Hizbullah’s Ghost Chases ’Israel’ in Its War with Hamas: We Lost Creativity

Between one truce and another with the seized Gaza strip, the “Israeli” dailies devote their pages to talk of their army’s defeat.

On Tuesday, Haaretz daily chose to tell of the military’s deficits.

According to its opinion piece, the daily found that “the fighting in Gaza revealed a large and worrying gap between what the army had prepared for and the enemy [Hamas] it actually encountered.”

In a conversation with journalists, a senior “Israeli” General Staff officer presented two demands drafted during the fighting in Gaza. First, the army wants a budget increase of billions of shekels, both to cover the costs of the war and to prepare for the next one.

Second, it wants a repeal of legislation enacted less than six months ago that shortened compulsory military service for men.

“If this sounds familiar, it’s not by coincidence: The army made identical demands after the Second Lebanon War in 2006, and the government acquiesced.”
The daily further mentioned: “Given the war’s costs and the gaps in readiness it revealed, the army will need a budget increase.”

“First, the military budget has ballooned since 2006; the “Israeli” enjoyed seven fat years until the current government took power in 2013.”

As the Ghost of 2006 defeat with Lebanon still chases the Zionist entity, Haaretz wrote: “Second, as in Lebanon, the army seems to have operated in Gaza with no economic constraints. Clearly, one can’t criticize a field unit under attack for responding with massive fire. But initial data indicates that there was an enormous use of artillery, as well as of the air force’s precision weapons. “Israel” even sought permission to use the emergency stocks the US.”

“Third, during the current budget battles, the army has highlighted the incident in which seven soldiers were killed when a rocket-propelled grenade hit their ancient M-113 armored personnel carrier. The army claims it didn’t have enough modern Namer APCs due to budget cuts. But as Haaretz has previously reported, there was an operational failure here.”

It concluded: “The fighting in Gaza revealed a large and worrying gap between what the army had prepared for and the enemy it actually encountered. That isn’t something that can be fixed just by going on a shopping spree.”

For its part, the Ynet chose to be clearer:

In its opinion, the daily wrote, “What happened is that the “Israeli” army has turned into a big and heavy army. Over the years it has gained a lot of power, but has apparently lost its creativity.”
“That [army’s]same creativity faded away somewhere between the first Lebanon War and these days… The Second Lebanon War was launched with the assumption that it can only be won from the air, and the commanders only realized later on that a ground operation was needed too.”

Ynet also stated: “We repeated the same mistake in “Operation Protective Edge”. The “Israel” Air Force reported that it had bombed thousands of targets, yet it failed to destroy Hamas’ missile arsenal. Eventually, in addition to the tunnel destruction operation, the “Israeli” army launched a ground operation and ran into Hamas “terrorists” who had already been waiting for the forces … The entry itself was conducted in a routine manner, and the Saja’iyya [Shujayya] affair proves it.”
“Every day, the “IAF” announces whose home it destroyed. What does destroying the houses of Hamas leaders give us? We know that they are not in there, so did we think that once they heard their house was destroyed, they would collapse and emerge from their holes with their hands up?”

In a clear admission of the Palestinian Resistance steadfastness in face of Tel Aviv, Ynet wrote, “It has been fighting us for nearly a month, it has many other fighters, weapons and rockets, and it managed to face the strongest army in the Middle East while millions of “Israelis” were sent into bomb shelters. In addition, the Gazan public has supported Hamas all along, although our experts explain to us day and night that ‘Gaza’s residents are being used by the “terror” organization and are very angry with it’.”