Israeli Army Chief of Staff Herzi Halevy in front of a group of his soldiers (Israeli press)
Retired Israeli Army Major General Yitzhak Brik said that his country lost the war with the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas) in the Gaza Strip, stressing that the Israeli home front is not prepared for a wide-ranging regional war.
In an article in Maariv newspaper published on Sunday, Brik said, “You cannot lie to many people for a long time,” and that what is happening in the Gaza Strip and against Hezbollah in Lebanon will explode in our faces sooner or later, and then the truth will be revealed in all its secrets.
Brik stressed that the Israeli home front is not prepared for a regional war that would be thousands of times more difficult and dangerous than the ongoing war in the Gaza Strip.
Regarding what the Israeli army is facing in the Gaza Strip, Brik said: Every day our soldiers are killed and seriously injured by traps and explosives when they enter booby-trapped houses without any inspection, and do not take appropriate measures before entering.
Brick criticized Israeli Chief of Staff Herzi Halevy's series of appointments in the army, considering that he was "isolated from reality and lost control of the ground a long time ago, but he began appointing colonels and lieutenant colonels in his likeness and image," as he put it.
The next is worse
He added that they appoint colonels and deans, and some of them bear direct responsibility for what happened (meaning last October 7 and after), in order to preserve their legacy, which caused “the greatest disaster during the 75 years of the establishment of the State of Israel,” according to him.
Brik considered that if the political and military levels continue in this manner, "we will find ourselves in a much worse situation than it was before we began the attack on the Gaza Strip. We will even lose the achievements we have achieved, and we will not achieve the two goals of the war: overthrowing Hamas and returning the kidnapped ones."
He added, "We have lost the war with Hamas, and we are losing our allies in the world at an astonishing rate. The goal of completely eliminating Hamas has been removed from the agenda, and we have not returned the kidnapped people alive yet," he said.
The former general added that what he described as the maneuver (the ground attack on the Gaza Strip), which Israeli leaders cheered for, did not stand the test and did not achieve the result that everyone had hoped for.
Since the beginning of the ground attack on Gaza on October 27, 2023, the Israeli army has faced fierce resistance from the Palestinian factions in the Gaza Strip, which has inflicted great losses in lives and equipment.
According to Israeli army data, the number of deaths among its ranks as a result of the war since October 7 has reached 591 officers and soldiers, including 249 since the start of the ground operation.
Since the beginning of the war, 3,079 officers and soldiers have been injured, including 1,781 since the beginning of the ground attack.
Since October 7, 2023, Israel has been waging a devastating war on the Gaza Strip that has left tens of thousands of civilian victims, most of them children and women, in addition to an unprecedented humanitarian catastrophe and massive infrastructure destruction, which led to Tel Aviv being brought before the International Court of Justice on charges of genocide. .
Source: Al Jazeera + Anadolu Agency