The ongoing protests at the Israel-Gaza border, which are expected to come to a climax on May 15, have been turning increasingly violent in recent days. Participants have launched incendiary kites and balloons into Israeli territory, attempted to dismantle and break through the security fence, and set fire to gas lines and humanitarian supplies headed for Gaza itself. Arguing that the activities at the border, organized as they are by Hamas, should be seen as unconventional warfare rather than as civil unrest, Gershon Hacohen explains how Israel can best react:
The events along the fence constitute a new operational campaign against Israel that Hamas is conducting directly and in a centralized manner. In the public sphere, the campaign, with its well-crafted stage set, is presented as an unarmed civil revolt. At the covert level, however, it is fully orchestrated by Hamas making sophisticated use of the tools of the new warfare with a view to influencing three arenas of psychological perception: the Palestinian, the Israeli, and the international. . . .
Over the past decade, the use of civilians as an operational stratagem has assumed a major role in conflict zones. For instance, the Russian government is using local separatists from the civilian population to spearhead the warfare in the Ukrainian region of Donetsk. Similarly, Beijing is making use of thousands of civilian fishing boats in its efforts to extend its sovereignty over the South China Sea. The combined use of civilians at the overt level with the military system at the covert level in a supportive secondary effort is what has given this phenomenon its elusive characteristics. In the West, this is described as “hybrid warfare.” Russian military thinking, which sees an inherent advantage in the ambiguity stemming from combining civilians and soldiers, refers to this phenomenon as the “warfare of the new generation.” . . .
[Seeing Hamas’s activities as a variation of the same strategy] will help rebut, from a new perspective, the false accusations directed at IDF soldiers. It will explain, for example, the potential threat posed to Israeli civilians in border communities by seemingly unarmed violent protesters and how this threat justifies [Israel’s] rules of engagement. It will elucidate why there is no alternative to the use of sniper fire [against demonstrators] and why nonlethal weapons and standard means of dispersing civilian demonstrations are not applicable to the circumstances of this threat.
To deal with this new form of warfare, Hacohen urges closer coordination of diplomatic, legal, police, military, and public-relations efforts.
Read more on BESA Center: https://besacenter.org/perspectives-papers/gaza-border-fence-riots/