Do you consider the Gaza War a Guerrilla War or a Conventional War?

[Ad_Quid_Orator]

It seems like a lot of people are saying that. But here's the problem: there are clearly battle lines and areas controlled by Hamas and the IDF. What makes a Guerrilla war a Guerrilla war is that there are no lines of control. The occupier controls the whole area with insurgents hiding amongst the general population and launching hit and run attacks. In this scenario, pretty much all engagements will end with the occupation force winning due to the overwhelming firepower they can bring to bear. But every time they crush one insurgent cell, another pops up because the insurgency represents the popular will of the people and eventually, they wear down the occupation forces until political pressure at home forces them to give up.

Going into this conflict, the IDF thought Hamas could only fight as an insurgent guerrilla force so they assumed that if they displaced the local population, there would be no civilian population for the Hamas militants to hide among. However, even once an area of the Gaza strip had become depopulated, fighting would still continue. Instead of hiding among the civilian population, Hamas militants are hiding among the ruins to launch hit and run attacks against Israeli forces. So, I think the best comparison for what we see in Gaza is not Guerrilla conflicts like Vietnam but battles like Stalingrad where the Red Army used the bombed out ruins of the city as cover. While it is certainly an asymmetric style of warfare, using terrain features to your advantage is a perfectly conventional strategy in warfare so I would say that the war in Gaza for the most part is not a Guerrilla War.

And the reason Hamas is still active is not just because they represent the will of the Palestinian people to live in their land free of occupation (which they do) but because the IDF failed to root them out at the tactical and operational level.

[Berethor]

Looks like you don't know what guerrilla warfare, hamas don't stand a chance if he was fighting face to face with IDF, israel displaced the local population so there would not be civilian casualties, didn't US killed like two million vietnamese civilians?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guerrilla_warfare

[Ad_Quid_Orator]

"Fight face to face"?

This isn't the Medieval period; wars are fought at range with guns. Guerrilla warfare is where you hide among the civilian population and there is still fighting going on in areas with no civilian population present.

The US killed between 400,000 and 2,000,000 civilians in Vietnam over a 10 year period in a country of 40,000,000 people (1-5% of the population). Israel killed between 50,000 and 608,000 civilians when the population of the Gaza strip was ~2.1 million people (2.4-29% of the population) within 1/6th that time.

[Syntosi]

It is not a conventional war but I am also not sure if it counts as guerrilla warfare.

That said, guerrilla warfare does not mean that there can't be technical lines of battle and areas of control. It has more to do with the tactics and goals of either side. I am not qualified enough to make the distinction but my gut feeling tells me that this might defy categorization and might require its own label.

[Agape93]

Guerrilla war. Hamas isn't an army, it's a coalition of smaller terror groups. They hide amongst civilians and get support from said civilians.

[goaded]

It's a genocide. The "lines" you talk of are simply the lines in Gaza between where Israel has destroyed everything and where they are planning to destroy next. There aren't any trenches, minefields, or tank traps (or tanks, on one side). Is Hamas even shooting back?

[DryGermanGuy]

Both. It started as a mostly conventional war and has shifted to a mostly Guerilla war. But no matter the type, the simple citizens are paying the price.

[Twalli]

Also, they're a terrorist group that had enough support to be the dominant political party.

[DrPepper12]

It's not a war it's a genocide on civilians