Israel’s recent war in Gaza

Part II. Dynamics of the fifty-day war, performance of fighting parties

Abstract

The new round of the Israeli?Palestine series of conflicts and war ended on 26 August 2015. Hamas has learned a lot from previous military defeats, has changed its tactics and in this case they applied a better form of asymmetric warfare, well fit to Gaza’s urbanized environment. By using tunnels for hidden maneuvers of terrorist groups, mines, booby traps, living shields, suicide bombers and snipers the terrorists have inflicted record casualties on Israeli troops waging an offensive in the Gaza Strip. IDF, taking advantage of his absolute air superiority, much better fire power, military skills and existing decisive superiority in the high-tech weaponry, launched the Operation Protective Edge in order to eliminate the threat of terrorist tunnels. Even if the Hamas’ terrorist forces and its allied terrorist groups were better trained and equipped, they were unable to avoid the defeat by Israeli elite forces.