Former CIA Director General David Petraeus said a potential Israeli ground offensive on the Gaza Strip would last years and involve "horrific fighting."
In an interview with the American newspaper Politico, Petraeus stressed that if Israel penetrated by land into the Strip, it would face a more difficult situation than the one faced by US forces in Somalia, and would be met with "suicide" attacks, explosive devices, booby-traps and ambushes.
The general, who was also the former commander of U.S. forces in Iraq and Afghanistan, cited the shooting down of three U.S. Black Hawk helicopters in Mogadishu in 3, causing bloody fighting as U.S. forces struggled to rescue survivors of the crash, to assert that the Israeli military would face a "similar reality" if it clashed on the ground in Gaza.
Petraeus said his personal experience managing militaries engaged in "brutal counterinsurgency campaigns" should serve as a warning to the IDF should it proceed with the ground incursion.
"It's hard for me to imagine a more difficult situation than this one, and I was one of those who led forces in a number of major operations in urban areas," he said.
"You can't win counterinsurgency in a year or two. Such processes usually take a decade or more, as we have seen in Iraq, as we have seen in Afghanistan."
The former military commander also stressed that Israel needs a plan to restore basic services, rebuild Gaza and frame its governance, once its battle against the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas) is considered settled.