It is becoming the Israeli army's longest "targeted operation" in its war against Hamas. For ten days, fighting has raged at Al-Chifa hospital in the Gaza Strip. A second assault on this hospital complex, the largest and oldest in the Palestinian enclave, since October 7.

Around a thousand Israeli soldiers, supported by tanks, entered the buildings of Al-Chifa on Monday March 18 for an operation to “cleanse” the presence of fighters from Hamas and its ally, Islamic Jihad.

“A tactical success”

This second raid should have been rapid since the Israeli army had already announced in November, during the first assault, that it had "emptied" the area of ​​Hamas presence. This first operation was also supposed to have allowed Israel to block a maze of tunnels under the hospital serving Palestinian fighters.

© Graphic studio France Médias Monde

Not only is the new Israeli attack dragging on, but the fighting has also spread to the surrounding areas of the gigantic hospital complex. Hamas was able to launch 70 attacks against Israeli forces from outside and inside the hospital in ten days, counted the Institute for the Study of War, an American think tank that works with the center. conflict monitoring platform Critical Threats to provide daily summaries of events in the war between Israel and Hamas.

Despite intense fighting in a supposedly "cleared" area, the Israeli army presents the operation as a success. She emphasizes having been able to "eliminate dozens" of enemy combatants and locate new "infrastructure and weapons caches" in the hospital.

“From a tactical point of view, we can say that it is a success,” confirms Veronika Poniscjakova, specialist in international security issues and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict at the University of Portsmouth. "The Israeli army made it appear that it was going to concentrate its efforts on another area - a refugee camp in the center of the Gaza Strip - and when the Hamas fighters returned to the hospital compound, the Israeli soldiers, who were ready, closed the net on them," explains Ahron Bregman, specialist in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict at King's College London.

A sort of trap which also "probably allowed Israel to recover information about their enemy, as suggested by the images and videos of the interrogations that the Israeli army made public", notes Omri Brinner, analyst and specialist in the geopolitics of the Middle East at the International Team for the Study of Security (ITSS) Verona, an international collective of experts on international security issues.

Image war

Progress seems slow because the Israeli army is trying as much as possible to avoid the media backlash linked to a military operation launched in a hospital. Last November, fighting initiated by Israel in Al-Chifa caused the deaths of more than 20 patients according to the Gaza Health Ministry, run by Hamas. The assault also led to a health disaster for Gazans, deprived of the most important hospital complex in the enclave. Washington had very openly expressed concern to its Israeli ally about the “human cost of an operation in a hospital”.

Also read: “It’s no longer a healthcare center, it’s a mass grave,” says the director of Al-Chifa hospital in Gaza

Once again, the Israeli operation in Al-Chifa attracted international attention. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the director-general of the World Health Organization (WHO), described conditions in the hospital as "totally inhumane" for patients and health staff.

But “Israel was much smarter this time in the way it presented the operation to the world,” underlines Clive Jones, specialist in Israel and the Middle East at Durham University. The army uses drone images of the exchange of fire and photos of the discovery of weapons caches to “try to convince international opinion that they had legitimate reasons to return to fight in this hospital”, adds this expert.

Israel also needs to prove its ability to carry out this type of very sensitive operation with as few civilian casualties as possible. Indeed, "if the war in Iraq [of 2003, Editor's note] proved one thing, it is that as soon as an army leaves an area [American at the time, Israeli in Gaza, Editor's note], insurgents seek to go back," says Ahron Bregman. In other words, "we must expect Hamas to do the same thing in other hospitals, but also schools or refugee camps where there are civilian populations," notes Shahin Modarres, independent expert on international security issues and the Middle East.

The Israeli army is taking its time in Al-Chifa to show Hamas "that it does not hesitate to lead the fight in environments considered sensitive", affirms Omri Brinner. While seeking to prove to the international community that it knows how to do it.

Strategic failure?

But if this operation looks like an “operational success, it is also a strategic failure for Israel”, believes Clive Jones. After the fighting in northern Gaza at the start of the war and the first visit to Al-Chifa hospital, "the fact that so many Hamas fighters managed to return to a site as sensitive as this hospital complex must be worrying for the Israeli general staff,” assures Veronika Poniscjakova.

This demonstrates that Hamas can afford to carry out guerrilla operations aimed at "frustrating Israeli soldiers, forced to retrace their steps, while seeking to distract them long enough in the hope that international pressure will push Israel to accept a ceasefire,” emphasizes Shahin Modarres.

Also read: Gaza: Al-Chifa hospital at the heart of the war?

The fact that Hamas adopted this strategy was certainly expected, believe the experts interviewed by France 24. But "the intensity of the fighting around the hospital demonstrates that Israel had perhaps underestimated the capacity of their enemy to quickly regroup in the north", specifies Clive Jones.

For this expert, the return to Al-Chifa hospital "illustrates the political flaw in the Israeli plan which consists of advancing into Gaza without having thought about the authority to be put in place to ensure the stability of areas where the Israeli army does not 'is not". And the latter can less and less be everywhere: “we must not forget that they have gradually withdrawn soldiers in recent times”, adds Clive Jones.

“It’s a classic case of the chicken and the egg,” says Veronika Poniscjakova. According to her, Israel will now have to choose whether its priority is "to establish governance in the area where the army is absent to have a free hand or to deal with Hamas forces in the South to have a freer mind." calmly and find a political solution. In this regard, the fighting in Al-Chifa also proves, believe these same experts, that the Israeli army is still far from having achieved its main objective: the destruction of Hamas.

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