‘We didn’t understand the goals of the war’: Israel’s inflated Hamas death toll shows lack of strategy in Gaza | Israel-Gaza war
AIsrael is preparing for a new attack in Gaza, and the figures from a classified database show that the country’s political and military leadership is misleading about a war that killed civilians and the world for two years.
In May this year, Israel’s military intelligence database of Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad warriors had 47,653 names. 8,900 of them were killed or probably killed by the Israeli-Palestinian publication Guardian as a joint investigation. +972 magazine and Hebrew starting point Local call found it.
This is far below the number of public commanders and military commanders who give a transition fee of more than 17,000 to 20,000 for less than five of the total and between 17,000 to 20,000 for the same period.
He concluded that an intelligence team that reviewed militant losses kept the database probably under the sum of the database, but a few intelligence sources said that the important figures given to the public were “wrong”.
Killing a significant portion of enemy soldiers is not always a military goal or victory prerequisite in war. However, in the absence of a long -term strategy, the Israeli army chose to make the militant wage a metrical of its achievements.
Shortly after the beginning of the war, Yossi Sariel, the head of the Elite 8200 intelligence unit, began to send a daily update in the form of a data graph called “war indicator, and told The Guardian, a few intelligence sources.
The screen, “a football game, the number of numbers in the indicator table of the civil servants sitting while watching the rise” was discussed.
Sources, Sariel and other senior commanders, Hamas warriors, said the deaths of themselves as a target, he said. If Hamas collapsed, there was no discussion about how Gaza would be controlled or managed, or the concessions that Israel could try to force individual fighters through mass murder.
One of Sariel’s subordinates said, “We had a beautiful, interactive control panel, but we didn’t understand the goals of the war.” “It was very annoying, the straightening of things to numbers.” Sariel refused to comment because he focused on the number of militant losses.
Many sources said that the inflation of the militant death fees of frequently reported and reinforced by the Israeli media is seen as a way to restore the stance of the Israeli people after 7 October 2023 failures by some in the army.
However, in the midst of an extremely high civilian killing rate, a high -level Western military source, tactically and defeated itself from a strategic perspective, trying to measure military progress with a militant body count.
“They only measure the wrong statistics. They will never kill anyone associated with Hamas, so what is the definition of victory?”
For about two years, Benjamin Netanyahu said that the Israeli forces were to “destroy Hamas ında in Gaza, so an uncertain target could be sustained almost indefinitely.
In 2023, the group was destroyed by military capacities that allowed 1,200 people to massacre in Israel. One of the leadership groups planning the October 7 attacks were killed as many of them.
Israel reduced most of Gaza to a flattened land, killed or wounded one in 10 of the pre -war population, and forced hunger survivors to only 20% of the Gaza region.
In this view of the apocalypse, most of the people listed as Israel’s Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad warriors after the intense bombing and ground operations that kill tens of thousands of civilians are still alive.
Israel defines and targets as militants, many people who do not participate in the war and are protected by international law.
Intelligence sources, according to intelligence sources, the army was sure to have been killed each operator in the list of a certain piece of intelligence, he said. Guardian obtained figures without +972 and local call names or additional reports.
A source, everyone we have information about their deaths, will be documented there in any way, ”he said. The document states that 7,330 militants recorded the approved deaths and 1,570 as “probably dead”. There were 750 senior Hamas operators in the database; 300 were absolutely or probably killed.
The comparison of the military database with the wounded list compiled by the Gaza Ministry of Health shows that Israel has killed five civilians for every militant in Gaza. Mass killing is a factor specified by academics, lawyers and rights groups that say that Israel has been genocide in Gaza.
The real death fee is higher
Both the military database and the Ministry of Health are underestimated.
Israel’s military intelligence teams are aware of the fact that they do not define all militants and do not know every death, with the knowledge of the database. However, his estimates still “four civilians were killed for every militant”.
The wounded list, published by the Ministry of Health, includes thousands of people buried under rubble, but only those with their bodies. Refereed international research also shows a significant higher transition fee.
Nevertheless, Netanyahu, who was requested by the International Criminal Court on the allegations of war crimes, promises inevitably that another land operation in Gaza – that would inevitably bring more collective massacres of Palestinian civilians would allow the army to seize the control of the last terrorist castles and defeat Hamas.
The Western military source said: şey What we see right now is another shot of a losing membrane. Because it will not work. It will be the same.
“There is no way to lead any of them to any situation where you can apply the word victory. A laborious violence for a military point.”
Hamas now has a handful of rockets to fight and the warriors would not easily approach the border fence, much less. It does not pose an existential threat to Israel, According to Israel and Palestinian experts.
“They lost their ability to threaten Israel for the next two years, Mo Muhammad Shehada, the European Foreign Relations Council analyst, said.
However, if the fight continues in Gaza, Hamas may be with time and manpower. Israel’s army is structured to fight traditional armies in short wars and will take action from reserves. Increased number of reserves now refuses to report for the task and the army Thinking of an objection to the diaspora.
“Hamas can maintain a long -term uprising in Gaza, because it does not take too much: the only needs rifles and tank weapons,” he said. “If they recycle the non -explosion Israel bombs, there is an endless explosive supply and the genocide provides an endless employment pool for new members.”
Proposing American intelligence forecasts Hamas bought 15,000 operators during the warAbout twice as much as Israel killed.
The public allegations of a death fee approaching 20,000 were also criticized for the right -right figures in Israel. At the beginning of the war, the retired General Itzhak Brik, the confidant of Netanyahu, believes that even an exaggeration of 8,900 figures is an exaggeration.
He said that focusing on the death fee offers a dangerous incentive to lie, and he described much higher wages as “one of the most serious bluffs in the country’s history.
In April 2024, several members of the Foreign and Defense Committee of Knesset questioned the militant injured figures presented to them by the army. Israel Hayom reported.
After examining the data of the army, the committee members found that public estimates inflated the number of militant losses between civil and militant deaths.
The findings reflect the numbers in the militant database seen by Guardian. The list is based on Islamic jihad documents and comprehensive research before and after 7 October. It contains thousands of militants, which the army believes that the army believed to have been hired after the beginning of the war.
The Israeli army did not object to the presence of the database or injured data when approached to comment by local call and +972. When Guardian asked for a comment about the same data, a spokesman said they decided to “re -express”.
Guardian said in a statement, the army intelligence database did not directly discuss questions. “The numbers presented in the article are wrong,” he said, without specifying the data he discussed. A spokesman did not answer why the army gave different answers to questions about a single data set.
