The operational silence of the resistance falls within the scope of a defensive tactic

Afrasianet -  The field scene was overcome by a state of operational silence - on the part of the resistance - since the return of the war on the Gaza Strip until the date of writing the article, as we did not witness the same operational momentum that we have always witnessed in the fifteen months of the war that preceded the sixtieth-day truce, which raised a state of question and controversy about the capabilities of the resistance to continue defensive operations against the invading forces, and people were divided between anxiety, skepticism, complainer and cynicism.

What is the reason for the decrease in the frequency of the resistance's military operations, despite the passage of about 20 days since the return of the war, the expansion of the enemy's ground operations in Rafah, the deployment of three military divisions throughout the Gaza Strip: the 36th Division in the southern Gaza Strip, the 252nd Division in the central Gaza Strip, and the 162nd Division in the northern Gaza Strip), and the start of the construction of a new operational road separating the cities of Rafah and Khan Yunis, called "Moraj"?

Why doesn't the resistance confront the invading enemy forces? Is it such a severe impairment of its capabilities? Or is it a new tactic based on patience and waiting before engaging in battle?

To answer these questions, it is important to first address two military concepts: the first is one of the types of defense, which is flexible defense, and the second is one of the origins of war, which is the origin of the economy of power. 

By reading the defensive context of the resistance operations since the beginning of the Israeli ground operation on the night of the twenty-seventh of October 2023, it can be easily seen that the resistance fought - for the first time in its history - from the first meter of the defense zone, and recorded strikes in every street, land and alley in all areas of incursion, and the enemy did not succeed in exceeding any single defensive pattern without the resistance inflicting losses in its ranks, whether in the insurance areas, the front defense areas, or the defense areas in the Depth.

The dismantling of a single battalion of the twenty-four defending Qassam Brigades, from Beit Hanoun in the north, to Tel al-Sultan in the south, was not recorded, but the resistance recorded at the end of the battle a death rate among the highest among the highest rates since the beginning of the war, in the battle of the Northern Brigade against the enemy forces in the generals' plan, which lasted 115 days, in which fifty-five soldiers were killed, including the commander of the Israeli 401st Armored Brigade.

With the passage of months since the battle of the Al-Aqsa flood, and by reading the tactics of the defensive resistance during the battle, it is possible to see the diversity of methods and tactics adopted by the resistance in its military operations, which are characterized by their indirect nature in engaging the enemy.

These methods include not maintaining fixed defensive positions, moving from static defense to flexible defense, waiting before launching a large-scale attack, and hunting enemy forces whenever a real opportunity allows harm, which one enemy general described as "Hamas fights like a chameleon," due to the many colors of the fighting methods.

This dynamic shift in the composition, structure and combat pattern of the resistance forces enables them to adapt to the evolution of the operational situation during the fighting, and even helps them maintain the element of surprise and initiative, and keep the enemy in a state of anxiety about the unknown, which is an essential element of irregular warfare tactics. 

This reading means that the methods of defense that were valid at the beginning of the battle are no longer valid in the following months, and that the tactics of the Gaza and Northern Brigades differed from the fighting tactics in the Khan Yunis and Rafah brigades, but the tactics in the same brigade differed with the change of enemy tactics, and even the tactics in the same battalion.

This can be easily seen if the methods of resistance fighting between the first battle of Jabalia in November, the second battle of Jabalia in May, and the third battle of Jabalia in October are easily seen in the generals' plan.

In view of the methods of defense, the resistance movements in general, especially with the long duration of the fighting, and the decrease in resources, adopt a flexible defense method, unlike regular armies, which rely on the consistent defense method in many battles, and is concerned with flexible defense: maneuvering the defending forces, and moving them according to the requirements of the field situation, in order to employ them in the best possible way, and invest them tactically in the best positions that include decisive and heavy blows to the enemy's weaknesses, instead of squandering the force in positions that are not tactically feasible and do not cause losses. Heavy.

As for the economy of force, it means using the least possible amount of force resources in terms of weapons, combatants and infrastructure to achieve defence objectives in a way that does not deplete resources and exhaust the forces, allowing the forces to sustain the fighting for as long as possible.

Due to the lack of supply lines for the resistance, the operational reality imposes on it a greater need to operate according to this principle of warfare, and the resistance adopted it in the battle of the Khan Yunis Brigade in front of the forces of the 98th Hostile Division, and also in the battle of the Rafah Brigade against the forces of the 162nd Hostile Division, where the enemy published many reports at the time that the Qassam Brigades in both brigades withdrew three quarters of the fighters, and retained a quarter of the defending force to carry out the duties of defending the theaters of operations. 

In the face of the long and complex battle of both the resistance and the enemy, military attrition was one of the essential tracks in which the two parties raced to fight, and it was noticeable that the resistance developed its tactics over the months of war to avoid attrition, on the other hand, Israel was forced to coincide with fighting on more than one front: (Lebanon, Syria, West Bank) to mobilize the largest amount of its forces, which showed the features of a crisis of attrition when the enemy, especially in the reserve ranks, and it was often thought that the long truce would be followed by a ceasefire, or At least a longer truce, but reservists and regular forces alike ran into the resumption of fighting, and Israel found itself forced to send three military divisions into Gaza, a large formation compared to the nature of the small Israeli army.

The Israeli mobilization and the attack on the Rafah area refer to a scene in which Israel pays large forces, capabilities, ammunition and plans, and pays the bill of attrition at its expense in full, while the resistance retains its forces, capabilities and tunnels until the date of estimating total or partial involvement in the fighting, then the attrition equation will be zero at the level of the resistance balance, and a significant bill at the level of enemy forces.

Over the course of the months of the war, many questions were raised about the capabilities of the resistance, especially with Israeli propaganda, which focused heavily on the successes of the IDF's operations in undermining and destroying those capabilities, but many of the evidence repeated during the battle proved the opposite.

For example, Beit Hanoun recorded one of the IDF's biggest losses in the ground operation hours before the truce, killing about 10 Israeli soldiers in  just 72 hours, a town that Israeli forces attacked from the first night of the ground offensive until the last night of the 471 days of the war, just before the ceasefire went into effect in the first phase. 

Through the above, it can be reached to the extent that the state of operational silence of the resistance falls within the scope of a defensive tactic, and not due to an operational or organizational deficit, in order to achieve the goals of attrition, survival and breaking the will to fight, what was defensively valid for the resistance in the previous months of the war, is no longer valid today, so abandoning the ground and tactically withdrawing forces deep into the defensive areas becomes preferable to defense in all forms of defense "from edge to core", in order to achieve the purposes of delivering decisive blows, inflicting heavy losses as much as possible.

This type of defense allows for the optimal use of resources that have been drained, minimizes material and human losses to the extent that the fighting is sustained to the maximum extent of time, and provides, if successful, an effective tool to support negotiating positions in the political and military context.

When defending forces demonstrate their ability to absorb pressure and initiate focused and deliberate defensive operations, they assert strategic ownership, giving political leadership a position of strength at the negotiating table. This capability does not merely reflect defensive resilience, but rather an advanced combat dynamic that imposes itself on the enemy and redraws the balance of power.

In addition, this type of fighting contributes to influencing Israeli internal opinion, which does not give the enemy army the same legitimacy as before the war, and which has become more sensitive to the army's losses than ever before from the war, considering that the current war has become absurd, and does not serve the entity as much as it serves the personal agenda of Netanyahu and the Israeli right.

This pattern also contributes to breaking the shaky American position on the idea of the return of military operations, as the previous and current US administration is committed to the vision that military operations alone are unable to achieve the goals of war, and that the political process is the most important and first. 

Former US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and former US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin put it that the tactical achievements of the Israeli army in Gaza would not only dissipate, but also become a major defeat if not capitalized through a political track.