In recent weeks, Likud MK Amit Halevi has repeatedly excoriated the IDF for misleading the public about “defeating Hamas Brigades in Gaza.”
Commenting on the IDF’s recent announcement that it “has fully disbanded the Rafah Brigade,” Halevi stated: “Those who follow me know that this is an empty message that has no basis in reality. But why does the IDF choose time after time not to tell the public the truth? Stay with me until the end.”
“I will start with the facts known to me as a member of the Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee and to every Hamasnik who lives in Rafah:
1. There were at least 8,000 Hamas and Islamic Jihad terrorists in Rafah (probably much more because of the training and recruitment in the area and those who joined from the northern Gaza battalions). Therefore, even if 2,000 Hamas soldiers were killed in Rafah as the IDF spokesperson announced (the real number is much lower) it is a maximum of 25% of the fighting force.
2. In Rafah, there are many dozens of kilometers of underground tunnels so the destruction of 13 kilometers of tunnels, most of which are in the Philadelphi area and nearby, constitutes a very small percentage of the underground city of Rafah. (And not all of them were destroyed but were sealed off so it will be easy for Hamas to use them.)
3. The amount of weapons in Rafah is astronomical, with underground warehouses in buildings that the IDF didn’t enter, and therefore the amount seized by the IDF is very small compared to Hamas’ stockpiles.
“Therefore, even in the terms of the IDF dictionary that victory is the destruction of 60% of the enemy’s force (a very incorrect definition) we are very far from victory.
“The IDF has not defeated a single brigade and not even a single company in Rafah. Hamas terrorists are tactically retreating to other places, hiding in the civilian population which is their biological family and natural environment, but they haven’t gone anywhere. In fact, for them it isn’t a retreat, it is an integral part of guerrilla warfare.
“These messages from the IDF spokesperson are an embarrassment to the IDF as an army. And worse, they mislead the public and the government.
“Throughout the last 11 months, I have been demanding that the IDF representatives on the Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee stop using these meaningless concepts that have no basis in reality and make Hamas smirk and increase in strength – but they insist.
“Every soldier who enters Khan Younis for the fourth time or Zaytun for the fifth time knows that nothing has been defeated and with the current mode of operation, it will never be defeated…”
Why?
“Because for every terrorist that is killed, two are born that day that are given over to Hamas education and training.
“Because for every wounded terrorist, three new members of the clans are recruited directly into Hamas battalions.
“Because for every weapon seized, five more are currently being produced in the Gaza underground thanks to the fuel and electricity flowing to its lathes.
“With this method of a ‘tunnel war,’ as the Shin Bet chief correctly called it, there can be no quantitative victory, i.e. in terms of the number of fighters and terrorists the Gazans have, but also on a fundamental level, since a real victory is the elimination of the enemy’s central command centers so that it is defeated in practice or surrenders, and we are not aiming there at all.
“In the Gaza Strip today, the one above the ground and the one below ground, there is no possibility of a victory without control over the territory and the population, meaning control over fuel, food, water and medicine. Control over religion, education and culture. Full control and deployment in the area. And our Chief of Staff Herzi Halevi insists on not being in control of the area.
“This is how all the achievements of our brave soldiers become tactical achievements in an endless tunnel of terror.
So why is the IDF spokesperson misleading you?
“At best he is deceiving himself as well. He has his own world of military concepts and there, as we know, he won a long time ago. You remember that the Hamas battalions have already been destroyed several times…
“At worst, the word victory is not in his lexicon at all, certainly not a complete victory, which is why he gave up on this option in the first place.
“In the worst case of all, he is a participant in the trend that calls for ending the war and leaving the Gaza Strip, and therefore he declares these ‘victories’ as part of the final agreement. Maybe there is still time to eliminate Sinwar or something but by and large the victory is behind us.
“All of these terrible options show one thing – for the sake of Israel’s future, the IDF must undergo a significant revision of the principles and basic concepts of security and the exercise of force – the sooner the better.”
(YWN Israel Desk – Jerusalem)
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16 Responses
truth be told, I also think that the IDF is exaggerating their reports of how many Hamas terrorists are eliminated so that we should feel good and secure.
In reality, the IDF has screwed up something terrible and can not seem to go after the many many underground tunnels and bunkers where Hamas hides with all their weapons.
In Afghanistan the US never defeated isis for similar reasons. A never ending supply of new recruits to the ideology.
The top brass also deluded themselves that they were winning but if you read books from the soldiers they new it was hopeless.
Sounds even worse than I thought. What a sad, sad joke the IDF has become. Completely unwilling (unable?) to do what it takes… What is there to say? Trump is 100% right when he says Israel will be gone in two years, but I wonder if it even matters who wins our election in November
Many have been saying the same. You can’t an defeat at ideology, unless you’re willing to go 100% including taking over their education/schooling system from UNRWA to deNazify it.
FrumWhere, where did receive your military education? From comic books or Instagram?
ONLY HASHEM can protect us! אם ה’ לא ישמור עיר שוא שקד שומר
Actually, Afghanistan was fully pacified before United States surrendered. That is to say there appears to have been no meaningful action as long as we had a few thousand troops there. That changed surrendered to them, but Afghanistan was pacified before we surrendered in contrast to Gaza.
Defense Minister Yoav Gallant on 11 September revealed a document he said was written by the former commander of Hamas’s Khan Younis Brigade in southern Gaza, Rafa’a Salameh, and addressed to Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar and his brother Muhammad, in which the commander described the “difficult situation” in which the terror group had found itself.
Salameh, a mastermind of the terror group’s October 7 massacre, was killed in an Israeli airstrike in southern Gaza in July that also killed senior Hamas commander Muhammad Deif.
In the letter, he wrote: “Please consider the following: We maintain the remaining weapons and equipment, as we have lost 90-95 percent of our rocket capabilities; and we have lost some 60% of our personal weapons; we have lost at least 65-70% of our anti-tank launchers and rockets,” according to excerpts provided and translated by the Defense Ministry.
“Most importantly,” he continued, “we have lost at least 50% of our fighters between those who are martyred and wounded, and now we are left with 25%. The last 25% of our people have reached a situation where the people do not tolerate them anymore, broken on a mental or physical level.”
Gallant said the document showed “a real hardship that affects Hamas and affects the most senior commanders.”
this is the sound of a member of the knesset exercising his political ambitions. “as a member of the foreign affairs and defense committee” he has every opportunity to address his concerns directly to the idf, instead of the media. as the secretary general of the arab league once said, it was a mistake to ever attack israel – they should have sat back and let the jews kill each other.
I don’t know what his goal is but it seems stupid to me. The reason the IDF puts out any info is 1. to show the world and garner US aid and 2. to create weakness within the enemy by flaunting Israeli Power. Discounting your own army accomplishes the opposite chalilah. Likely if there really are lies being told its to hold off til after the election and then obliterate the area either with the support of Trump or because Harris is gonna be upset anyways….
Why is the IDF misleading the public? Because the generals and staff are leftists and misleading themselves into thinking that they are fighting terrorists when they are fighting an ideology that they can’t win against because they are refusing to deal with that ideology.
RIF
I have a “brand new” bridge in Brooklyn to sell you
Let me know if you need any documentation
Keith
If you don’t want to read Books on the subject at least Read the Wikipedia page
There may have been a lull in the violence when we had 150,000 troops in place but it was always clear unless we had a massive continued presence there we would lose in the end.
Gaza is the same.
Netanyahu is the Shaul Hamelech of our generation adamantly refuses to kill Agag causing endless carnage to the Jewish people. He hunts and chases down anyone suspected of replacing him like Shaul chased Dovid Hamelech.
Rif,
You do realize that letter may have been made up by the IDF? And the guy wrote “wrote it” can’t argue about it.
Not everything you see in the news is real.
Duvidf:
Don’t compare Zionist heretics to our holy kings. The Zionist heretic leaders are more like baryonim and other thugs of prior generations who did tremendous damage to the Jewish people.