‘Room to room’ warfare in Gaza

Sam Hawley: Hi, I’m Sam Hawley, coming to you from Gadigal land. This is ABC News Daily. A fortnight since the horrifying attack by Hamas in southern Israel. The war is escalating and the civilian death toll is growing. This week, an explosion at a hospital in Gaza shocked the world, fuelling anger and confusion, with both sides blaming each other. All the while, Israeli troops have been waiting on the border, ready to invade. Today, an expert on urban warfare, on the complexities of an expected ground war.

Jacob Stoil: I’m Dr. Jacob Stoil. I am the chair of applied history at the West Point Modern War Institute and associate professor of military history at the US Army School of Advanced Military Studies, a senior fellow at the 40th Infantry Division, centre for Urban Warfare. Today I’m speaking on my own behalf and on the basis of my research, knowledge and expertise, and not on behalf of the US Department of Defence, the US Army or the US government in any way.

Sam Hawley: Okay. That’s that’s good to know. Good to clarify. All right, Jacob, we’re going to talk about how a potential ground invasion in Gaza will play out. But first I want to discuss with you the explosion at a Gaza hospital this week.

Journalist: Many of these victims had been sheltering at the Al-Ahli Arab Hospital, where they thought they were relatively safe.

Journalist: Conflicting accounts continue of Wednesday’s strike on a hospital in Gaza, which Palestinian officials say left about 500 people dead.

Sam Hawley: Immediately after that, the Israelis and Palestinians blamed each other, didn’t they?

Jacob Stoil: They absolutely did. And it’s really, really important to use this as a way to understand something of what we should expect in urban operations and in operations in a highly, highly dense urban environment, which is the rush to conclusions before evidence is out there. It’s a very, very good lesson for us all to take a moment and wait till we get clarity before rushing to judgement and conclusion, and this is something, as these ground operations begin and as further operations continue, we really should take it as a lesson going forward.

Sam Hawley: The US president, Joe Biden, during his visit to Israel, said US intelligence supported Israel’s assertion that the blast was caused by a rocket fired from within Gaza. But of course, Gaza’s health ministry, which is run by Hamas, is still blaming Israel for the strike. And it’s really important, isn’t it, because it goes to how people feel about this war. We saw across the Middle East large protests as anger really rose against what they saw as Israel’s bombing of that hospital.

Jacob Stoil: And it’s gone beyond that. It’s had permanent consequences. Just recently, a ancient and historic synagogue in Tunisia was largely destroyed by angry rioters as a result of the perception that this had been an Israeli strike. So these kinds of rushes to judgement, especially in our day and age of social media, have real world global implications.

Sam Hawley: What about President Biden’s war time visit to Israel? What impact could that have?

Jacob Stoil: I think it has a real impact in terms of messaging. President Biden’s visit there sends a very, very, very powerful message that they’re not alone and that their concerns are not being ignored. And he did bring concessions from it. He’s changed the humanitarian situation in Gaza as a result of this meeting.

Joe Biden, US President: The people of Gaza need food, water, medicine, shelter. Today, I ask the Israeli cabinet, who I met with for some time this morning to agree to the delivery of life saving humanitarian assistance to civilians in Gaza, based on the understanding that there will be inspections and that the aid should go to civilians, not to Hamas.

Jacob Stoil: Now, at the same time, he did try to meet with the Jordanian government and the government of the Palestinian Authority following the explosion at the hospital. Those meetings were cancelled. So it really does show the power of US diplomatic involvement, but also message to the Israelis that they are not alone in this real time of grief and pain.

Sam Hawley: And also a message to Israelis not to be consumed by rage.

Joe Biden, US President: Don’t be consumed by it. After 911, we were enraged in the United States. While we sought justice and got justice, we also made mistakes.

Sam Hawley: What mistakes do you think he was referring to? And what mistakes could Israel make now?

Jacob Stoil: So I can’t speak specifically to what mistakes President Biden may have been referring to. But I will say two mistakes that could come out of this are one not responding in an appropriate fashion, perhaps even under responding. In a way that would allow this to set precedent for what Hamas and other militant groups do in the future. The second mistake would be to lead to a long term re-occupation of Gaza that presents no particular solution. What Israel has to be careful of is in their response, not doing something that makes that long term strategic problem worse.

Sam Hawley: So, Jacob, let’s go to what comes next. Israel has been clearly gearing up for a ground offensive. How would this ground assault actually begin? What would it look like?

Jacob Stoil: Thats a great question. When the next phase happens, the ground phase happens. We’ve actually seen, first of all, one ground operation into Gaza already in something that’s called, in military terms, a reconnaissance in force, where you send a force into the area in which you intend to operate to gauge what the enemy’s defences are and what their strengths are. And that ground operation was able to capture some very advanced equipment from Hamas and give us a picture of what to expect in the battlefield. This includes significant numbers of improvised explosive devices, a device known as an explosively formed penetrator, which was pioneered really in recent years by the Iranians and used by their militaries and militia against coalition forces in Iraq, as well as a number of anti-tank guided missiles and other kind of high end capabilities. So the results of this reconnaissance in force gave us a picture of what to expect going forward.

Sam Hawley: And to begin with, the battle will take place in the north of Gaza. We expect we know that, don’t we? Because Israel has warned citizens to move to the South. So how prepared do you think Hamas is for this invasion?

Jacob Stoil: I believe Hamas is very well prepared. Hamas has functioned as the civil government of Gaza for well over a decade. At this point. During this decade, they’ve had the chance to require that any civilian infrastructure built, be it sewers, be it houses, be it schools, has been built with a second purpose in mind. Those buildings directly have Hamas military infrastructure incorporated into them. What they’ve learned over the years is by mixing civilian and military capabilities and infrastructure together, and by keeping civilians in the battle space, it acts as a form of protection for them. Israel has also made the decision to tell civilians to evacuate northern Gaza. This telegraphs to Hamas, where the Israeli operation is going to begin, and so they can move some of their more vulnerable command and control elements further south. And so Israel has had to face a really tough decision, actually, is do you inform the Palestinians where the operation is going to come, which will help protect Palestinian civilians, but will make it harder for the operation to succeed and put your own forces at risk? And they have made that choice.

Sam Hawley: And Hamas has this extensive network of tunnels. How key will they be? Explain what they are.

Jacob Stoil: So Hamas over the years, and this has to do a lot with the geology of Gaza, has had the opportunity to build significant, significant subterranean infrastructure. To give you an idea of what we’re talking about here, we’re really talking about hundreds of kilometres worth of subterranean infrastructure. And it’s multi-layered. So there are tunnels below, tunnels, basements that link to other basements with further tunnels below them. These tunnel networks attach buildings to each other. They attach underground storage to the combat zone. They provide places for Hamas fighters to hide and conduct from which to conduct ambushes. They allow Hamas to move unseen below ground. A number of them run underneath schools, run and run underneath hospitals, and provide protection there for Hamas leadership, as well as for a lot of their stocks of armaments. And ultimately, they’ll require Israeli soldiers to find them and to either enter them or to use certain explosives and concrete devices to try to seal them and close them up. But this will be the to a large extent, the main fight will likely be around the entrances and the control of, and the neutralisation of this extensive subterranean infrastructure.

Sam Hawley: All right. So, Jacob, we’ve spoken about how ready Hamas is. What about Israel? How ready are the Israeli soldiers?

Jacob Stoil: Terms of morale and desire? The Israeli soldiers are ready and waiting. They’ve really been working on preparing for this and not rushing into it at the same time, while the Israeli military is more capable than Hamas. Absolutely. It’s facing a multi-front problem. Hezbollah on the northern border has become increasingly active, firing across the border, engaging Israeli forces on the northern border. And so while Israel is incredibly strong and powerful as a military, it’s facing a multiple front problem. And so it can’t really afford to concentrate exclusively on Gaza.

Sam Hawley: And Jacob, there’s also the issue, of course, of Israeli hostages.

Journalist: The first glimpse of what life is like as a hostage of Hamas. This video, released by the terrorists behind the shocking attack in Israel, shows 21 year old Mia Shem captured at the Supernova Music festival. Get me out of here as soon as possible, please. Mia says.

Keren Shem, Mother of Israeli hostage: She looks pale. She looks very frightened. She looks in pain.

Journalist: There are at least 198 others, just like Mia. Children, elderly, entire families hidden in underground tunnels all over Gaza.

Sam Hawley: How do the Israeli soldiers ensure their safety?

Jacob Stoil: It will be very, very, very difficult for the Israelis to be able to find them and bring them back alive. That said, there are a number of Israeli special operations units who specialise in this. There are coalition assets that are being brought to bear to help. The UK has announced, for instance, that it has aircraft in the region that can help, and that the US has also announced that it is very concerned about bringing the hostages back and is offered aid, and hopefully Hamas will fulfil its international legal obligations to return them.

Sam Hawley: And Jacob, how do you expect this will play out? How will this urban warfare unfold? There’s basically nothing good about it. It’s horrifying.

Jacob Stoil: There is absolutely nothing good about it. Ground operations in the urban environment are always terrible. They always involve a need to go room to room, to clear basements, to go into the subterranean area. And though they’re the very same areas that civilians are naturally going to move to to stay out of the fighting. And so what? Urban operations do is they bring the fighting into the bedroom, into the house, into the basement, into the shelter of civilians, which is, of course, terrible. Ultimately, this is a soldier’s fight at close range, supported by armour, supported by engineers with explosives. Fighting building to building.

Sam Hawley: Dr. Jacob Stoyle is a founding member of the International Working Group on Subterranean Warfare. If you want to know about the origins and rise of Hamas, Matt Bevin investigates that in this week’s episode of If You’re Listening. Find it on the ABC listen app. This episode was produced by Nell Whitehead and Sam Dunn, who also did the mix. Our supervising producer is David Coady. Over the weekend, catch this Week with David Lipson, where he’ll be looking at the deepening divisions between Arab nations over the Israel Gaza war. I’m Sam Hawley. ABC News Daily will be back again on Monday. Thanks for listening.