🧵Israel has a complete blackout on IDF Casualties right now. That's almost certainly not because they're low..
the official number of 32 IDF dead is laughably low when you consider in the first 24 hours of the major push between Tuesday the 31st and Wednesday the 1st, 15 IDF were confirmed dead, 9 killed in Just one Armoured Personnel Carrier that was hit by a Rocket Propelled Grenade.
This was in the early stages, as they were pushing into the Rural stretches of the Gaza Strip where Israeli armour dominates, and Israeli air superiority would grant them unobstructed vision of the battlefield, with little concealed dense urban terrain.
As anyone can tell you, that was almost certainly the easiest day of fighting. The Live streams of Gaza city now echo with bursts of small arms fire every few seconds
And of course everyone has seen the dozens of videos of Hamas teams firing on Israeli Tanks and armoured vehicles from shockingly close range antitank rockets.
A lot of people contend that these videos don't show the aftermath, we don't know if the tanks are severely damaged by these hits... But basically every one I've seen has been to the rear and sides, where tanks and armoured vehicles are most vulnerable... and most of the shots have been from too close a range for active armor to explode and block the rockets...
Unless Hamas Anti-Rockets are uniquely, pre-1945, bad anti-tank weapons (in which case they'd almost certainly be trying to get multiple hits on each tank, and their teams would be trying to fire 2 or 3 in each video)... then they're almost certainly getting vehicle and personnel kills a decent percentage of the time.
10 days later We should expect... And nothing I've heard in the live streams, or seen in video leaks has suggested otherwise... That Israel would be suffering significantly more daily casualties now that they're in the brutal fighting of Gaza.
And yet they insist only 32 IDF members have died in their ground invasion.
This laughable.
.
So how many are actually dying?
Well if you take that 9-15 deaths on Tuesday the 31st as a baseline, For rural daily fighting in Gaza... then assume Its gotten at least 2-4 times worse in the Urban warfare of Gaza... That very quickly gets up to the hundreds across 10 days.
Which when you consider the IDF had only 20-30k combat arms soldiers (as opposed to support and bureaucracy, and technicians) and that it's 300k reserve call up was almost certainly almost immediately consumed by the need to deploy forces to the Northern border, keep the West Bank to a dull roar, and keep the Border with southern Gaza secure... as well retain reserve in case Egypt or any of the Arab states get Ideas of avenging the 70s...
KIA alone might be Approaching 1-2% of IDF forces in the Gaza theater... Factor in that wounded might be 2-3 times that (presumably Israel is quite good at evacuating soldiers and keeping them alive... especially when the distances are like 5km) That could very quickly be getting close to about 8-15% of the forces dedicated to invading Gaza who are already out of the fight... some forever, some for life, some for couple weeks.
Already we've seen the daily advance of Israeli territory capture slow down as they've entered Gaza city... and in just the past 24 hours we saw it temporarily reverse as the IDF was forced to pull back after a massive bombardment on an armored buildup by the coast near the Gaza pier.
At the Current pace of fighting the IDF might only have another 10-20 days in their Gaza Invasion force before they'd need to pull back and reconsolidate,
which in the Grand Scheme of things isn't a very strange thing for an army to do after a massive intensive urban warfare campaign... they'd almost certainly be able to pull back in good order if they choose to...
Except this would be probably the largest propaganda victory Hamas could ever dream of... and would almost certainly force Hezbollah to open another front in the north, lest they been seen by Iran and the wealthy Gulf Arabs who fund insurgencies as a bad investment relative to their Gazan Counterparts.
As I've written about at my blog: Israel risks falling into "the Tragedy of the Central Position", Merely fighting well in a battle where only decisive victory will do... and thus facing a growing number of enemies it can't break off from.
the official number of 32 IDF dead is laughably low when you consider in the first 24 hours of the major push between Tuesday the 31st and Wednesday the 1st, 15 IDF were confirmed dead, 9 killed in Just one Armoured Personnel Carrier that was hit by a Rocket Propelled Grenade.
This was in the early stages, as they were pushing into the Rural stretches of the Gaza Strip where Israeli armour dominates, and Israeli air superiority would grant them unobstructed vision of the battlefield, with little concealed dense urban terrain.
As anyone can tell you, that was almost certainly the easiest day of fighting. The Live streams of Gaza city now echo with bursts of small arms fire every few seconds
And of course everyone has seen the dozens of videos of Hamas teams firing on Israeli Tanks and armoured vehicles from shockingly close range antitank rockets.
A lot of people contend that these videos don't show the aftermath, we don't know if the tanks are severely damaged by these hits... But basically every one I've seen has been to the rear and sides, where tanks and armoured vehicles are most vulnerable... and most of the shots have been from too close a range for active armor to explode and block the rockets...
Unless Hamas Anti-Rockets are uniquely, pre-1945, bad anti-tank weapons (in which case they'd almost certainly be trying to get multiple hits on each tank, and their teams would be trying to fire 2 or 3 in each video)... then they're almost certainly getting vehicle and personnel kills a decent percentage of the time.
10 days later We should expect... And nothing I've heard in the live streams, or seen in video leaks has suggested otherwise... That Israel would be suffering significantly more daily casualties now that they're in the brutal fighting of Gaza.
And yet they insist only 32 IDF members have died in their ground invasion.
This laughable.
.
So how many are actually dying?
Well if you take that 9-15 deaths on Tuesday the 31st as a baseline, For rural daily fighting in Gaza... then assume Its gotten at least 2-4 times worse in the Urban warfare of Gaza... That very quickly gets up to the hundreds across 10 days.
Which when you consider the IDF had only 20-30k combat arms soldiers (as opposed to support and bureaucracy, and technicians) and that it's 300k reserve call up was almost certainly almost immediately consumed by the need to deploy forces to the Northern border, keep the West Bank to a dull roar, and keep the Border with southern Gaza secure... as well retain reserve in case Egypt or any of the Arab states get Ideas of avenging the 70s...
KIA alone might be Approaching 1-2% of IDF forces in the Gaza theater... Factor in that wounded might be 2-3 times that (presumably Israel is quite good at evacuating soldiers and keeping them alive... especially when the distances are like 5km) That could very quickly be getting close to about 8-15% of the forces dedicated to invading Gaza who are already out of the fight... some forever, some for life, some for couple weeks.
Already we've seen the daily advance of Israeli territory capture slow down as they've entered Gaza city... and in just the past 24 hours we saw it temporarily reverse as the IDF was forced to pull back after a massive bombardment on an armored buildup by the coast near the Gaza pier.
At the Current pace of fighting the IDF might only have another 10-20 days in their Gaza Invasion force before they'd need to pull back and reconsolidate,
which in the Grand Scheme of things isn't a very strange thing for an army to do after a massive intensive urban warfare campaign... they'd almost certainly be able to pull back in good order if they choose to...
Except this would be probably the largest propaganda victory Hamas could ever dream of... and would almost certainly force Hezbollah to open another front in the north, lest they been seen by Iran and the wealthy Gulf Arabs who fund insurgencies as a bad investment relative to their Gazan Counterparts.
As I've written about at my blog: Israel risks falling into "the Tragedy of the Central Position", Merely fighting well in a battle where only decisive victory will do... and thus facing a growing number of enemies it can't break off from.
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