Israel looks at three options for its Gaza ground invasion

As the Israeli military gears up to widen its ground invasion of Gaza, experts have warned that Tel Aviv’s actions can trigger a wider regional conflict even if it succeeds in subduing Hamas fighters in the besieged Palestinian enclave.

Israel has positioned its tanks around Gaza in a bid to deter Hamas and other resistance groups from moving fighters and arms and ammunition in the territory.

The ground invasion follows days of deadly and indiscriminate Israeli air strikes in which more than 8,000 people, mostly civilians, have been killed.

A regional fallout can undermine any Israeli tactical military victory over Hamas, says Omri Brinner, a researcher and lecturer at International Team for the Study of Security (ITSS), an Italian think-tank based in Verona.

“When looking at things objectively and holistically, one realizes that any route Israel would take would lead to regional escalation, even if the ground invasion is successful in rooting out Hamas’ rule from the Gaza Strip and disabling its military capabilities, which is unlikely to happen without a wider regional and global anti-Israeli response,” Brinner tells TRT World.

Even though Israel and Hamas have fought several wars in the past two decades, Tel Aviv avoided the temptation to uproot the Palestinian group from Gaza completely, says Brinner.

Hamas, which has civilian and military wings, has been in control of Gaza since coming to power in 2007 after winning the elections the previous year. And since then Israel has choked more than 2 million Palestinians in Gaza, cutting off their access to the rest of the world and leaving them dependent on Israelis for everything from medicines to electricity.

The delicate balance that successive Israeli governments have maintained with Gaza changed on October 7 when Hamas fighters launched a massive operation against Israeli settlements, killing more than 1,200 people and taking more than 200 hostages

Now as Israel prepares for a ground offensive - what rights groups have warned could be a human catastrophe - here are three possible war scenarios, which can unfold.

Scenario 1: A full-scale invasion

Israel reacted ruthlessly to the October 7 assault with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu even using Biblical references in a speech that amounted to massacring every Palestinian - women, children and old included.

But in Gaza, where the Palestinian resistance fighters have dug up deep and long underground tunnels, an Israeli incursion won’t be easy, says Abdullah Agar, a Turkish military analyst.

For once, Hamas and other groups have trained a cadre of 40,000 fighters, many of them young men who grew up orphans after their parents were killed by Israeli soldiers.

And these Palestinian fighters are far more willing to take the mighty Israeli army than any other time in history, says Agar.

In the asymmetric warfare that will unfold amid the rubbles of an urban enclave, Israel would need to front three soldiers against every Palestinian fighter.

That means, Israel needs a trained force of at least 120,000 to break the Palestinian resistance, Agar tells TRT World. “It’s not my opinion, that’s what regular military manuals on asymmetric warfare says.”

The Israeli army has nearly 170,000 soldiers, according to estimates. Tel Aviv also called 300,000 reservists for service, the largest such mobilisation in the country’s history.

But the reservists, among them young men and women who have travelled from the United States, will face difficulty confronting hardened Hamas fighters in clashes, experts say.

Israel can not possibly deploy all its regular forces in Gaza as it has to worry about the tinder-box of occupied West Bank and the border with Lebanon where Hezbollah is seething over Israeli massacre of Palestinian civilians.

Israel is probably looking to send in troops backed by a heavy artillery assault and strong ground intelligence after it has exhausted Hamas with intensive aerial bombardment, says Brinner.

“This operation is meant to physically disable Hamas from ruling the area (from supplying logistics to mobilizing fighters) and to destroy its military capabilities – at least those that pose a strategic threat to Israel, such as the tunnel system, the rocket launchers and the missiles themselves.”

Israel also aims to secure release of hostages with its ground invasion. Hamas claims that so far at least 50 hostages have been killed in Israel’s deadly indiscriminate air strikes.

But this “best-case scenario” of a ground invasion is based on the assumption that Tel Aviv will not face “another front simultaneously,” says Brinner, referring to the presence in Israel’s north of Lebanon’s Iran-backed Hezbollah.

“With its arsenal of 150,000 projectiles (of close, medium, and long range) and army of approximately 100,000 fighters, most of whom are well-trained and with some battle experience, Hezbollah poses a strategic threat – even bigger than the one Hamas poses.”

With the civilian toll rising in Gaza, there’s a growing fear of things getting out of control in the occupied West Bank where Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) have clashed with Palestinian civilians and fighters.

“At the time of the Hamas attack on October 7, as much as 70 percent of the IDF was stationed in the West Bank, demonstrating its symbolic and strategic importance to Israel,” says Brinner.

Israel also has to contend with the international reaction especially in the backdrop of the normalisation process with Arab countries.

“While Israel-Palestine escalations are happening in Gaza, a 363 square km strip of land, these events have a multiplier effect that shakes the whole world,“ says Agar.

Scenario 2: A limited ground offensive

Due to high risks associated with an all-out ground invasion, Brinner says, Israel will likely “embark on a limited ground invasion”, aiming to achieve “some tactical victories” against Hamas before it reaches “a ceasefire on better conditions, which would lead to the release of some Israeli hostages.”

“I don’t believe Israel can fully defeat Hamas within the limits of military power,” says Brinner.

But Israel’s far-right leader Benjamin Netanyahu might be handicapped when it comes to accepting such an outcome as he wants to keep the Jewish extremist voters on his side.

“In terms of domestic politics, the people expect PM Netanyahu to launch a full-scale ground invasion. The Israeli public wishes the IDF to root out Hamas and bring the hostages back home,” says Brinner.

But due to both the military realities of Gaza and the US pressure, which aims to avoid a regional war in the Middle East, Brinner says that “Netanyahu will not order a full-scale invasion but rather a more targeted and surgical operation.”

This scenario might also suit Hezbollah, which might be “trying to avoid an all-out war with Israel”.

Scenario 3: A protracted long war

Brinner also sees the possibility of a long conflict.

Netanyahu, faced with the Israeli public pressure, amid accusations of corruption and criticism for preventing the October 7 attack, might feel that he is “in the peculiar position of either being in power, or being in jail,” says Brinner.

Netanyahu refused to take responsibility for the October 7 Israeli casualties, even blaming his own staff for the failure to predict the Hamas attack.

The hardline prime minister insisted that he would respond to questions on what happened on October 7 only “after the war”. It means “he would do everything in his power to remain as the PM,” says Brinner. “One, then, cannot rule out that Netanyahu is planning a long warring campaign,” he adds.

Hamas and its allies in the Middle East might also invest in a long war, according to the Israeli political analyst. Hamas calculates that “even if Israel demolishes the majority of its strategic military capabilities”, it can still survive at a level where it continues to launch low-complexity hit-and-run attacks on the Israelis, he says.

“It also knows that by dragging the war it is more likely to exhaust the Israeli public and to receive further help from governments and aid organizations from around the world.”