Operation Breaking Dawn and Deterrence

A report on Operation Breaking Dawn, and the goals it managed to achieve in a mere 66 hours of battle, is here: “The implications of Operation Breaking Dawn,” by Omer Dostri, Israel Hayom, August 26, 2022:

Due to Palestinian Islamic Jihad’s threat to attack areas in Israel’s southern region, the decision to launch Operation Breaking Dawn in Gaza earlier this month was unavoidable.

The operation was intended to thwart PIJ terrorism, exact a price for the attempt to attack Israel, deter the terror group from doing so in the future and damage the group’s military capabilities. Other goals were to keep Hamas from joining the fight and to foster division among Gaza’s terror factions.

As part of its stepped-up without-letup campaign to arrest terrorists in the West Bank, the IDF seized a senior PIJ official, Bassem Al-Saadi, during a raid in Jenin. The PIJ then threatened to attack Israel, which had the effect of disrupting life for Israelis living along the border with Gaza, especially in such southern cities as Ashkelon and Ashdod. But there was no PIJ attack. Instead, the IDF attacked PIJ targets in Gaza first, managing in short order to kill the entire PIJ leadership, beginning with the PIJ’s northern commander Tayseer Jabari and its southern commander Khaled Mansour, as well as destroying several anti-tank launcher teams, and a terror tunnel that PIJ had built. The IDF was now playing by new rules: it would not wait to respond to actual terror attacks, but would attack first when threats from terror groups had affected the lives of ordinary Israelis.

The IDF enjoyed several successes due to its proactive stance, which focused on achieving quality objectives. In this context, the military often uses two techniques: a “staggered” attack, in which it gradually raises the quality of the targets it strikes, and an “inverted-staggered” attack, in which it launches numerous immediate attacks on quality targets, such as eliminating senior terrorists and demolishing high-rise buildings.

Operation Breaking Dawn saw the IDF follow the second strategy, attacking high-quality targets for the first two days. This was unusual compared to past operations and made possible by the conflict’s brief duration. Along with taking out PIJ’s northern commander Tayseer Jabari at the start of the operation, the IDF successfully stopped anti-tank launcher teams that the PIJ had deployed on the border. PIJ’s southern commander Khaled Mansour and his deputy Hitab Amasi were eliminated the following day. Rafat Saleh, commander of PIJ’s rocket system, was also killed. In addition, a PIJ-affiliated terror tunnel was demolished.

However, the IDF considerably lessened the intensity of its attacks on the third and final day of the operation, concentrating on attempts to take out rocket launchers and the terrorists operating them. It probably shouldn’t have done so. A full-on assault throughout would have been more effective.…

But there was a good reason for Israel to have diminished its attacks on the third day, and to have brought the campaign to a complete halt after 66 hours. It wanted to end things quickly, before a chorus of criticism had time to develop, at the UN, in foreign chanceries, and in the international media. And the swiftness of its victory worked. There was hardly any negative reaction outside the Arab states, and even there, the criticism was muted or non-existent. The one country to express its full fury with Israel was the PIJ’s only state backer, Iran.

The IDF also increased the percentage of rockets intercepted from Gaza by the Iron Dome defense system. Iron Dome had a 97% success rate – a new record. In 2021’s Operation Guardian of the Walls, the success rate was an already impressive 90%. But now Iron Dome has created what seems to be a nearly impregnable defense. A key reason for this were the upgrades to the algorithms employed by the defense system, as well as improvements in its control system, radar and interceptor missiles.

Operation Breaking Dawn dealt a severe blow to the PIJ’s terrorist capabilities by the elimination of its senior leadership. This has sown confusion in the ranks and created a leadership vacuum that will take time to fill. “Succession wars” within the organization are now a possibility.…

To replace one, or even two, leaders would be difficult for the PIJ. But now the PIJ has to contend with the removal of its entire command structure. And who, having seen what happened to those leaders, will be eager to step forward and replace them?

Breaking Dawn may strengthen Israel’s deterrence against Hezbollah as well. The Iran-backed terrorist organization has been threatening in recent months to attack Israel if it produces gas from the Karish gas field reservoir before Israel and Lebanon reach an agreement on maritime borders. After the campaign, Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah may think twice before commencing hostilities.

Nasrallah may already be regretting his threats. For under its new rules, the Jewish state might conclude that his threats alone have discouraged further exploitation of the Karish gas fields by the companies involved, just as the Jewish state concluded that PIJ threats had harmed the smooth functioning of Israeli life in towns and cities bordering Gaza, and as a consequence the IDF went to war to end those threats.

Israel’s decision to wind down the operation after three days may have been a mistake, however. It is true that by continuing the operation, there was a chance that Hamas might join the fighting. However, it is also plausible that Hamas would have continued to refrain from action as long as Israel concentrated solely on PIJ targets. Hamas is not interested in a confrontation with Israel at this time and prefers to focus on enhancing its military capabilities, stabilizing the economic situation and consolidating its control over Gaza.

I don’t think the IDF stopped Operation Breaking Dawn after three days because it was worried that Hamas might decide to join the fighting. Hamas has made clear it has no desire to go to war with Israel any time soon after the devastation wrought on it by the IDF during Operation Guardian of the Walls in May 2021. Hamas knows that the 15,500 Gazans now allowed to work in Israel would promptly lose their jobs if the terror group that rules Gaza were to start fighting, and the economic degringolade in the Strip would as a consequence only worsen. It is Hamas, not PIJ, that bears the responsibilities of rule in Gaza, including the attempt to improve a devastated economy. Furthermore, Hamas is not displeased that its rival PIJ was subjected to a hammering by the IDF, while it remained uninvolved and unscathed in the recent fighting.

In summary, Operation Breaking Dawn was a quick and devastating victory. It crushed PIJ, and reminded both Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon that Israeli tactics have changed. It will attack not only in response to an actual terror attack, but also in response to threats that change the tenor of life for Israelis living near the border either with Gaza or with Lebanon. This should make Hassan Nasrallah and Ismail Haniyeh think twice about uttering such threats, lest they are answered not by counter-threats, but by F-35s, flying over the Mediterranean, or Gaza, and dropping bombs or firing drones that caused the kind of massive destruction that was on display at an Iranian weapons plant and warehouse in Masyaf, Syria the other day – with more than 1,000 missiles destroyed by drones fired from IAF planes flying in the eastern Mediterranean. Not a single Israeli plane or airman was damaged. For Haniyeh, for Nasrallah, that’s food for thought.