Why the IDF doesn’t Clear and Hold
The concept, central to US counter-insurgency doctrine, has no Israeli equivalent
On 14 May, Israel’s Independence Day, Israeli Defense Force units operating in the Jabalya neighborhood of northern Gaza watched as a salvo of rockets streaked over their heads toward Ashkelon, fired from just a few hundred meters away in an area that had been recently cleared.
"It's frustrating to see this, seven and a half months after the war began," one of the company commanders in the 196th Battalion commented to a reporter as they both took shelter behind a berm.
This was the battalion’s second time in Jabalya, one of the largest suburbs to the north of Gaza City. Back in November, it took two brigades over a month to subdue this part of the city– the last Hamas stronghold in the north. In January, the IDF declared victory and pulled out of northern Gaza. Four months later, it is back with an entire division – fighting Hamas again.
The same pattern has occurred elsewhere. In the last 10 days of February alone, the IDF reported around over 100 attacks in the Zaytoun area of southern Gaza, involving rocket propelled grenades, mortars, explosively-formed penetrators (EFP), improvised explosive devices, small arms, and rockets. These took place four months after the initial invasion and in the wake of two division sized clearing operations in the same area. This story has been repeated in different areas of the strip throughout the war: areas abandoned by the IDF quickly fall again under Hamas control.
Three-dimensional Chess
It’s all too familiar a phenomenon for anyone who has fought insurgents in cities. I was eating my Christmas meal in Fallujah, three weeks after the battle to retake the city had officially ended, when insurgents entered the building next door and killed three Marines. In Gaza, tunnels make holding any terrain for any period of time exponentially more difficult. For almost three months, Hamas was able to shuttle fighters, weapons, and hostages between north and south Gaza beneath the wetlands of Wadi Gaza – an area in which IDF engineers were sure that the confluence of water would make digging a tunnel impossible.
‘My battalion set up a 360-degree defense for three weeks before I realized that it was useless’, a battalion commander from the 98th Division’s Commando Brigade told me. ‘It was like a chess game between me and the Hamas company commander. I was playing him above ground – while he played below ground.’ One night two insurgents popped up through a tunnel right by his command post – killing one soldier and wounding two others before disappearing again.’
No Strategic Objectives
In recent comments to the press, IDF leadership has – unofficially at least – blamed the government for the problems it is experiencing in Gaza now, arguing that the absence of clear strategic goals is derailing their campaign. They are partially correct – but Hamas owes its resurgence in Gaza to more than political dithering.
Ground-Pounders are gold
One reason is simply that the IDF doesn’t enough infantry, even with its full complement of reservists, to secure all of Gaza. As high-tech though war has become, it still takes infantry to seize buildings – and only infantry can hold them to prevent the enemy from coming back in. And with pressure on the government increasing to release reservists back into society, the problem becomes even more acute. This is already the longest war that Israel has fought. A country with a population of less than 10 million cannot lose some 300,000 people from its workforce without significant impact on its economy. At the same time, the IDF cannot wage a war on two fronts – or even one for that matter – without them.
No COIN for you!
There’s another reason why the IDF doesn’t ‘clear and hold’ – a concept that is firmly embedded in US counter-insurgency (COIN) doctrine – and that is because the IDF doesn’t do counter-insurgency. ‘Why train for COIN when you don’t plan to stay?’ a retired IDF major general and former national security advisor in the current government explained, before adding ‘It was a huge mistake’.
Maybe, but at the time the decision probably made good sense. Counter-insurgency implies occupation – and that’s not a concept that aligns with Israel’s previous strategy of waging quick, decisive wars that stop short of totally defeating the enemy. Occupation means casualties, economic strain, global criticism, and political risk. It reminds Israelis of Lebanon – a 20-year occupation with its steady stream of casualties and bad news. That was the first time that Israel appeared in the eyes of the world, and to many of its own citizens, as Goliath not David. Lebanon brought down governments and ended careers.
Within the IDF, a small group of officers still pushed the value of learning counter-insurgency. Dr. Yagil Henkin teaches military history at the IDF’s command and staff college. In the late 90s, he was an active-duty major working in the doctrine branch of what was then called the Infantry and Paratrooper Command. He led a team in writing the IDF manual on counter-insurgency and urban warfare, finishing it towards the end of 1999, just in time for the new century. It was rejected by the IDF high command – ‘You’re wasting your time -- we don’t occupy Arab cities,’ one high ranking officer told him.
Henkin ended up with 500 copies that he couldn’t disseminate but his field-grade students found a way around this. ‘I’d go to the bathroom and another dozen copies would disappear.’ He subsequently met Brigade commanders who used it in Gaza in 2002 for operation Defensive Shield, but the manual has long since disappeared from even unofficial circulation – and along with it, all institutional memory of counter-insurgency. Now Henkin has been fielding requests by operational commanders to republish.
Made sense at the time…
All of this is not to say that the IDF should have trained in counter-insurgency operations. When you are a citizen army that only has its soldiers for a few weeks a year, you must prioritize what you teach them. And given their nation’s attitude to the concept of occupation in the aftermath of Lebanon and faced with limited resources – the most precious of which for the large reserve force was time, it made sense for the IDF to scrub COIN from its mission essential task list.
Instead IDF doctrine focuses almost exclusively on combined arms maneuver to seize terrain, consolidate and prepare for counter-attack. But it provides little to guide a unit commander tasked with holding that terrain against a dispersed, lightly equipped enemy who waits until after the storm to pop back into play. That is clearly a gap in doctrine whether you want to call it counter-insurgency or something else. For Dr. Henkin the moral is clear: ‘If you believe you won’t be confronted by a certain kind of war – you inevitably will and you won’t be prepared.’
Conquer and Purify
It’s not clear that the IDF will acknowledge this lesson – and a change in doctrine will mean a change in culture. IDF doctrine doesn’t even mention ‘clear and hold’ – and there is no equivalent phrase in Hebrew. In a recent interview with the Jerusalem Press club a senior IDF general used the term ‘conquer and purify,’ instead but didn’t explain what the term ‘purify’ meant.
It means ‘destroy as an enemy framework,’ one battalion commander from the 98th Division’s Commando Brigade explained to me when I asked him. The IDF uses the term framework to describe Hamas’s leadership, equipment, and infrastructure –the most critical of which is their network of tunnels beneath Gaza. A ‘framework’ is a single tunnel complex – comprising one main tunnel with offshoots and all buildings above it. It’s a useful phrase because when combined with ‘ceased to exist’ – a term used by the IDF spokesman to describe Hamas’s Northern Brigade - it means complete and permanent destruction.
Scorched Earth
Faced with the mission of destroying Hamas, but without enough soldiers to prevent their return, the IDF has done its best to ensure that there is nothing to return to.
‘Our entire Brigade was organized to assault and demolish,’ was how another battalion commander described the operation in northern Gaza. I had heard this term used before as asked about clear and hold. It was in any case a much better description of an operation that was intended to tear up Hamas by the roots. ‘We weren’t chasing their fighters, our aim was to obliterate their organization’ – this meant destroying the tunnel network and the buildings that stood above it, framework by framework.
Each attack was preceded by a massive bombardment. Gaza provides the Israelis with a battleground made for supporting arms. The IDF can fire into the strip from three sides, air, land and sea. The high-rise buildings in the strip are densely packed and often poorly built. The techniques that the IDF uses for targeting Hamas fighters and warning the civilian population fall far short of the standards required by the US military. When the infantry goes in, it is with tanks and rules of engagement that allow reconnaissance by fire. The result is that along with massive destruction comes a high civilian casualty rate, which is seen as an acceptable price to pay for keeping IDF casualties low. But, as any counter-insurgent will tell you, civilian casualties always matter.
Accompanying a brigade attack is an entire battalion of combat engineers along with heavy equipment and mines for demolition. The brigade will use D-9 bulldozers to clear obstacles, and proof its path, covered by tanks and infantry. Objectives are terrain features – and since they are rarely defended these attacks proceed with a momentum that is easy to confuse with success. After the infantry have seized the buildings, the engineers emplace mines in as many as they can, beginning with those above known tunnels. It takes 20 mines to take down a typical mid-rise building in Gaza. Each battalion carries 2-300 in its daily load, and usually used them all. ‘We demolished whole neighborhoods in a single day,’ another battalion commander told me. It sounded like a commercial – but concealed a truth clear to the IDF now: they didn’t destroy Hamas.
Lessons ?
Failure to prepare for the unexpected is what tripped the IDF up at the beginning of the war -- and Henkin’s advice is a reminder of the responsibility of commanders to do just that. Beyond that there is little to be done to correct a two decade gap in counter-insurgency training.
To the company commander taking shelter from rockets on his country’s independence day, the solution was clear: ‘It looks like we have to come back and take care of each individual rocket launcher,’ he said on national TV.
There are other options to holding ground – but none quite as effective. IDF commanders have pointed out that a better strategy than clear and leave, would be to maintain control of the borders – to include the Philadelphi corridor with its network of tunnels linking Gaza to Egypt, picket the strip with special operations forces working covertly, and launch raids and strikes to prevent Hamas from reforming. This offers a more practical option – but is won’t be enough to stop Hamas from resuming control. For that you would need to provide an alternative.
And therein lies the rub.
I basically agree except for the fact that Israel has been HOLDDING the West Bank for 40 years now. I guess they need a lot of settlers with AR-15s to terrorize the population.
Makes you wonder why Israel acts shocked that the ICC is going after them for war crimes... because it sure sounds like war crimes to me...not that Hamas is any better, but when you stoop to the level of your adversaries, don't be surprised you are no longer considered the good guy