Defense Minister Yoav Galant says: “The loss of IDF fighters in battles with Hamas terrorists in the Gaza Strip is a heavy and painful blow. Our hearts and thoughts are with their dear families. Unfortunately, the cost of the significant gains we have made in the fighting deep inside the Gaza Strip is heavy casualties. We are prepared for a long and difficult campaign requiring courage, determination and resilience — we will win.”
Of course, we must continue to fight until victory. However, we should not even for a moment forget the most important principle mentioned by the Lubavitcher Rebbe SHLITA King Moshiach during the first Lebanon War, when the IDF was fighting in the streets of Beirut: in order not to endanger our soldiers, we must demolish and destroy all the buildings in the area where our army is entering!
Indeed, as we watch videos of our units moving deep into the Gaza Strip, we can clearly see many undestroyed buildings in the areas where our fighters are entering. We can clearly see our tanks and armored personnel carriers moving in the built-up terrain past undestroyed buildings, each and every one of which can and, in fact, does provide shelter for Hamas anti-tank terrorist units!
Therefore, to act in accordance with the command of the Lubavitcher Rebbe SHLITA King Moshiach — to demolish all structures that stand in the way of the IDF — is a sacred duty that is intended to save many of our soldiers’ lives.
Before entering a built-up area, of course, it is necessary to warn the inhabitants and give them time to leave the area. However, then it is important to completely destroy and raze to the ground all buildings there if they could pose even the slightest threat to the lives of our soldiers.
Such tactics, in addition to providing much better security for our fighters, might have a number of important implications:
1. It would have been a very significant deterrent to Hizbullah, his Iranian owners, and our other enemies who do not want to take such colossal damage!
2. Even if at first there are some civilians who remain and die inside the buildings, very soon the rest will realize that it is not worth staying in the area where the IDF is conducting the operation, and will rush to comply with the evacuation order. This will save many lives among them as well!
3. All terrorists inside the buildings that are demolished will be eliminated or at least seriously wounded. Inside thousands of buildings in the Gaza Strip are weapons and ammunition depots, terrorist infrastructure, shooting and anti-tank positions, observation posts, headquarters, etc. All of this will be completely destroyed, which will be the heaviest blow to Hamas, which will be left with nothing but tunnels.
4. Hamas tunnels, by the way, will also be damaged, because hundreds of exits from them, located inside buildings, will be blocked by the wreckage of collapsed structures. This will provide a significant success in the war against the underground terror infrastructure.
Actually, for this very reason alone, we should have destroyed all the buildings in the territory of the sector liberated by our army. It is a pity that this is not being done to a sufficient extent.
It should be remembered that, for Hamas terrorists, tens of thousands of civilian buildings in the Strip are a combat zone — fortifications against our army. Under the buildings, as already mentioned, there are tunnel entrances, and therefore, the destruction of these buildings in the war zone is absolutely legal and essential in order to achieve the goal of eliminating Hamas’s military capabilities.
5. As for the claim that even after the IDF destroys a building, Hamas terrorists can still return to it and use it as an anti-tank position, it is obvious that this is not true. Destroyed buildings are open to air strikes, so such an area can be controlled using attack helicopters or even drones and other unmanned aerial vehicles that are capable of detecting and disrupting any similar attempts by terrorists to recapture positions in the already cleared ruins.
It should also be noted that before advancing through built-up terrain, in order to avoid situations like yesterday, when the tank hit an explosive device, it is necessary to use weapons to break through minefields (for example, the well-known “Armored Viper” created half a century ago), etc.
Only after the path will be checked and recognized as suitable for movement by our sappers, it is possible to introduce tanks. Of course, each tank must be equipped with explosion protection systems (like “Stranger” and similar ones).
For several weeks now, we have been reminding over and over again the Rebbe’s words about the necessity of destroying buildings, after notifying the residents and giving them time to evacuate.
This is how we should act according to the Torah, which demonstrates mercy and kindness to both our warriors and the civilians of the enemy side, just as it is said “and His mercy is upon all His creations.”
The most obvious mercy toward the residents of Gaza is to keep them as far away as possible from the criminal Hamas regime that uses them as human shields.
If the residents do not want to evacuate and are willing to defend Hamas — then they are Hamas and are fully responsible for their fate.
There is one more extremely important point, which we are obliged to remind you of: territorial concessions are extremely deadly and definitely put our lives in greater danger!
This entire horrific catastrophe on Simchat Torah struck us as the inevitable result of the bloody Oslo and Disengagement agreements, under which Israel first handed over the Arab towns and villages of the Gaza Strip to the bloodthirsty murderers of Arafat’s PLO terrorist group (the so-called “Palestinian Authority”), and then deported tens of thousands of Jewish residents and withdrew troops from the area, after which Hamas grabbed control there, transforming it into a terror base against Israelis.
We are ready for a long and difficult campaign that requires courage, determination and perseverance — we will win...