U.S. Response to the Hamas Attack: The Importance of Increasing Operations for a Ground Invasion of Gaza

Increased intensity of operations could lead to an Israeli ground invasion of Gaza. More than 1,400 people have been killed in the war in Israel and 7,300 in Gaza, according to respective officials.

Tens of thousands of Israeli soldiers are stationed around Gaza’s borders, and in recent days, Israeli tanks and troops have entered Gaza for limited incursions, supported by heavy airstrikes and artillery.

There has been an almost total internet shut down in Gaza for the last three weeks. The cables, cell towers, and infrastructure needed to keep people online have been damaged or destroyed as Israel launched thousands of missiles in response to Hamas attacking Israel and taking hundreds of hostages on October 7. The last of the final connections disappeared this evening after reports of bombing in Gaza.

“The intense bombing in the last hour caused the destruction of all remaining international routes linking Gaza to the outside world,” the company said in a statement on the social media site X.

Aid groups said they had lost contact with their teams on the ground in Gaza, and decried the great risk to civilians, health workers and other noncombatants.

It may mean that the U.S. made slight changes in order to protect civilians. The Israeli military is obligated by the laws of war to protect civilians in Gaza, but it’s also in their interest, he said.

“We are deeply concerned about the ability of our teams to continue providing their emergency medical services, especially since this disruption affects the central emergency number ‘101‘ and hinders the arrival of ambulance vehicles to the wounded and injured,” the Palestinian Red Crescent Society wrote on X.

In response to the blackout, Hamas accused Israel of an “intention to commit more massacres and genocides away from the eyes of the press and the world.”

“Part of the Biden administration’s approach has been to hug Israel quite tightly as a way of saying to Israelis, America is behind you, but also giving Israelis the willingness to trust the United States. And I think should military operations go into overdrive during a ground invasion, the United States could offer suggestions, could to push for course corrections that other countries simply would not be trusted [to give],” said Byman.

“Well, if you want to have any opportunity to try to leverage human intelligence to find out where the hostages are located, you certainly want to mitigate the pain and suffering on the civilian populace and, candidly I think Israel’s failed in that,” said Schwartz.

The U.S. may need to prepare bases in the region for any backlash, and even prepare its own response, as it did this week against Iranian forces in Syria.

“We’re also seeing an array of militant groups, many of which are tied to Iran, attacking not only Israeli but also U. S. forces. Israel’s military operations can cause excitement, whether it is an operation that kills large numbers of civilians or changes the status quo, said Byman.

“The bigger role would be to liaise with Israel to make sure that Israeli military operations are anticipated by the United States,” said Dan Byman, author of A High Price: The Triumphs and Failures of Israeli Counterterrorism.

After nearly two decades of fighting in Afghanistan and Iraq, the American generals sent to Israel may be able to offer some lessons to the Israelis. The U.S. might have information about the technology Hamas got from Iran, which was used in the creation of booby traps in Iraq.

“The vast majority of those forces that have been activated, they’ve never served in Lebanon, they didn’t serve the last time an incursion happened in Gaza. They are putting their lives at risk to deal with the clearing of urban rooms. He said that these young men and women are having to make split-second decisions regarding whether they shoot or not based on what they see in the room.

“The relationship between the Israeli Special Operations Forces and U. S. Special Operations Command has been longstanding. It’s very robust,” said retired Marine Gen. Mark Schwartz, former deputy commander of U.S. joint special operations who served as U.S. Security Coordinator for Israel and the Palestinian Authority from 2019 to 2021.

Around the world, the internet and telecoms networks that typically give web users access to international video calls, online banking, and endless social media are a complicated, sprawling mix of hardware and software. The networks of networks combined are used to communicate and send data globally. Local internet access is provided by a mix of companies with no clear public documentation of their infrastructure, making it difficult to monitor the overall status of the system as a whole. Internet access in Gaza relies on Israeli infrastructure to connect to the outside world.

“This is a terrifying development,” Marwa Fatafta, a policy manager focussing on the Middle East and North Africa at the digital rights group Access Now, tells WIRED. “Taking Gaza completely off the grid while launching an unprecedented bombardment campaign only means something atrocious is about to happen.”