The Long War Journal: Days of Penitence

Written by Bill Roggio on October 2, 2004 10:20 AM to The Long War Journal

Available online at: http://www.longwarjournal.org/archives/2004/10/days_of_peniten.php

A good psychological operation requires an element of timing. America begins the much anticipated push in the Sunni Triangle, attacking and occupying the Sunni city of Sammara in a surprise operation, while Israel prepares for an invasion of Gaza, dubbed operation "Days of Penitence" This is believed to be the largest incursion into Gaza since the Intifada began in the Fall of 2000. The invasion is in response to increasing rocket attacks from the Gaza strip on Israeli citizens, the latest of which recently took the lives of two schoolchildren. Both sides are preparing for a long fight, which has already begun in the crowded city of Jabalya..

Israel is leveraging its superior technology to limit civilian casualties and counteract the defensive advantages in Gaza – the dense population, the risk of the political fallout from high civilian casualties, the narrow alleys and roadways of the old cities and refugee camps, which make armored operations difficult. This requires the Israeli Defense Forces to fight in extremely dangerous environments and employ the controversial but necessary tactic of demolishing homes in order to make the area conducive to armored operations.

Armored vehicles rolled into the teeming, squalid Jabalya camp, a hotbed of militancy with some 100,000 residents, on Thursday morning. Throughout the day, masked Palestinians, taking cover in alleys, fired assault rifles - and occasionally anti-tank missiles and grenades - at tanks, which responded with machine gun fire. Militants were seen laying explosive charges and unraveling detonation wire along the camps narrow streets. Army bulldozers demolished 22 homes along a relatively narrow road leading into the camp, UN aid officials said, apparently to widen it and allow more tanks to get through. Armored vehicles avoided the booby-trapped main street in the camp.

In an attempt to mitigate the effects of the defensive advantages in Gaza, Israel is employing its eyes in the sky as well as local intelligence to pick apart the terrorist networks with minimal collateral damage. Gaza is a target rich environment.

.Two Hamas militants on a motorbike were killed yesterday in the area of the Jabalya refugee camp after they were hit by a missile fired by an Israeli aircraft. The army said the two were planning to launch rockets into Israel.

A few hours later, three Palestinians were killed by another missile in the camp. Locals said all three were civilians, but the army insisted it had fired at a cell planting bombs along roads in the camps. Another man was shot dead by troops in the camp.

A Hamas militant was killed Friday evening and eight others were wounded, including several bystanders, when an IAF drone fired two missiles at a group of Palestinian militants in Tel Azatar in the northern Gaza Strip. The IDF said it had fired at a group of militants preparing to launch a homemade rocket.

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On Friday evening, an Israel Air Force helicopter strike targeted a house used as a workshop in Gaza City, firing three missiles and wounding at least one person. Israel says the workshops are used to manufacture Qassam rockets.

The Associated Press provides further evidence of the extent of the Israeli intelligence in Gaza and the subsequent aerial attacks on Palestinian "militants".

The Israeli military said the group was preparing to launch a rocket and was the sixth cell stopped from firing rockets since the raid began late Wednesday. Witnesses said the men were praying outside a local mosque when the attack occurred. Also Friday evening, Israeli helicopters fired three missiles at a house owned by an electrician, wounding two people. Residents in the area said the house was also used as a workshop to repair washing machines. The army often fires missiles at workshops, which are used by militants to manufacture the crude rockets.

The all-seeing eye also found something else of interest.

Amid the violence, the army released video footage taken from an unmanned aircraft showing what appeared to be militants in Gaza loading rockets into a white van, with "U.N." marked in black on its roof. Israel has often accused militants of using United Nations vehicles and offices to launch attacks. U.N. officials declined to provide immediate comment.

In an effort to rally the troops, the Palestinian leadership is using mosques and state owned radio networks to issue a call of jihad. No doubt this was all approved by the Palestinian Authority. (Curiously this portion was deleted from AP article referenced, but I copied it before it was removed.) Included in the call to arms are instructions to fight: stay in small teams, limit communications and burn tires. Israel is watching and listening, after all.

Nizar Rayan, the top Hamas leader in northern Gaza, encouraged the gunmen and gave them tips in a message broadcast in mosques and on a local radio station late Thursday. Rayan said gunmen should not remain in one place for more than three minutes to avoid being spotted and should use their cell phones only when absolutely necessary. The militants, who were moving in small groups of no more than seven, communicated largely through text messages on cell phones. Militants immediately followed one of Rayan's tips: reducing visibility by burning tires and filling the air with black smoke, thus making it harder for Israeli unmanned aircraft, or drones, to spot them.

The tactics are reminiscent of the Black Hawk Down incident in Somalia. The Islamofascists are not increasing their tactical prowess; instead they retrograde to 1993 and emulate the 'skinnies' they trained in Mogadishu to fight the Americans – running through alleys and firing RPGs and rifles haphazardly, taking inordinate casualties to their young and poorly trained fighters. By contrast, American and Israeli technological and war fighting capabilities increase and the casualties are reduced to a minimum by historical standards. GPS guided bombs, stealth technology, unmanned aerial vehicles, night vision, strategic missile defense, training and education of soldiers and a host of other innovations are being tested and proven on the field of battle, along with the soldiers that wield them.

The Islamofascists fight an ever increasing low tech war: kidnappings, beheadings, suicide belts, car bombs, donkey cart powered rocket launchers (an Islamofascist innovation: Shock and Heehaw), crude missile attacks, and drive by shootings. None of these tactics allows them to seize ground and hold it unless they are successful in terrorizing their targets. As Samarra, Najaf, Gaza, Jenin and other engagements have taught us, the Islamofascists are no match against Western militaries when the to excercise the power is there. Fallujah is not under the control of Baathist and terrorists because we cannot win there, it is because a political decision was made to work out a peaceful solution. We can reenter Fallujah at our leisure, and likely will do so in the very near future. Terrorists can only succeed in our absence.

These are hard times for the Islamofascists; they have been doing nothing but ceding ground since the Fall of 2001. Afghanistan has been liberated from the Taliban and is heading for elections. Saddam sits in a jail writing poetry and gardening while Iraq is soon to follow Afghanistan with election scheduled in January of 2005. Iranian inspired cleric al-Sadr was humiliated in Najaf and his Mahdi Army was decimated. Israel conistently humiliates the Palestinians on the field of battle, and is poised to do so yet again. The Palestinians and their sympathizers are powerless to stop them. Pakistan and Saudi Arabia are pursuing al Qaeda and working to shut down the money machine of the Islamists. While al Qaeda has been successful in striking soft targets in Bali, Morocco, Spain, Iraq, Turkey, Jakarta, Beslan and elsewhere, the past three years have been filled with failure. Osama bin Laden is silent and his number two, Ayman al-Zawahiri calls for more terror attacks (even the war mongering Norwegians are not exempt). Abu Musab al-Zarqawi is the only terrorist that seems capable of attacking the Coalition with any regularity, but American and Iraqi forces are now working to dismantle his network and base of operations in the Sunni Triangle. Future Osama-wannabees and Atta-emulators of the Middle East cannot be encouraged as they turn on al Jazeera and watch the failures of their heros in real time.