{"id":88511,"date":"2023-10-11T13:48:53","date_gmt":"2023-10-11T17:48:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/?p=88511"},"modified":"2024-09-01T09:54:28","modified_gmt":"2024-09-01T13:54:28","slug":"opinion-michael-armstrong-discusses-violence-in-israel-and-gaza","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/2023\/10\/opinion-michael-armstrong-discusses-violence-in-israel-and-gaza\/","title":{"rendered":"OPINION: Michael Armstrong discusses violence in Israel and Gaza"},"content":{"rendered":"

This article written by Michael Armstrong, Associate Professor of Operations Research at Brock University, originally appeared in\u00a0The Conversation<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

Last Friday, Israeli newspapers were filled with stories about the 50th anniversary of the Yom Kippur War, also called the October War. In 1973, the country had nearly been defeated by co-ordinated surprise attacks from its Arab neighbors. Never again, people thought.<\/p>\n

So, Israelis were especially shocked to be awakened Saturday morning by rocket barrages and gunfire in the streets. Hamas militants from Gaza had launched a smaller but equally\u00a0co-ordinated surprise attack. It came by land, air\u00a0and sea.<\/p>\n

The fighting\u00a0began around 6:30 that morning, when Hamas started firing rockets. But unlike many previous conflicts, this time it also attacked on the ground.<\/p>\n

Gunfights and airstrikes<\/strong><\/p>\n

While the rocketry was still underway, Hamas blasted numerous holes in the security fences between Israel and Gaza. That let hundreds of armed militants pour across the border and quickly spread out across southern Israel.<\/p>\n

These forces were small by military standards, but quickly overwhelmed the local border guards and police forces. The militants overran an army base, captured a police station and attacked several dozen communities.<\/p>\n

The results were bloody. By Sunday, Israel had reported more than\u00a0700 deaths and 2,200 injuries, mostly civilians. Another 100 people were taken back to Gaza as hostages. Some of the victims were reportedly citizens of other countries, including Germany, Thailand,\u00a0Canada\u00a0and the United States.<\/p>\n

Israel\u2019s army seemed largely absent from these initial fights. But its air force started bombing Gaza within hours, in Operation \u201cSwords of Iron.\u201d A day after the conflict started, the Palestinians reported\u00a0370 deaths and thousands of injuries\u00a0from the airstrikes.<\/p>\n

The bloody ground attacks shocked Israel. But there were also surprises overhead.<\/p>\n

Massed rockets<\/strong><\/p>\n

Militants in Gaza have been firing rockets toward Israel every year since 2005. I\u2019ve\u00a0researched rocket defences and missile combat\u00a0for years, but the intensity of the Hamas attack this time was astounding. Israel counted more than 2,200 incoming rockets on Saturday morning alone; the total exceeded 2,500 by the day\u2019s end.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s nearly quadruple the previous single-day record of 670 rockets. That was the number fired during the most intense day of\u00a02021\u2019s Guardian of the Walls\u00a0operation.<\/p>\n

The barrage wasn\u2019t restricted to border areas. It reached across southern and central Israel, including the suburbs of Tel Aviv. A hospital and several other buildings were hit. And about a dozen people died, including\u00a0several at a Bedouin village\u00a0that had no defences.<\/p>\n

The toll was relatively low partly because the rockets are inaccurate: most land in empty fields. And\u00a0Iron Dome interceptor systems\u00a0typically shoot down most of the rest. Failing that, many homes and communities have\u00a0bomb shelters\u00a0where civilians can take cover.<\/p>\n

Because the Iron Dome systems are so effective, they would be valuable for Hamas to destroy. But\u00a0rockets are too inaccurate\u00a0to hit such small targets.<\/p>\n

However, if the militants roaming southern Israel on Saturday had found a system deployed there, they could easily have destroyed it. For example, there is often a system stationed near Sderot, one of the towns that was attacked.<\/p>\n

There is another way to destroy small, high value targets: attack them with drones.<\/p>\n

Drones in Israel and Ukraine<\/strong><\/p>\n

This seems to be the first conflict where Hamas has successfully used armed drones. Some are quadcopters that operators fly via remote control. They can precisely drop explosives onto small targets \u2014 like an Iron Dome system. Videos online show them attacking people, a watchtower and\u00a0a tank.<\/p>\n

Ukraine has effectively used similar quadcopters against Russian military targets. They sometimes drop explosives right down an armoured vehicle\u2019s open hatch.<\/p>\n

Other Gazan drones resemble toy airplanes. They can fly considerable distances and then explode wherever they land.<\/p>\n

Those drones are much like the ones Russia uses to attack Ukrainian cities. And both the Gazan and Russian drones resemble those made by Iran. That might not be co-incidental.\u00a0Iran\u00a0is known to have supported Gaza militants in the past. And it has admitted selling some drones to Russia.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s another interesting connection between the Ukrainian and Israeli conflicts. Israel has provided humanitarian aid to Ukraine, but no weapons. Most notably, it has refused\u00a0Ukraine\u2019s repeated requests for an Iron Dome system.<\/p>\n

Hamas also sent several dozen militants across the border\u00a0on powered hang-gliders. Their lightweight construction apparently let them avoid radar detection.<\/p>\n

Widening conflict?<\/strong><\/p>\n

On Sunday, the Israeli army gradually regained control of most of its territory, while the air force kept bombing Gaza. Meanwhile, the rocket fire from Gaza slowed to a trickle.<\/p>\n

However, a different rocket threat also appeared. Hezbollah militants in Lebanon\u00a0fired several missiles or shells at an Israeli military post\u00a0in the Golan Heights, on Israel\u2019s northern border. It seemed to be a warning: if Israel retaliated against Gaza, Hezbollah might fire thousands of rockets and missiles into northern Israel.<\/p>\n

But the Israeli government, not surprisingly, seems intent on retaliation. It officially declared war and called up its military reserves. A massive invasion of Gaza seems imminent.<\/p>\n

So, while civilians in both Israel and Gaza are already mourning the deaths of hundreds, there is likely more bloodshed to come.<\/p>\n

\"The<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Michael Armstrong, Associate Professor of Operations Research at Brock University, wrote a piece published in The Conversation about the weapons used by Hamas in violence taking place in Israel and Gaza.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":45641,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[39,7,6],"tags":[594,4395,298,5512],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/88511"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=88511"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/88511\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":88536,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/88511\/revisions\/88536"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/45641"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=88511"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=88511"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=88511"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}