The IDF launched a much anticipated ground offensive in Gaza against Hamas on Saturday evening, January 3, 2009.


Some Israelis are hoping that the military operation will be able to finish what Israel’s Air Force started. Alex Fishman writes in Yedioth Ahronot that “Hamas’ military wing was not destroyed, it was simply destabilized for the first 48 hours of the operation, at least.”

Ophir Falk warns that:

“the IDF’s victory over the Hamas must be conclusive, leaving no room for commentary as to the triumphant side. Anything short of this will serve as another Hamas, Iranian and Hizbullah building block.”


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A ceasefire that does not achieve the dismantlement of Hamas’ military capabilities would be counterproductive and eventually lead to another round of bloodshed. New rules of engagement must be set, whereby Hamas is disarmed and a sustainable truce is achieved. If this mainstay of Sunni terrorism remains capable of attacking Israel, a renewed assault will be inevitable.

Therefore, after the unconditional return of the abducted Israeli soldier [Gilad Shalit], the immediate objective of Israel and the international community must be a permanent disarmament of Hamas and organizations of its ilk. The only way to achieve this goal is to pound Hamas until it is forced to disarm, and then reinforce the truce with effective international force.

It is predictable that Hamas will continue to use civilians as human shields, firing from mosques and U.N.-run schools.

Will this U.N. do anything to disarm Hamas? It seems unlikely, especially given the amount of heavy weaponry that Hamas has brought into Gaza’s U.N.-operated institutions.

The same thing occurred when militant Sunni group Fatah al-Islam installed itself inside U.N.-run Palestinian camps last year in Lebanon. What did the U.N. do to prevent, stop, and disarm Fatah al-Islam? Absolutely nothing. Fatah al-Islam reportedly brought battle-hardened terrorist fighters to Gaza where they likely taught Hamas military skills and terror techniques.

With Iran’s military, financial, and technical training, Hamas has remained not a strong terrorist group with its operational base in Gaza. Its practices of torturing and assassinating Palestinians are not the stuff from which democracies are made.

Senior Hamas Military Commander Mohammed Ma’aruf was killed in an Israeli Air Force strike on Saturday, January 3, 2009. Also killed was Abu Zakaria al-Jamal, another senior military figure in the terrorist group’s armed wing.


According to the IDF, a vehicle transporting Ma’aruf and an additional Hamas operative in Khan Younis Gaza was successfully targeted.   Ma’aruf was a senior member of the Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades, the terrorist group’s military wing, and was an officer in the terror organization’s ground forces.

Israel’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs has extensive background information on Hamas’ military wing (although individuals named may have been killed, or operational details of the terrorist group may have changed):

In the past few years, especially since the disengagement, Hamas’s military-terrorist infrastructure has gradually transformed itself into a hierarchical structure with semi-military patterns of action. That change means the unification of local terrorist networks throughout the Gaza Strip into one military wing with an orderly structure which has adopted military components both in its commanding and directing the forces and support systems (manufacturing, acquiring and smuggling weapons, etc.).

However, it is not a classic military organization, and under fire Hamas can be expected to employ the principles of asymmetric warfare: the operation of small fighting units (platoons and squads), focusing on hit and run attacks, blending in with and disappearing into the civilian population, making extensive use of civilians as human shields, etc.

Hamas’s military wing includes territorial brigades and designated units deployed throughout the Gaza Strip, each of which has more than 1,000 operatives. Each brigade has a number of battalions and each battalion has several companies. Each company has three platoons composed of three combat teams (including fighters, anti-tank operatives, saboteurs, medics).

The brigades are deployed as follows:

1. A brigade in northern sector, commanded by Ahmed Ghandour.
2. The Gaza City sector, which apparently has two brigades commanded by Ahmed Ja’abari.
3. A brigade in the central sector, commanded by Ayman Nawfal (today detained by the Egyptians).
4. A brigade in the southern sector, which apparently has two brigades (in accordance with geographical conditions), one in Khan Yunis, commanded by Muhammad Sinwar, and the other in Rafah, commanded by Ra’ed al–Attar.

Ordinarily, as noted above, the Izz al–Din al–Qassam Brigades have a few hundred skilled operatives. They attack civilian targets in Israel (firing rockets and mortar  shells) and military targets bordering the Gaza Strip (firing mortar shells, light weapons fire, planting IEDs, attempts to carry out mass-killing attacks and abduct soldiers in Israeli territory).

Source: The Hamas Terror Organization – 2007 Update, Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs

You can learn more about Hamas’ military wing here:

• Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades, Janes
• Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades, Yedioth Ahronoth

Khaled Meshal, the Hamas terror chief whom Syria has a given safe haven for years, boasted that Hamas would have “a second, third, and fourth Gilad Shalit” if the Israeli Defense Forces sent ground forces into Gaza.

According to al Jazeera Meshal met with other terror supporters and figureheads in Damascus yesterday, including Saeed Jalili, Iran’s Supreme National Security Council Secretary-General and Ramadan Abdullah Shalah, head of the Islamic Jihad terrorist group.

As this blogger has repeatedly stressed, Iran continues to train, arm, and fund Hamas terror operations. “Iran is our mother,” a senior Hamas guerilla commander told The Sunday Times in March 2008, bragging that “300 of the group’s ‘best brains’ had been secretly sent to Tehran.”

Northern Gaza’s Holfe Mosque was struck by Israel’s Air Force early Friday morning because of its reported multi-purpose use by Hamas to launch rockets into Israel, facilitate meetings by the terrorist group’s members, and house arms and communication equipment for the radical Islamist group’s terror attacks.


The Holfe Mosque is located inside the U.N.-operated Jabalyah a/k/a Jabalia camp just a few kilometers from Israel:


View Larger Map


On Wednesday, Dec. 31, 2008, the IAF struck a different mosque in Gaza City reportedly used by Hamas as a Grad missile and Qassam rocket launch site, staging ground, and storage area.

This is a classic example of Hamas repeatedly using civilian population centers as human shields. Recently slain Hamas terror leader Nizar Rayan a/k/a Rayyan was an open proponent of hiding the group’s terrorists amidst civilian human shields inside Gaza.

The video below taken by an IAF drone shows a 2007 attack in progress when terrorists launched rockets from a U.N.-operated school in Beit Hanoun, Gaza. U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon deplored the attack, calling it a an “abuse of UN facilities, which is a serious violation of the UN’s privileges and immunities…[and the type of] actions that endanger the lives of civilians, especially children.”