If anything can be said for certain about Israel’s on-going multi-front offensive against Hamas, it is this: the aura of uncertainty surrounding it — its shroud of secrecy — is one of the operation’s prime ingredients, the public guessing game about it part of its basic design.
To borrow from Churchill, it is a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma – only this time, the enigma is encased in cyber algorithms, and the key actors are phantoms, or more specifically “Refaim,” a hyper-secret arm of Israel’s special forces, which goes by the English handle, “Ghosts.”
By terrible coincidence, the unit chief, Colonel Roi Levy, was killed during the Hamas cross-border terror strikes on October 7. According to The Times of Israel Levy was “first into battle” at Kibbutz Re’m and “led his team bravely” to save besieged civilians.
His martyrdom has only strengthened the determination and fighting spirit of his unit and its older “sf” (special forces) counterparts. That is the way of such operatives.
Created in 2019, and activated a year later, the Ghosts is what is known in the spook and spec-ops trade as a “multidimensional” unit, “a battalion with the capabilities of a division,” its members trained in every kill and stealth stratagem known to our own Delta Force and Seal Teams, with this underscored plus: they have been deep-dipped in the most advanced aspects of ISR – intelligence, surveillance and recon — technology.
The cyber toys at their disposal are reputedly capable of shortening the response time between “sensor and shooter” to the blink of an eye.
Think about that: No more waiting interminably for air support or backup fire. Command and control wires have been disentangled and streamlined to allow operatives on the ground, behind enemy lines, to pull all the right triggers themselves. Before the hostiles can duck back into their hidey holes, a rocket, bomb, drone, artillery shell or sniper’s bullet, is homing in.
Inspiration for this updating of the IDF’s “sf” playbook has come from Israel’s own hard-earned experience but owes substantially to a rethinking of U.S. military doctrine begun some years ago called RMA or “Revolution in Military Affairs.” It envisions increased use of satellite imaging, drones and robot vehicles in irregular combat.
So it is that the recent dispatch of Lieutenant General James Glynn to Israel has had a dual purpose. It isn’t keyed simply to educating the IDF on what the US has learned about waging war in densely populated areas, i.e., the virtues of the carefully layered and orchestrated Mosul model over the Fallujah street-by-street slugfest.
General Glynn, who headed up the Marine’s special ops units, is intimately acquainted with the ways in which new technologies can be applied in asymmetrical matchups. His counsel, though volunteered, will mesh well with the doctrinal review underway in the IDF and Israel’s own intelligence agencies.
The new head of Mossad, David Barnea, seems exactly the right man for this transformative moment. Whereas his predecessors viewed intel support for special ops as just one of many priorities, Barnea puts it right up top.
A source recently told the estimable John Broder of Spytalk that Barnea “focuses more on the collection of more immediate intelligence that can be translated into tactical operations aimed at achieving strategic change.”
And that, my friends, is what is going on in Gaza right now, the “new phase” in the fighting, the much ballyhooed “expanded offensive” that Bibi Netanyahu and his fellow ministers have been promising, albeit cagily without offering detail.
Keeping Hamas off balance and misdirected until death-do-us-part is what Ghosts and its sister units, are all about. Like Scarlet Pimpernels with state-of-the-art light sabers and AI backup they are everywhere and nowhere, able not only to choose their killing grounds, but also to fool the enemy into bumbling into them.
If you want to fix the bad guys in their tunnels through detected body heat or the slightest physical displacement, the Ghosts and their “sf” comrades have the ticket. If you want to locate hostages and leadership clusters through the detected delivery of scarce food and water supplies, check with this tech-smart band of snake eaters. If you want to force detectable turbulence underground, have the Ghosts & Friends bring in pinpoint airstrikes. It’s like delivering a hammer blow to a piece of wood riddled with termites. Every shock sends Hamas operatives scurrying – right into the next set of crosshairs.
You think I am spit-balling about current happenings in Gaza?
The evidence is staring us in the face.
Over the past few days, press reports have identified various IDF incursions-in-force into Gaza, coordinated initiatives but from different directions, supported by armor and extraordinarily precise airstrikes, rocket and artillery fire.
That’s the Ghosts’ signature playbook, tell-tale proof of elite special forces in action.
Early Saturday, Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant announced that Israel has “moved to a new phase of the war with attacks above the ground and underground,” which are “likely to continue till further notice” – exactly the modus operandi of the Ghosts unit and its “sf” brethren. .
The IDF also reports having just killed two top-level Hamas commanders in what seems a classic Ghosts operation.
And, according to government handouts, Gaza is under intermittent blackout, a condition that allows the Ghosts & Friends to reduce the white noise, the faint buzz of electrical circuitry or the thrum of Hamas generators that might confuse portable sensors.
At the same time, in a bid to regain ground in the information war, and improve chances for further hostage negotiations, Israel has offered once again to help speed humanitarian aid to southern Gaza – though Egyptian aid workers at the Rafah crossing claim Israeli inspectors are still dawdling over each truckload, bringing deliveries to a slow crawl.
Context.
Let’s zoom out for a moment to take stock of the bigger picture.
Here’s the most consequential of all the larger through still elusive “knowns.”
Ever since Hamas raiders broke out of Gaza on October 7 and slaughtered 1400 Israelis, the unity cabinet’s overriding stated objective has been to wipe Hamas off the face of the earth. Netanyahu himself has vowed that all Hamas members implicated in the October 7 attacks will be terminated, and that Hamas itself will be “destroyed.”
Total extermination isn’t an achievable objective, practically or indeed morally given the potential for collateral damage to Gazan civilians, but decimation can be carried to a point where there isn’t much of a practical difference.
That’s where Ghosts & Friends are headed right now. And I would argue, they are already on the cusp of achieving what could be described as a qualified triumph.
Over the past three weeks, as a set-up for this ongoing “Second Phase,” the IDF amassed an attack force of nearly 400,000 and deployed it in an extreme forward leaning posture all along the edges of Gaza, the West Bank and the Hezbollah-infested southern border Lebanon. That such prep time was well spent is borne out by what we are seeing now
Meanwhile the machine-like proficiency of the IDF provides a flip image of the way the Israeli cabinet seems to be functioning, or non-functioning. According to breakthrough reporting by many news outlets, Netanyahu, and his fellow ministers, many of whom he reluctantly embraced in deference to the emergency, remain at odds over key policy objectives. They have been particularly hard pressed to settle on an agreed end game – how and when to disengage from Gaza after smashing Hamas, whether (or to what extent) to involve the Fatah-led Palestinian Authority in any postwar peacemaking and — the unthinkable of all unthinkables for Israeli hardliners — whether to accede to some sort of two state-solution underwritten by Egypt and/or moderate Gulfies and/or anchored by normalized relations between Israel and the Saudi monarchy.
One other proposed alternative, secretly debated within the Israeli cabinet, would relocate all Gazan Palestinians to the Sinai region of Egypt.
It is impossible to imagine that the average Israeli, still traumatized by the surprise attacks of October 7, and braced against continued rocketing, would countenance any accommodation that left Hamas intact or required Israeli re-occupation of Gaza. Just a few days ago a cabinet member, reflecting this perspective, called for creation of a hardened buffer – beyond the sensor-driven Smart Wall that proved so fatally porous on October 7 – to keep the Palestinians and whoever might govern them locked in for good.
Meanwhile President Biden has warned Netanyahu that the absence of a day-after plan could prove fatal to Israel’s long-term security. He has endorsed emphatically for the first time in his presidency a two-state solution predicated on a re-secured Israel and perhaps involving the Palestinian Authority with some Saudi financing and godfathering.
Regarding Israel’s immediate military options, Biden has walked softly and wielded a studied deference, disavowing any intent to bigfoot IDF decisions. But, as we have learned from detailed press reporting, the President and his advisers have also been adamant that the IDF abide by the rules of war by minimizing, to every extent possible, civilian casualties in Gaza.
And while the US has resisted efforts by other members of the UN security Council to hold Israel to a ceasefire that might inhibit its designs on Hamas and complicate hostage talks, Biden has acknowledged that such a cooling down might be appropriate after all hostages are freed. In recent remarks, Secretary of State Tony Blinken and Security Adviser Jake Sullivan have edged right up to the line by calling for a “pause” in the fighting to allow for expanded and accelerated humanitarian aid deliveries to Gaza.
That’s a lot of mixed messaging, subtle though it may be, and if Netanyahu and his ministers are dizzy from it, and a bit wary, they have reason to be, though indifference would be a grave mistake.
Despite Biden’s unrelenting public support of Israel, opinion polls in the United States and abroad reflect a mounting animus towards the Netanyahu government – and Israel itself — because of the civilian bloodletting in Gaza. Indeed, an increasing number of Americans who have previously embraced Israel in all extremities are beginning to question whether the horrors of October 7 can continue to justify the punishment being visited on Hamas’ oppressed subjects.
Ditto the Arab street and a lot of streets elsewhere. Witness the non-binding resolution just passed by a wide margin in the UN General Assembly that would condemn Israel, but not Hamas, for the carnage in the current conflict.
And yet… and yet…any backtracking from a take-no-prisoners policy would be unthinkable for the Netanyahu government, whose failure to collect pre-emptive intelligence will be a source of unending recriminations The Israeli electorate itself is in no mood for military half-measures, though there is growing unease over the apparent under-prioritizing of hostage safety. Despite that, it seems to be the unwavering consensus in Israel that any lighter touch would leave the nation’s credibility in tatters, rending the cloak of invincibility that has served as its best deterrent against adventurism by Iran, Hezbollah and other advocates of Israel’s demise.
Moreover, recent history has proven the inadequacy of lesser versions of the kill-kill strategy now being pursued against Hamas. After occupying parts of Gaza only briefly in 2014 and then departing with Hamas still intact, Israel opted for a mowing-the-grass strategy that involved selective hits on the group’s leadership coupled with softer efforts to modify its extremism, such as granting work passes to Palestinians and other minor concessions. The Netanyahu regime has also attempted to emasculate the Palestinian Authority on the West Bank, by feeding its inefficiency and corruption while encouraging settler encroachments, so as to lessen the PA’s ability to lobby effectively for – you guessed it — a two-state solution.
Alongside all this, Israel has developed high-tech defenses to contain and deflect extremist threats of every variety. It built the Smart Wall replete with sensors and remote-controlled machine guns to keep Hamas penned in. By 2011 it had installed a mobile air defense system, the Iron Dome, to ward off rockets from every proximate source. The IDF also began revamping existing special ops units and creating new ones – e.g., the Ghosts – to wage multidimensional warfare at levels never before imagined.
But none of this proved enough.
And the lesson to be drawn from October 7 (as Foreign Policy magazine has pointed out), is that when all your defenses hinge on high tech gadgetry they become subject to single point technical failure and vulnerable to brute overwhelming force by imaginative zealots with nothing to lose.
Hamas busted through the Smart Wall by blinding the sensors, bulldozing the hardened barrier and overflying it with motorized gliders. Since IDF planners had counted on high-tech early warning, back-up forces were standing down or deployed too far away for an instant response.
In short, there were no boots on the ground to race to the rescue. The resulting catastrophe reflected not only a dearth of good old human intelligence sources inside Gaza but also an overreliance on Big Ears and Eyes-In-The-Sky, and a willingness to let AI do all the last-ditch fail-safe work.
Fortuitously, the Israeli cabinet and the IDF were in the midst of rethinking military doctrine when October 7 dropped onto the calendar. But they were far enough along to have already embraced better ways of mowing the grass, improved special force capabilities, including the Ghosts.
Only now, as mentioned above, Netanyahu’s preferred objective isn’t just to shear off the top layers of Hamas but tear the grass out at its roots.
Welcome to where we are today.
Improving prospects for a quick end to it.
There is some evidence that significant progress has already been made towards achieving Netanyahu’s fondest wish. A review of confirmed kills by IDF units over the past three weeks reveals a breathtaking erosion of Hamas’ leadership cadre.
Reading through the stats (they are always being updated of course), you have to wonder how much longer Hamas, which numbers 30,000 to 40,000 strong, can suffer such top-tier losses and continue to function.
According to official Israeli reports since October 7, IDF bombs, rockets and ground operations have killed: Shadi Barud, deputy head of Hamas’ Intelligence Directorate and a major architect of the October 7 massacre; Hassan Al-Abdullah, commander of the Northern Khan Yunis Rockets Array; Muetaz Eid, commander of Southern District National Security; Billal Al Kedra, commander of the Southern Khan Yunis “Nukhba” commando force, which targeted civilians at the Kibbutz Nirum community on October 7; Ali Qadi, a company commander of the “Nukhba” commando force during the same attack; Merad Aman Nofal, leader of the Central Gaza Brigade and a member of Hamas’ General Military Council, whom Israel’s defense minister describes as one of the organization’s “most dominant senior officials;” Jehad Mheisen, head of the Hamas-led national security forces in Gaza; Jawad Abu Shamala, Minister of Economy for Hamas; Zakaria Abu Ma’amr, Minister of National Relations in the group’s Policy Bureau; Abu Merad, head of aerial systems in Gaza City; Bassem Issa, head of Hamas military operations in Gaza City; Ali Qadi, a Hamas commander; Rifaat Abbas, a battalion commander; Ibrahim Jadba, a deputy battalion commander; Tarek Maarouf, a combat support commander; Osama Mazini, a senior Hamas hostage negotiator; and fourteen relatives, including a brother and niece, of Hamas political strategist, Ismail Haniye, who lives in Doha.
(Updates as of November 1)
Nasim Abu Ajina, commander of the Beit Lahia Battalion of Hamas’ Northern Brigade and one of the developers of unmanned aerial vehicles and paragliders used in October 7 attacks; Asem Abu Rakaba, head of Hamas Aerial Array, responsible for unmanned aerial vehicles, drones, paragliders, aerial detection and defense, architect of planned aerial attacks on October 7; Ibrahim Biari, an architect of October 7 attacks and a senior Hamas commander in northern Gaza responsible for defending the tunnel complex near the Jabaliya refugee camp; Muhammad Abu Shamla, senior Hamas naval operative in the Rafah Brigade, whose residence was used to store naval weapons; Omar Daraghmeh, 58, senior Hamas leader in West Bank, arrested on Oct. 9, died of heart attack while in detention, per official Israeli report; Jamila Abdallah Taha al-Shanti, member of the Palestinian Legislative Council, first woman in the Hamas political bureau, widow of one the group’s founders Abdel Aziz al-Rantisi, who was killed by Israeli Hellfire missile in April 2004;
More of this in short order could make Hamas more of a shadow threat than a real one.