How Many Times Will Israel "Occupy the Occupied Gaza"?
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How Many Times Will Israel "Occupy the Occupied Gaza"?

After 671 days of the genocide war that destroyed 80% of the houses and buildings of the Gaza Strip and its infrastructure, killed 3% of its population, and turned two million Palestinians, the majority of whom are victims of the Nakba of 1948, into displaced people living in the open and crammed into buffer zones designed to be transitional stations on the road to final displacement, while they "beg" for a piece of bread soaked in blood to quench their hunger amid a permanent starvation siege that has recently turned into one of the weapons of killing.

In light of this catastrophic situation, on the brink of the end of the second year of the hellish war that has opened and closed its doors on the children, women, and men of Gaza who are burning in its fire more than once, the Prime Minister of the occupying state, Benjamin Netanyahu, "surprises us" by announcing his intention to order his army to occupy the Gaza Strip!!

It is yet another paradox of the strange equations of this never-ending war, a declaration of bankruptcy for the Israeli army that is supposed to be invincible, a testimony of honor, albeit from an enemy, to the people of Gaza and its resistors, and a clear acknowledgment from the occupation of its inability to violate it and break the will of its people and their steadfastness, despite everything done by its army bolstered with the latest American weapons and aircraft, trying to cover this failure by "reproducing" its military operations under different names, from "Iron Swords" to "Gideon Vehicles," all of which have shattered on the rock of the steadfastness of Gaza's women and men.

Netanyahu may have forgotten that his army occupied Gaza for the third time with the onset of the current war, after having occupied it in '56 and '67, and that his forces had invaded it and began displacing its cities and camps from Beit Hanoun in the north to Rafah and the Philadelphia Corridor on the southern border with Egypt, as he also conducted what he called "purification" of its areas, demolishing the remnants of its houses more than once, facing each time with stronger resistance than the previous ones, with his soldiers falling dead and wounded, then the fighters of Al-Qassam and other brigades would emerge in every exchange deal in their clean military uniforms and shining vehicles from under the rubble of these areas, escorting prisoners to the handover sites.

If Netanyahu were to ask his predecessors from Rabin to Sharon, who are among the most decorated generals with the medals of "victory and heroism" in Israel's military history, they would have advised him not to enter Gaza in the first place, for Rabin, after he was overwhelmed by it, found nothing but to pray for it to drown in the sea, then handed it over in Oslo first, adding Jericho after Arafat's insistence, while Sharon found no escape from it except through a unilateral withdrawal as part of what was called the "disengagement plan" in 2005.

It is not surprising that military officials, led by the Chief of Staff, General Eyal Zameer, who was appointed due to his loyalty to Netanyahu after serving as his military secretary, vehemently oppose Netanyahu's plan termed "Occupation of Gaza," justifying it by claiming that the "Gideon Vehicles" operation had brought Hamas to the negotiating table, and a prisoner exchange deal for the release of part of the Israeli prisoners could have been achieved about a month ago, and that the plan would lead to the death of the majority of prisoners or all of them, whether at the hands of their captors or by Israeli army fire, not to mention the additional cost that Israel would incur with dozens of soldiers killed and hundreds wounded.

The military leadership also estimates that the "occupation of Gaza" operation will take at least two to three months, while the "purification of tunnels" in the mentioned areas will take about two years, and at the end of it, the Israeli army will be forced to establish a "military rule" and take care of the needs of two and a half million Palestinians.

According to the army, this operation will also require the recruitment of tens of thousands of reserve soldiers, and returning all regular army units to the battlefields in the Gaza Strip in the near days, with soldiers being forced to fight during all the upcoming months, including the period of the upcoming Jewish holidays.

At a time when the explosive crisis between the military and political leadership could end with the resignation of the Chief of Staff, who has started to face rampant attacks from Netanyahu's wife and son and close circles due to his opposition to the plan of "occupation of Gaza," the army is suffering from internal crises, the most notable of which erupted between the commander of the southern region and the commander of the air force, with the latter imposing censorship on the military instructions issued by the southern region commander to the air force, accusing him of "unprofessional hands on the trigger," and of using airstrikes to vent frustration through initiating fire to kill civilians.

In a sign of the level of frustration prevailing in the military leadership in the field, the air force commander states that he had to intervene in the military orders issued by the southern front commander after sensing a lack of professionalism in many of the attacks carried out by this commander in recent months, while there is a prevailing feeling in the air force and in "Aman" that there is a decline in qualitative objectives, an increase in violent attacks, and diminished concern for the number of civilian deaths, without this leading to an improvement in operational results, which is attributed to the new operation "Gideon Vehicles," and the entry of the new southern front commander, General Yaniv Asor, who is described as a supporter of "absolute victory."

This article expresses the opinion of its author and does not necessarily reflect the opinion of Sada News Agency.