment into flattened rubble to fight on. It was at best an excessively brutally crude tactic and at worst a calculated act of collective punishment and hence a war crime.

Israeli rules of engagement within Gaza was also ridiculously lax, with pretty much anyone that the Israeli soldiers saw as legitimate targets unless they were positively and undisputedly identified as civilian non-combatants. If the Israelis saw someone and didn't know if they were civilians or militants, they opened fire to make sure.

All of that accounted for the disproportionately large civilian death toll and massive destruction of civilian buildings and infrastructure despite the fact the Israeli military had all the trappings of state of the art precision guided weapons and targeting systems.

The 2006 Lebanon War was an actual example of what happened when the Israelis tried to conduct urban warfare in the traditional sense of the term, and that did not go so well for the Israelis.
Click to expand...

MOUT is always a "more blood in than out" thing, pound the city to rubble only makes it easier for the defenders, but pound it literally to little mound of rocks will make it a traditional open ground warfare, and such terrain will give the Israeli the edge.

What the Israelis are doing is simply lessons learned from the past.
 
solarz

solarz

Brigadier
plawolf said:
It is completely inaccurate to describe all the Palestinians killed in 2008 as Hamas fighters. Not even the Israeli military thought to make such an outlandish claim.

PCHR broke down the casualties as:

- Militants and police officers: 491

- Civilians: 926

Total wounded: 5,303
Click to expand...

You're right, I was just skimming over the casualty figures.

So you're saying that the Israeli just bulldoze the buildings and shoot anything that moves? Why don't the Palestinians have any effective counters? IEDs? Mines? Ambushing the bulldozer crews?

Anyway, how do you think round 2 would play out?
 
cn_habs

cn_habs

Junior Member
solarz said:
You're right, I was just skimming over the casualty figures.

So you're saying that the Israeli just bulldoze the buildings and shoot anything that moves? Why don't the Palestinians have any effective counters? IEDs? Mines? Ambushing the bulldozer crews?

Anyway, how do you think round 2 would play out?
Click to expand...

The Israeli Iron Dome has been amazingly effective so far greatly reducing the pressure on the Israeli government for a ground cleanup in Gaza. Since their heavy losses in the last Gaza war, Hamas has changed their doctrine and urban warfare tactics so an Israeli invasion should only be used as a last resort.
 
bladerunner

bladerunner

Banned Idiot
The interesting thing here is what would become of Israels relationship with the new Egyptian govt if wholesale hostilities was to breakout. Meanwhile it's great news that Jaabari got taken out.It's a case of good riddance to bad rubbish.

The Israeli ground operation was characterized by the wholesale razing of large sways of parts of Gaza and entire neighborhoods leveled with bulldozers. Israel didn't so much as fight in an urban environment as they did turn an urban environment into flattened rubble to fight on. It was at best an excessively brutally crude tactic and at worst a calculated act of collective punishment and hence a war crime.

Israeli rules of engagement within Gaza was also ridiculously lax, with pretty much anyone that the Israeli soldiers saw as legitimate targets unless they were positively and undisputedly identified as civilian non-combatants. If the Israelis saw someone and didn't know if they were civilians or militants, they opened fire to make sure.

All of that accounted for the disproportionately large civilian death toll and massive destruction of civilian buildings and infrastructure despite the fact the Israeli military had all the trappings of state of the art precision guided weapons and targeting systems.
Click to expand...

Lets not forget that Hamas is a terrorist org who have committed its share of war crimes.

Meanwhile I just love what the spokesmenfor the IDF said

"We recommend that no Hammas operative, whether low level or senior leaders show their faces above ground in the days ahead"
 
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