The IDF has conducted fifteen rounds of combat and operations against the terrorist organizations in Gaza since 2005, until the 16th and most severe round of all – the terrible collapse, and the slaughter of the Gaza belt community residents last week on the festival of Simchat Torah. All of them, including this current disaster and failure, have a cause and effect. All that is happening at this current moment in time along our southern border, and what has occurred there throughout almost two decades, is not something that has taken place in a vacuum.
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Almost all of it is the result of the step taken in 2005 by then Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and his 'merry band' – the Disengagement Plan. This is an additional issue that needs to be addressed "after the war". Not an issue to be omitted, nor forgotten. This is not simply another chapter in history as some of us might tend to think. This 18-year-old incident is the most current of current affairs, it is horribly relevant and belongs to the here and now.
The first connection relates to the commission of inquiry that is sure to come (only after the war), so that those responsible for what happened, both on the military and the political levels, are held accountable for their failures. This inquiry must go all the way back in time to the days in which the State of Israel disengaged from the Gaza Strip, destroyed the Gush Katif settlements and those in the northern Gaza Strip, uprooting some ten thousand settlers who had gone there to make the desert bloom, who for many years constituted the security belt for the residents of the Gaza belt communities and indeed southern Israel, for all intents and purposes.
The future inquiry will have to examine not only the circumstances leading to this last colossal fiasco, but also the ground on which it grew, the seeds and the basis from which it developed, the causal connection between the tremendous suffering of Israel's population as a whole, and the residents of the Gaza belt communities and the south in particular, and the Disengagement Plan.
The second connection pertains to the real motive that led Sharon and his gang to implement the plan, which according to Sharon himself, only several months prior to making the decision, was dangerous to Israel's security. A plan that stood in complete contrast to his ideological outlook. Sharon is renowned for being one of the founding fathers of the settlement project in Judea & Samaria and Gush Katif.
The causal connection between the Disengagement Plan of summer 2005 and the collapse of Simchat Torah 2023, and the numerous rounds of combat in southern Israel over the years preceding it, is of course the most significant one of all. We need to examine it and focus our attention on it. Not only to understand what happened in the south but also to prevent the realization of the ideas of disengagement and plans of a similar genre in Judea and Samaria (the "Realignment Plan" etc.), which unbelievably some foolish diehards spoke about even this week.
Video: Terrorists enter border towns near Gaza / Credit: Social media
The most relevant fundamental data for examining the link between the Disengagement Plan and all that followed it relates to three key dates: June 1967, when the IDF took control of the Gaza Strip during the Six-Day War; May 1994, when Israel transferred to the Palestinians 80% of the Gaza Strip terrain as part of the Oslo Accords, and August 2005, when Gush Katif, Kfar Darom and Netzarim were uprooted, a total of 21 settlements were destroyed and thousands of Jews were expelled from their homes.
During the initial period, between 1967 and 1994, not even one incident of rocket fire from Gaza into Israel was recorded. The rocket fire began only during the second period, after 1994 (the Oslo period), when the IDF left the terrain behind and an arms smuggling and missile production industry began to flourish in the Gaza Strip. Initially, the rocket fire was focused on Gush Katif, which in practice became the security zone of southern Israel's residents. Until the Disengagement, more than 6,000 rockets and mortar bombs were fired at Gush Katif. They fired at Sderot for the first time in 2001. Until the Disengagement, a total of 600 rockets were fired on the settlements in the south, including Sderot.
Ashkelon entered the range of Palestinian rocket fire even before the Disengagement Plan was implemented. Ashdod and Beersheba immediately followed suit, and then in the numerous rounds of violence that were to come, a whole series of new towns and cities entered the fray: Yavne, Kiryat Gat, Rehovot, Kiryat Malachi, the Sharon coastal plain, Ben-Gurion International Airport, Jerusalem and its surrounding areas, Tel Aviv and even Haifa.
During the third period, following the expulsion from Gush Katif, (to date) more than 30 thousand mortar bombs, rockets, and missiles have been fired against Israel, with an average of 1,700 per year and 140 per month. That means a daily average of five rockets over a period extending for more than eighteen years. The claim that the Palestinians fired mortar bombs and missiles prior to this is thus true to a very small extent but largely it is false. They fired, but only a limited amount, and then only to the areas on the Gaza border. Afterward, they fired en masse and into the heart of Israel's hinterland, and the independent production capability of the "flying objects", as Dov Weisglass (a senior aide to Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and one of the authors of the Disengagement Plan) arrogantly dismissed them, has improved tremendously.
"The Disengagement Plan will reduce friction"
But that's not all. In October 2004, Ariel Sharon explained that he was firmly convinced and truly believed that "...this disengagement will strengthen Israel's hold over territory which is essential to our existence...will reduce animosity, break through boycotts and sieges and advance us along the path of peace with the Palestinians." The then Minister of Defense Shaul Mofaz assessed that the Disengagement would not bolster Hamas, but rather the more moderate forces within the Gaza Strip, and that "the level of terrorism will decline in the Gaza Strip as a result of the pragmatic forces that would rise." Ministers and MKs from the Kadima (Forward) Party ridiculed and berated what they called "prophets of doom", "harbingers of gloom", who turned out all along to have been right. Minister Meir Sheetrit, for example, defined the claim that "there would be a threat to the communities in the Negev" or that we "are running away from terrorism" as ridiculous.
Even the Supreme Court judges, apart from the late Justice Edmond Levy, made do with the security experts on behalf of the state and automatically assumed that plans such as the Disengagement Plan "tend to improve the security situation," and that "the evacuation will reduce the Palestinians' desire to harm the Israeli population." The Council for Peace and Security also published a declaration signed by hundreds of former senior officials in the defense establishment, according to which "the Disengagement Plan will enhance the State of Israel's security situation."
In practice, the IDF was not there to prevent the establishment of 'Hamastan'. The promises that were made prior to the destruction of Gush Katif, "If they dare to even fire one bullet, we will give them a real pasting" – turned out to be empty, hollow promises. The "magnificent" demonstration of our withdrawal was interpreted as a demonstration of extreme weakness. The Disengagement did not provide Israel with the requisite legitimacy to "give them a pasting" neither internationally nor even within Israel itself. Every response was measured and considered not only in terms of the operational cost and benefit, but also subject to the amount of leeway that Israel either had or did not have to take action. The "enlightened" world, which currently likes us and sympathizes with us because of our weakness and vulnerability, was extremely uncharitable with the amount of leeway it gave us when we appeared to be strong.
Hamas created a constant threat to the Israeli homefront, it significantly reduced the IDF's room to maneuver due to the rocket threat, made a mockery of the border fence and the underground obstacle against the tunnels, and reinforced those who opt for the path of opposition and the 'axes of evil' who have constantly claimed that the Palestinians will gain achievements only via armed resistance and terrorism, and not by engaging in political negotiations.
From one round of violence to the next, Hamas has improved its capabilities along with its ability to extort more and more from us. As far as short-range rockets are concerned, over the years Hamas progressed from the Qassam-1 rockets and mortar bombs to the Al-Quds 101 and 102 rockets, with a range of between 16 and 18 km, capable of reaching Ashkelon and Netivot. In terms of medium-range rockets, Hamas progressed from the old Soviet Grad 122 mm rockets with a 20 km range, to the Bader-3 rocket, which carried a warhead weighing in excess of 200 kg and with a 40 km range. Hamas upgraded its long-range capabilities from the Al-Buraq rocket with a maximum range of 70 km, which is capable, among others, of hitting Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, to the Al-Buraq 100 rocket with a range of 100 km, which is capable of reaching Netanya in the north and Mitzpeh Ramon in the south.
Years ago, Brigadier General Eran Ortal, commander of the IDF's Dado Center for Interdisciplinary Military Studies, described at length the strategic and operational situation that developed in the Gaza Strip, on completion of the Israeli withdrawal. In an article that went under the media radar and that was published in the military journal Bein HaKtavim ("Between the Poles"), Ortal described just how as long as Hamas is in possession of a deterrent firepower capability in relation to Israel, it enjoys "freedom to act".
"Stuck in the last century"
This "freedom to act", as noted once again this week by Major General (res.) Gershon HaCohen, is precisely what created the Hamas capability showcased on Simchat Torah, last week. "The wall and the obstacle we established along the borderline between us and them," says HaCohen, "might have helped us with routine security operations, but actually inhibited and limited us much more than it did to them. This obstacle actually defended their ability to develop both militarily and in terms of their terrorist capabilities. Under the auspices of that separation, they controlled, and invested in tunnels and the infamous 'Metro' underground network, they organized, planned, and prepared everything that was carried out over the course of the last week. The Disengagement Plan enabled them to plan this military campaign as well as previous ones.
"The IDF and the defense establishment continued to live in 'the old world'. They erred in their thinking that only an organized state is able to industrially manufacture guns. They did not take into account that in this day and age, it is possible to manufacture rockets at home and unmanned aerial vehicles and drones can be purchased from civilian equipment acquired via the port of Ashdod. The entire nature of warfare has morphed. It wasn't tanks that invaded our territory on Simchat Torah but pickup trucks, and in the meantime, our 'experts' have remained stuck in the last century."
Brigadier General (res.) Yossi Kuperwasser, who was the head of the Research & Analysis Division at IDF Military Intelligence at the time of the Disengagement Plan and is currently a senior analyst at the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, also states that Hamas' power prior to the Disengagement is incomparable with its current status. "In 2005, Hamas' long-range rockets had a range of up to 10 km. Now it can reach Ein Shemer and Haifa, with much heavier warheads too. Hamas has also dramatically improved its aerial and naval capabilities, with its own, indigenous developments, based on Iranian guidance and with massive Iranian financial support. All this has occurred since the Disengagement Plan took place. The moment we were foolish enough to grant them full control over the terrain, they exploited this, as they don't want Gaza. They want Yavne, Ashkelon, and Tel Aviv."
What has occurred in the last few days, Kuperwasser defines as a conception-dependent conceptual crisis: "The establishment thought that Hamas had undergone a process of moderation and that all it wants is to improve the quality of life of the Gaza residents, while in fact, the organization has remained the same unbridled jihadi organization operating against the civilian population. We saw Hamas as one thing while it was something completely different."
A few years ago, Dr. Ahmed Qassam Hussein, a member of the Arab Center for Research and Policy Studies based in Doha, Qatar (currently headed by the former MK Azmi Bishara, who fled Israel following allegations of aiding the enemy during wartime), in an extensive article published in a Qatari journal, described the armament process that Hamas had undergone, from its establishment in 1987 until the present day, having become a paramilitary organization in possession of 30 thousand fighters. This is obligatory reading for anybody seeking to fully understand just how we arrived at where we are today. This article too went under the media radar. Here too, the years following the Disengagement were the most significant years in terms of the development of Hamas' capabilities (this item was brought by On Dahan from the Forum for Regional Thinking, N.S.).
Among others, Hussein reports there that under the command of Ahmed Ja'abari, who was the Hamas chief of staff and was successfully targeted by Israel in 2012, scientific departments were added for the development of arms, as well as military courts, and Hamas turned into a veritable small army. Hussein recounts that an orderly process was set in motion for recruitment to the ranks of the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades. "Anybody seeking to become a Hamas fighter was firstly required to submit recommendations on good conduct and on religious commitment on behalf of the mosque where he prayed. Subsequently, the candidate underwent an educational training process, a series of interviews along with both personal and physical tests, followed by theory and practical courses, in which he acquired knowhow in the operation of small arms and urban warfare, and at the conclusion of this process the individual would then become a regular fighter in the Hamas military wing."
Between Iran and Sudan
Hussein also tells there of the longstanding military and political support from Syria and Iran. Hussein tells of frequent trips of Gaza-based fighters to Syria and Iran to purchase weapons there, to train, and to learn new methods for the development of arms, improvised explosive devices, and weapon systems. Hussein also recounts there the history of the arms smuggling into Gaza via two channels: "The overland route – the shipments would arrive at a port in Sudan, and from there were then transferred to the Gaza Strip via tunnels connecting between Sinai and Gaza; and via the sea – using boats to transfer the shipments from ships in Egypt's territorial waters to the Gaza coast." He also describes the indigenous production process of arms by Hamas in the Gaza Strip.
Major General (res.) Ya'akov Amidror, the former head of the National Security Council, believes Oslo to be the source of all the evil. The Disengagement Plan just completed the process that began there. The important comparison of relevance, according to him, is that between Hamas in Judea and Samaria and Hamas in Gaza. "Hamas in Judea & Samaria is capable of killing two, three or four Jews, from time to time, of shooting attacks against passing cars, stabbing and ramming attacks. Hamas in the Gaza Strip operates in an area devoid of any Israeli presence and thus our ability to engage in operational and intelligence activity is somewhat limited. Until 2002, Judea and Samaria was like Gaza. We launched Operation Defensive Shield after 122 fatalities in one month and then we regained control of Judea and Samaria. It subsequently took four years to clear the entire area of terrorist cells, and until the last wave of terrorism about one year ago, we suffered about 15 fatalities a year on average. We lost our operational and intelligence capability in the Gaza Strip as soon as the Oslo Accords were implemented, and already back then it was readily proven that if you do not have control of the terrain, you cannot operate using the 'lawnmower' approach we use in Judea & Samaria to eradicate the terrorist cells. The strategic conclusion from the withdrawal from Gush Katif is that it is not possible to guarantee the security of the State of Israel from terrain from which you have withdrawn."
It is not only the causal connection between the Disengagement Plan and the growth of Hamastan and the ensuing rounds of violence in the south, including this last one, that are of relevance today, but also the unintelligible circumstances of the plan. This matter is worth of separate, more extensive coverage, but we shall make do with simply mentioning that former MK Zvi Hendel has to this day adhered to his saying that "the depth of the withdrawal will match the depth of the investigation", based on inside information he was privy to from Sharon's "Ranch Forum", the name given to the meetings of his inner circle of closest advisors, held at Sharon's ranch in southern Israel. Hendel, and also the former Chief of Staff Moshe (Bogie) Ya'alon, along with others too, believe that Sharon's motives were far from being pure, germane, security-related and strategic in nature.
A temporary and non-exhaustive, interim summary for a factual basis, that might one day be used by a state commission of inquiry: the main purpose of the Disengagement Plan – to a large extent the "mother of all evils" – as it was portrayed by its chief architect, Ariel Sharon, was for security reasons, but the hopes pinned on it by the political leaders did not materialize. The outcome was a resounding failure. The clear direction in which things were to develop was plain for all to see on the very day after the completion of the evacuation, when the Palestinians torched the synagogues in Gush Katif. On September 25, about a month or so after the Disengagement, the IDF was forced to launch Operation First Rain after the Palestinians engaged in massive Qassam rocket fire at the town of Sderot. Subsequently, Hamas turned the ruins of what had been flourishing Jewish settlements into regular training grounds and terrorist bases, from which they fired rockets into Israel.
Just over a week ago, on Israel's own '911', Simchat Torah 2023, after a year of preparations and training – as one of the Hamas terrorists taken prisoner by the IDF attested – the Gaza-based terrorist organization succeeded in surprising the State of Israel, conducting a mass slaughter of our citizens, temporarily taking over terrain along the Israeli side of the Gaza border and exposing just how fragile and abandoned everything really was. Now is the time to repair this. We simply have no other choice.
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