The Institute for National Security Studies (INSS) think tank, based out of Tel Aviv University, held a conference in Sderot on Thursday to debate what doctrine should govern the country’s Gaza border towns after the war.
While most experts agree that a significant part of the casualties that day were due to IDF strategic, tactical, and intelligence failures, the question of how the communities should be rebuilt and what responsibility residents will have for self-defense is a critical issue.
Maj.-Gen.(ret.) Gershon HaCohen said that the security doctrine should be completely rethought. He said that too many residents believed they were “bringing Tel Aviv with them… or living in a place like Denmark” while ignoring how close they lived to a danger zone governed by a terrorist group.
Instead, he said that the very architecture of close border towns should focus more on security in the face of a potential invasion and only then on aesthetics. Likewise, building materials should focus on withstanding attacks.
He added that it would be ill-advised to have people over the age of 70 living in such areas, given their vulnerabilities and the difficulty of evacuating them.
Rather, he said, the towns must be thought of in the way that founding prime minister David Ben-Gurion thought of them: the first line of Israel’s national defense, a security zone of sorts, including maintenance of training.
Former IDF generals state their views
Maj.-Gen. (ret.) Yaakov Banjo disagreed, saying that invasion was only one of many threats these towns faced. Others include drone, rocket, and anti-tank missile attacks.
He said that only the IDF had the capacity and technology to provide defense against most border threats.
He also pointed out that in this new era, when groups located far away, like the Houthis in Yemen – attack Israel from afar, any part of the country is vulnerable in an unprecedented way, so the focus should be on threats at that higher level.
Maj.-Gen. (ret.) Mickey Edelstein, who is leading the military probe of the battle of Be’eri, agreed and said it was unrealistic to put too much emphasis on neighborhood defense. He pointed out that many residents on the Gaza border took the train daily to jobs in the Tel Aviv area, so at most hours, they would not even be home to defend against an invasion.
Instead, he suggested the IDF should express its power more robustly to improve its deterrence, and avoid any sort of attack.
His point was that if Israel’s deterrence and the IDF’s border readiness had remained at a higher level, Hamas would not have attacked.
Former MK and INSS security expert Ofer Shelach pointed out that there are always limits on how aggressive the IDF can be when it comes to initiating preemptive attacks on its adversaries – due to its need for global legitimacy.
Shelach pointed out that Israel’s current global legitimacy stands at a new low, limiting its ability to launch preemptive strikes to maintain deterrence.
Brig.-Gen. (ret.) Gil Shvartzman said that anyone living in a border town, whether in the North or the South, should have been on notice that they were living in a danger zone since rockets had been fired in 1999.
He said that a patriotic Israelis living in these border areas should be ready to defend themselves and have proper safes in their homes to protect their weapons from being seized by potential enemy invaders.
He added that towns that had their weapons protected held off Hamas somewhat better than those that did not.