“Hamas trap”… Challenges facing the Israeli army in the temporary truce

As soon as the truce agreement in Gaza entered into force on Friday morning, hundreds of displaced Palestinians began returning from the south of the Strip to the north, and the scenes of the influx of many groups prompted the Israeli army to issue warnings stating that “it will not allow any form of population movement.”

While the army spokesman, Avichay Adraee, called on the “X” social networking site not to approach the military forces and the areas north of the Gaza Valley, he announced that “the northern Gaza Strip area is a combat zone and it is forbidden to remain there,” adding, “The war is not over.”

Al-Hurra’s correspondent reported that 3 Palestinians were killed by Israeli forces’ bullets, during citizens’ attempts to head north, while 15 others were injured.

Meanwhile, video recordings documented attempts by members of the Israeli army to prevent residents from heading to the northern Gaza Strip, and others showed tanks and armored vehicles with people trying to cross near them.

The truce is scheduled to last for four days, but it is not known whether Israel and Hamas will agree through mediators to extend it for additional days, while also continuing the exchange of hostages and detainees.

Why is Israel concerned?

When the agreement negotiations were maturing and their near completion was gradually announced over the past few days, former military officials in Israel raised an issue that carried “fears and apprehension” that the truce would negatively affect “the military momentum of the Israeli army.”

While these fears remained, their scope expanded with the entry into force of the agreement, and the influx of recently displaced residents to the south, due to the intensification of the bombing campaign.

The Times of Israel newspaper believes in a report that “thousands of Gazans heading north represents a potential challenge to the Israeli army’s campaign after the truce,” and considered that “Hamas is encouraging civilians to return to the war zone, while the Israeli army is using limited force to prevent the flow.”

The newspaper quoted retired General Israel Ziv, a former head of Israeli army operations, as saying, “Hamas is trying to encourage many of the hundreds of thousands of Gazans who were evacuated to the south to return, in order to completely disrupt the Israeli military campaign to destroy the movement ruling Gaza.”

Ziv added: “Hamas has no problem sacrificing all the residents of Gaza, as it has proven,” expecting that “Hamas will intensify its efforts during the four days scheduled for the truce, which represents a very complex challenge, as the Israeli army seeks to resume its campaign when the cessation of fighting ends.”

Retired Palestinian Major General Wassef Erekat says, “Israel does not want the displaced to return, because it wants to empty the area completely.” Despite this, “the Palestinian people will not accept this reality,” as he put it.

Erekat explains to Al-Hurra website that “the residents of Gaza had originally rejected displacement and migration. Those of them who left from the north to the south migrated as a result of pressure… but they will return.”

Since Israel issued evacuation orders for the first time in the northern Gaza Strip on October 13, an estimated 1.7 million people have been displaced out of the Strip’s 2.2 million population as Israel seeks to overthrow Hamas.

Despite the Israeli army’s entry into Gaza City and other areas in the northern Gaza Strip three weeks ago, hundreds of families remained trapped in hospitals and in several camps, led by Jabalia.

“There are currently attempts to return the displaced,” and retired Major General Erekat believes that “the longer the truce extends, the more there will be a chance for the displaced to return, regardless of Israel’s desire or not.”

“Makes military missions more difficult”

The Times of Israel quoted a senior officer in the Israeli army’s Southern Command as saying on Friday afternoon that “the forces will respond to any attempt to harm them amid the ceasefire, while the army spends its time preparing for the resumption of fighting.”

He added: “Anyone who poses a threat to our forces will be struck. The security of our forces is a top priority.” He continued: “This is how we acted, and this is how we will continue to act. We are preparing to continue the attack with all our strength as soon as the truce ends.”

Regarding the Israeli position, analyst and political researcher Yoav Stern explains that “the issue of the northern Gaza Strip and the return of residents constitutes a challenge to Israel because after the end of the truce it wants these areas to remain empty.”

“The presence of the population makes military missions in the region difficult, and Israel is trying to avoid civilians,” Stern said in an interview with Al-Hurra website, “Their presence in the northern Gaza Strip means that they are at risk of being targeted, which limits the capabilities of the Israeli army to operate freely.”

The Israeli war in the northern Strip, which lasted for a month and a half, resulted in the deaths of thousands of civilians in Gaza, the majority of whom were women and children, and pushed nearly a million people to flee south.

45 percent of total homes across the Strip are too damaged to live in, according to United Nations estimates.

According to the American magazine “Politico”, the destruction of vital infrastructure “has consequences for years to come” for the residents of the coastal strip, which is home to 2.3 million people.

Analyst Stern believes that “the return of the population to the north means that after the end of the truce, the Israeli army will be forced to direct them again to the south.”

Since the Israeli army issued warnings and threatened to prevent movement, the analyst believes that it “cannot prevent the return completely, because it does not intend to come into contact with them.”

“Hamas trap”

The return of residents from the south of the Gaza Strip to its north does not represent the only challenge that Israel is concerned about, and former Israeli National Security Advisor Meir Ben-Shabbat points to another, in an article published by the “Israel Hayom” newspaper, on Friday afternoon.

Under what he called “the necessity of avoiding the Hamas trap,” Ben-Shabbat said that “Israel must keep its war machine running during the ceasefire,” and “there is no doubt that the movement wants to see the ceasefire as a turning point in the conflict,” according to His expression.

Hamas believes, as Ben Shabbat believes, that “the ceasefire will cause the IDF to lose momentum and it will gradually reduce its operations through a series of limited ceasefires and restrictive conditions, until a complete cessation of offensive actions is reached.”

At the same time, the article stated, “Israel will lose its legitimacy to fight a high-intensity war, and the international community will increase its diplomatic efforts in order to reach broader arrangements, and in the meantime Hamas will recover.”

“The ceasefire agreed upon as part of the hostage deal will pose many operational challenges for Israel,” and “the biggest challenge is how to ensure that the Israeli army is able to resume firing instead of falling into Hamas’ trap,” the Israeli national security advisor considers. the previous.

In turn, researcher Stern explains, “Israel is now concerned with releasing more detainees as much as possible, because it knows that a significant portion of the soldiers will remain in the hands of Hamas.”

Israel will be concerned with the release of the elderly, women and children, and after that the battles will continue.

“We could see an extension of the truce,” Stern believes, “Hamas will procrastinate and there will be a lack of clarity on its part, which will push Israel to rush back to the battle, so that there is no doubt.”

Before the truce entered into force, the Israeli army published a video recording of the Chief of Staff, Herzl Halevy, in which he said: “We will not end the war. We will continue until we win. We move forward and continue in other Hamas areas.”

Before that, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said before a meeting to approve the humanitarian truce: “Let me be clear: We are at war – and we will continue the war.”

While the Israeli Prime Minister’s position was partly aimed at appeasing hardliners who strongly oppose any concessions to Hamas, he also emphasized that even after six weeks of fighting in which it occupied northern Gaza and caused unprecedented devastation there, Israel is still far from achieving its military goals, according to a report. Published by the Financial Times on Thursday.