A visit to the staging area on the border with the Israel Defense Forces troops that will enter the Gaza Strip reveals a readiness and mental and military strength unlike any that I can ever remember. The brigade and regimental combat teams are already in formation, the orders have been given and also the briefings, up to the level of the company commander and from there to the soldiers. Only three more words are needed: move, move out!
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As I write this on Saturday afternoon, the meeting of the limited War Cabinet held at the Southern Command is over and it can be assumed that decisions were made there. But the high command of the IDF, and with it the limited political echelon, keep their cards very close to their chest. Even the senior commanders of the forces in the field still don't know for sure when the time will be. I tried to deduce from them when it would happen and I failed.
From conversations with the commanders who will lead the forces, the impression emerges that they know very well what they are going to do and that they are determined not only to carry out the task - which is to defeat and expel Hamas and the other terrorist organizations from the Strip - but that they have self-confidence and a sense of ability. Most of them have already done exercises on a model once or twice and so have the soldiers who are with them.
In the last few days, they tell me as I stand between the tanks and the Namir APCs, they have been supplied with all the equipment they need and the recently learned lessons have been applied, even from the fight against the terrorists on October 7. It is impossible to go into detail, and there is no need, but the tanks and infantrymen who will enter Gaza are protected as much as possible and the battle plan takes into account surprises and traps that Hamas might have waiting for them.
In addition to gathering equipment and improving their skills with the tanks, APCs and weapons, the commanders in the staging areas were engaged in mentally preparing the soldiers. I am not allowed to quote commanders for the sake of field security, but I say that this preparation was necessary because the soldier's units are full of people who each have some kind of relationship with someone who was killed, wounded or was kidnapped to Gaza, and many of them are still severely affected by the events of Black Saturday.
Between visiting staging areas, I entered Kibbutz Be'eri and witnessed the unimaginable sights of destruction. The reservists who are still searching house after house discovered a new body during the day. It is not known whether it belongs to a terrorist or a kibbutz member. The shock is also visible on the faces of the ZAKA search and rescue members walking around the place. In the doorway of one house, where an entire family had been slaughtered down to the very last child, I found a knife in a pool of clotted blood. The Islamist murderers used kitchen knives and butcher knives even though they were armed with guns and could have finished them off in an instant.
The commanders in the staging areas were engaged in mentally preparing the soldiers
The stories circulate among the soldiers in the staging areas. For some of them, the attack undermined their faith in the IDF, and the mental preparation was intended to prevent them from sinking into depression. Among those who were exposed to the atrocities, there is an ongoing debate as to whether the Hamas terrorists and the mob that followed them were Nazis or ISIS. In view of what I saw, it is a blood-curdling combination of cruel planning and brutal execution out of control.
The soldiers in the staging areas are aware of this and, therefore, as one of the commanders told me, they understand that we are going to war and have no choice. There is no way to live next to such barbarians, especially if they have destructive tools in their hands that can be used against us. There's just no way. "It's similar to the Holocaust," I heard one of the commanders say. But in the Holocaust we didn't have a state and now we do, and we are mobilizing to protect it and its citizens because a return to the previous situation is out of the question.
You look around you in the assembly area, you see the modern tanks and the APCs, a huge force, and to your surprise there are smiling soldiers sitting next to them. "We want to enter," said one who caught me on the side after I parted ways with them. "We have to do it."
It was encouraging to see that the lessons regarding the staging areas have been fully learned since 2014. During Operation Protective Edge, the IDF suffered dozens of casualties from mortar bombs because these areas were too close to the Strip and were visible to the naked eye - without the need for binoculars - from the highest buildings in Gaza. Now the staging areas are in safe locations protected by Iron Dome and forces of the Home Front Command. Hamas and other organizations are still firing toward the surrounding area, probably with the intention of hitting the forces in the staging areas again, but so far they have not succeeded
The aforementioned forces are trained. They completed the battle plans and refined them time and time again. It is difficult to achieve a surprise attack when the State of Israel announces every day through every media that it is about to enter Gaza. But it is still possible. The technological innovations that the IDF has worked to introduce to the ground forces in recent years will be tested for the first time in a battle inside the Strip.
No one in the IDF is under the illusion that this is a short operation. There will be no bang-we're-done here. The forces are preparing for a long stay and this is evident from the logistical preparations which can also be seen on the ground. The divisions, brigades and battalions of the ground army that will enter Gaza are well prepared for the war of consciousness that will surely accompany the physical combat in the field.
But still, the unknown is ahead of us. In the evening, when I said goodbye to a senior commander in one of these forces, he looked at me with a smile and said: "We will do it."