How Does Grounding the Israeli Tank Fleet Influence Gaza War?

On Monday, the army admitted that during the war against Hamas resistance movement it has lost many tanks, something that pushed it to delay preplans for training tank operators. Times of Israel news outlet cited the army as saying that "during the course of the war, many tanks were damaged, which are disabled at this stage and are not used for combat or training, and it is not expected that new tanks will soon be introduced into the Corps." 

This admission, which is unprecedented in the past 9 months of war, is very important in many ways. 

While the armored units have been backbone of the Israeli army's ground operations in Gaza, no accurate statistics of the destruction or damage of the tanks and armored vehicles of this regime have been published yet.

Since the ground invasion of the coastal enclave, the Israelis embarked on a policy of watertight censorship on the casualties in the war, to a degree that even the Israeli media are shocked by this news about tanks. Times of Israel reflected on this contradiction and wrote: "The claim that the IDF lacked tanks for the pilot, due to many of them being damaged, appeared to contradict previous statements by senior officers in the military... Several senior officers in armored units fighting in the Gaza Strip told The Times of Israel that very few tanks had been disabled beyond repair during the fighting, and damaged vehicles are normally quickly repaired and sent back into the battlefield, sometimes within just a few hours." 

Al-Qassam Brigades, the military wing of Hamas, repeatedly published videos showing its fighters targeting the much-vaunted Merkava tanks using Al-Yasin 105 anti-tank rockets in various operations across Gaza Strip.

Al-Qassam Brigades announced in their latest statistics that more than 1,500 Israeli military vehicles were destroyed in whole or in part, noting that this statistic does not yet include the number of tanks and armored vehicles destroyed in the Rafah battle.

Therefore, in the first place, the admission of shortage in the number of armored vehicles indicates the extensive losses and casualties that the army has suffered against the resistance forces in the last 9 months. The killing or injury of tank trainers in the middle of the war caused even postponement of the process of integration of female soldiers into the reserve forces. 

According to Israeli sources, the armored battalions are comprised of brigades that have two tank units with regular troops and the third unit is of reserve forces that have passed tank training programs. Some believe that the announcement of the suspension of training programs is a ground for using reserve forces in the battlefield and replacing them with depreciated army forces.

Israel put 300,000 reservists into service after the October 7 attack by Hamas, but with increasing casualties, the lack of manpower in the war is now quite evident, as recently Channel 12 reported on the deterioration of the manpower situation in the army of this regime and described it as a "crisis" for Tel Aviv. 

On the other hand, the field data show that with the war passing its 9th month and despite the severe siege on the Gaza Strip, which makes it difficult for humanitarian aid to enter, the Palestinian resistance forces have gained their full ability to build military equipment and are capable of conducting joint operations against the occupation army in a completely professional manner in the next months. 

Additionally, as the Palestinians locally develop and produce rockets, military experts suggest that the Israeli forces' repeated falling into complicated ambushes and this bears witness to the reality that the resistance forces are using special fighting methods based on explosive traps and surprise operations. 

Analysts state that factors such as the lack of information and domination on the battlefield situation, the lack of combat experience of the Israeli soldiers and their low morale, which leads to the repetition of mistakes, as well as the resistance's use of the principle of surprise, have imposed high casualties on the occupiers in Gaza.

For example, in one case on June 19, Hamas fighters managed to destroy the command and control center of the Israeli army with a powerful roadside bomb, an advanced Merkava tank and a mortar in the south of Rafah and north of Gaza City. 

Israeli incapablity to continue the war or open new fronts 

Since the war on Gaza, armored battalions have had a key role in the operations, with the ranks spreading across Gaza from Philadelphi Line on the border with Egypt to the costal line and cutting off the highway that links south to north of Gaza. 

According to military analysts, tanks are still the backbone of the Israeli ground forces. Before the start of the war in Gaza, the Israelis were boasting about having a large fleet of tanks, with an estimated number of more than 2,200, including modern and upgraded versions of the Merkava, Barak, and Magach. 

Still, destruction of a considerable part of these armored capabilities and the consequent irreversible impacts the operational power of the army, raising the question that while it is suffering from shortage of equipment and weapons, how the Israeli military is talking about plans to open new front in the north with Lebanon and ground invasion of Lebanon. 

In fact, the army statement about tank shortage and the admission of this shortage at a time the military is stuck in Gaza quagmire is meant to press Netanyahu government to consider the battleground realities and the big dangers the military commanders from spokesman Daniel Hagari to Chief of General Staff Herzi Halevi feel.