As the Israeli occupation army continues its scorched earth policy of bombing residential areas in the Gaza Strip with explosive robots, questions are mounting about the background and strategic dimensions of this military behavior. Do these operations reflect a tactical choice to pave the way for ground forces, or are they an indication of a deeper crisis facing the occupation army after its engineering and human units were exhausted in urban battles?
Military and strategic expert, retired Colonel Nidal Abu Zeid, believes that the occupation army’s reliance on explosive robots to bomb residential areas reflects a dangerous state of depletion in its engineering and human units, while also revealing a loss of the will to fight among its soldiers.
He asserts that the resistance has succeeded in imposing complex attrition tactics that have forced the occupation to rely on firepower and technology instead of decisive ground action.
Abu Zeid told Filastin newspaper that the occupation has lost the ability to accurately assess the resistance’s capabilities, and has resorted to using M113 explosive-laden vehicles loaded with 6 to 7 tons of explosives instead of engineering units. The Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor reported that the occupation army uses more than 17 car bombs daily inside Gaza City, each with the explosive force equivalent to an earthquake measuring 3.7 on the Richter scale.
The Geneva-based monitor explained that the occupation detonated approximately 120 car bombs loaded with approximately 840 tons of explosives in residential neighborhoods in Gaza City over the past week, considering this to constitute “a dangerous escalation of the ongoing genocide against the Palestinians that has been ongoing for 24 months.” Attrition and Erosion.
He emphasized that the occupation relies more on firepower than on manpower. “It controls with fire, but it does not control with troops,” he said, noting that the soldiers’ will to fight has dangerously declined, “as evidenced by their inability to respond when their tanks and armored personnel carriers are targeted with IEDs.”
Abu Zeid concluded by saying, “The military path in Gaza is blocked. Neither the airspace nor the ground is decisive. The occupation fears the introduction of infantry forces, while the resistance, in turn, possesses the flexibility and ability to surprise it.
Therefore, Israel has no solution other than negotiations, while the ongoing political initiatives are merely an attempt to save what remains of the occupation army before slipping further into the battles of Gaza City,” he estimated.
