Humanitarian aid in Gaza & counter-insurgency doctrine
Why‘s the civilian population of Gaza facing the imminent risk of starvation, with credible reports of fatalities caused by sustained malnourishment and or dehydration?
The picture in Gaza is indeed bleak. There’s no doubt about it. While Hamas is naturally responsible for the unfolding tragedy, Israel controls the majority of the Gaza strip, hence, the onus of ensuring an adequate flow and distribution of humanitarian aid is on Israel.
This is not the first time there’s been a shortage of humanitarian aid reaching the population of Gaza. In the past, military operations and strategic calculations have led to impediments to the unrestricted flow of humanitarian goods.
Unfortunately, restrictions on the distribution of humanitarian goods are essential for this war to finally end. Hamas‘ permanent and comprehensive defeat is contingent on a Hamas-free aid distribution network on the ground. Otherwise, Hamas can maliciously siphon off both aid and vital cash funds by collecting forced duties and taxes on humanitarian aid in the areas it still controls. In addition to that, such a modus vivendi inevitably empowers Hamas fighters to steal or otherwise divert humanitarian goods to be resold on the secondary market or to be used to build up their own stockpiles for military purposes. Moreover, having de facto control over the distribution system on the ground puts Hamas officials in charge of life and death in Gaza. After all, they can assiduously select who gets food, water and medicine, and who has to go hungry, dehydrate or go untreated.
This type of power can and has consistently been leveraged to reward Hamas fighters, Hamas loyalists and to punish the remaining civilian population of Gaza, in particular those who dared to speak out against Hamas‘s ongoing war effort and their tyrannical grip on the enclave and its population.
Hamas must not be allowed to exercise this kind of power since it would undermine any effort to liberate Gaza from Hamas rule.
However, Israel cannot replace something, meaning the irresponsible UN delivery mechanism, with nothing. Now, the 90 million meals (each calibrated to feed 5.5 individuals for 3.5 days) that were distributed in under five weeks by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) are hardly nothing.
Having said that, they‘re not enough and they don’t necessarily reach the individuals and families who‘re in the most dire need of immediate assistance and relief.
The logistics, the overall capacity and the security provisions around the four active GHF sites are currently inadequate. They do not meet the overwhelming needs of the civilian population of Gaza.
Security around the sites must be improved, the sheer quantity of aid increased and the number of secure distribution sites must be multiplied and geographically dispersed over the whole length and width of the Gaza strip, in particular to the key population centers. In light of all this, the opening of an aid site exclusively for women, who are often not getting through the dense queues, presents a positive, if modest, development.
The current concentration of those sites in the South of Gaza is partly why aid, while technically in Gaza, isn’t reaching all of the people who’re in need of it.
Video footage, social media posts and images of pro-Hamas Gazans with ample food and amenities are indicative of the lopsided access to food in Gaza‘s remaining Hamas controlled areas.
This asymmetry speaks to the grand strategic error in Israel‘s Gaza campaign. Since the launch of the invasion, the Israeli cabinet and the IDF have tried to gradually pressure Hamas into a negotiated deal.
Alas, a mere pressure campaign basically shifts the casualties from the IDF to the population of Gaza, particularly if Hamas simply won’t budge. It prolongs the suffering.
Fighting the war in Gaza as a conventional war against a conventional enemy or as a counter-terrorism campaign centered around air strikes and targeted short-term raids was never a viable strategy to win the peace in Gaza. A light-footprint approach may seem appealing but it‘s also dangerously ineffective due to the local circumstances.
A counter-insurgency is the only plausible operational approach to achieve the strategic victory Israel‘s government so clearly desires. Regrettably, even Netanyahu‘s cabinet and certainly the command of the IDF have been infuriatingly timid and hesitant to adopt and to commit to a counter-insurgency strategy since it would mean a temporary, total occupation of the Gaza strip and a substantial increase in the exposure of IDF forces to ambushes, sniper fire, roadside bombs, improvised explosive devices of all sorts etc. etc.
We‘ve been there before. The US has successfully implemented a COIN approach under Gen. David Petraeus in Iraq amidst the troop surge of 2007. It only took them 4 years after the launch of the invasion in 2003. The population of Gaza doesn’t have another two years until the IDF optimizes its campaign.
The IDF isn’t the US Army, however. They‘re a smaller force, with a less ambitious doctrine and made up of conscripts and reservists. The financial and human cost of a counter-insurgency is high for a small nation like Israel. So are the reputational costs.
It is, therefore, understandable that the Israeli military and political leadership have been skeptical and tried to avoid or to put off a pivotal decision on the nature of their operations in Gaza.
In March, after the end of a short-lived ceasefire, Israel has finally put in place an operation that, for the first time since the war began, resembles the contours of a COIN strategy.
The 4 critical pillars of this new approach are
I. Taking control of the humanitarian aid distribution
II. Aiding and coordinating with anti-Hamas groups, individuals, and families to facilitate their actions and self-defense against Hamas rule and Hamas atrocities
III. Seizing near-total - and permanent - military control over the territory and the population of Gaza
IV. The sequestration of Hamas cells and fighters from the civilian population of Gaza
Now that Hamas has refused to accept but the latest ceasefire proposal, it‘s essential to ensure this new operation is no mere continuation of the previous operational pattern and habits. Pressuring Hamas is simply not enough. They have to lose everything, their resources, their territory, their influence over the local populace, their leadership, their weapons and ammunition and most of their fighters, until they‘re defeated and the remaining, demoralized vestiges of the terror group lay down their arms and agree to go into exile.
Nevertheless, for the time being and until the logistical and security capacity deficiencies of the GHF are fixed, a temporary use of additional, less discriminate, aid distribution techniques will be necessary to ward off individual cases of hunger deaths, dehydration, fatalities in and around the aid distribution points and an all-out famine.
Thankfully, humanitarian air drops have been approved by the Israeli government to mitigate the ongoing humanitarian crisis. Now, the UN organizations have to finally cooperate with the IDF to get their food trucks moving.
The picture in Gaza is indeed bleak. There’s no doubt about it. While Hamas is naturally responsible for the unfolding tragedy, Israel controls the majority of the Gaza strip, hence, the onus of ensuring an adequate flow and distribution of humanitarian aid is on Israel.
This is not the first time there’s been a shortage of humanitarian aid reaching the population of Gaza. In the past, military operations and strategic calculations have led to impediments to the unrestricted flow of humanitarian goods.
Unfortunately, restrictions on the distribution of humanitarian goods are essential for this war to finally end. Hamas‘ permanent and comprehensive defeat is contingent on a Hamas-free aid distribution network on the ground. Otherwise, Hamas can maliciously siphon off both aid and vital cash funds by collecting forced duties and taxes on humanitarian aid in the areas it still controls. In addition to that, such a modus vivendi inevitably empowers Hamas fighters to steal or otherwise divert humanitarian goods to be resold on the secondary market or to be used to build up their own stockpiles for military purposes. Moreover, having de facto control over the distribution system on the ground puts Hamas officials in charge of life and death in Gaza. After all, they can assiduously select who gets food, water and medicine, and who has to go hungry, dehydrate or go untreated.
This type of power can and has consistently been leveraged to reward Hamas fighters, Hamas loyalists and to punish the remaining civilian population of Gaza, in particular those who dared to speak out against Hamas‘s ongoing war effort and their tyrannical grip on the enclave and its population.
Hamas must not be allowed to exercise this kind of power since it would undermine any effort to liberate Gaza from Hamas rule.
However, Israel cannot replace something, meaning the irresponsible UN delivery mechanism, with nothing. Now, the 90 million meals (each calibrated to feed 5.5 individuals for 3.5 days) that were distributed in under five weeks by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) are hardly nothing.
Having said that, they‘re not enough and they don’t necessarily reach the individuals and families who‘re in the most dire need of immediate assistance and relief.
The logistics, the overall capacity and the security provisions around the four active GHF sites are currently inadequate. They do not meet the overwhelming needs of the civilian population of Gaza.
Security around the sites must be improved, the sheer quantity of aid increased and the number of secure distribution sites must be multiplied and geographically dispersed over the whole length and width of the Gaza strip, in particular to the key population centers. In light of all this, the opening of an aid site exclusively for women, who are often not getting through the dense queues, presents a positive, if modest, development.
The current concentration of those sites in the South of Gaza is partly why aid, while technically in Gaza, isn’t reaching all of the people who’re in need of it.
Video footage, social media posts and images of pro-Hamas Gazans with ample food and amenities are indicative of the lopsided access to food in Gaza‘s remaining Hamas controlled areas.
This asymmetry speaks to the grand strategic error in Israel‘s Gaza campaign. Since the launch of the invasion, the Israeli cabinet and the IDF have tried to gradually pressure Hamas into a negotiated deal.
Alas, a mere pressure campaign basically shifts the casualties from the IDF to the population of Gaza, particularly if Hamas simply won’t budge. It prolongs the suffering.
Fighting the war in Gaza as a conventional war against a conventional enemy or as a counter-terrorism campaign centered around air strikes and targeted short-term raids was never a viable strategy to win the peace in Gaza. A light-footprint approach may seem appealing but it‘s also dangerously ineffective due to the local circumstances.
A counter-insurgency is the only plausible operational approach to achieve the strategic victory Israel‘s government so clearly desires. Regrettably, even Netanyahu‘s cabinet and certainly the command of the IDF have been infuriatingly timid and hesitant to adopt and to commit to a counter-insurgency strategy since it would mean a temporary, total occupation of the Gaza strip and a substantial increase in the exposure of IDF forces to ambushes, sniper fire, roadside bombs, improvised explosive devices of all sorts etc. etc.
We‘ve been there before. The US has successfully implemented a COIN approach under Gen. David Petraeus in Iraq amidst the troop surge of 2007. It only took them 4 years after the launch of the invasion in 2003. The population of Gaza doesn’t have another two years until the IDF optimizes its campaign.
The IDF isn’t the US Army, however. They‘re a smaller force, with a less ambitious doctrine and made up of conscripts and reservists. The financial and human cost of a counter-insurgency is high for a small nation like Israel. So are the reputational costs.
It is, therefore, understandable that the Israeli military and political leadership have been skeptical and tried to avoid or to put off a pivotal decision on the nature of their operations in Gaza.
In March, after the end of a short-lived ceasefire, Israel has finally put in place an operation that, for the first time since the war began, resembles the contours of a COIN strategy.
The 4 critical pillars of this new approach are
I. Taking control of the humanitarian aid distribution
II. Aiding and coordinating with anti-Hamas groups, individuals, and families to facilitate their actions and self-defense against Hamas rule and Hamas atrocities
III. Seizing near-total - and permanent - military control over the territory and the population of Gaza
IV. The sequestration of Hamas cells and fighters from the civilian population of Gaza
Now that Hamas has refused to accept but the latest ceasefire proposal, it‘s essential to ensure this new operation is no mere continuation of the previous operational pattern and habits. Pressuring Hamas is simply not enough. They have to lose everything, their resources, their territory, their influence over the local populace, their leadership, their weapons and ammunition and most of their fighters, until they‘re defeated and the remaining, demoralized vestiges of the terror group lay down their arms and agree to go into exile.
Nevertheless, for the time being and until the logistical and security capacity deficiencies of the GHF are fixed, a temporary use of additional, less discriminate, aid distribution techniques will be necessary to ward off individual cases of hunger deaths, dehydration, fatalities in and around the aid distribution points and an all-out famine.
Thankfully, humanitarian air drops have been approved by the Israeli government to mitigate the ongoing humanitarian crisis. Now, the UN organizations have to finally cooperate with the IDF to get their food trucks moving.
