2023-10-15 21:06:12
The surprise attack in Israel perpetrated by Hamas by land, sea and air also left at least 286 Israeli soldiers dead and serious questions to the intelligence services for not being able to detect the Islamists’ plan in time, and for the delay in the reaction of the military to put an end to the attack before the massacre of civilians is perpetrated.
LOOK: Yossi Melman, journalist: “Israel will have to fight door to door in a very urban area and there will be casualties in Gaza”
In Gaza, as of this Sunday, Israeli retaliatory bombings have left more than 2,300 Palestinians dead and thousands injured.
A fireball explodes during an Israeli bombardment in the northern Gaza Strip on October 14, 2023. (Photo by Aris MESSINIS / AFP).
/ ARIS OF MESSINA
Israel on Friday ordered residents of northern Gaza to leave the area and head south, in what analysts interpreted as a first step toward launching a ground offensive in the Palestinian enclave.
In total, 2.4 million people live in Gaza, 1.1 million of them have their homes in the north.
Since Friday, tens of thousands of people have already left for southern Gaza, according to the UN.
At this point, it is worth analyzing what is the power of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) to confront this new war with Hamas, and which other Middle Eastern countries have powerful armies.
A convoy of Israeli military vehicles drives on a road at an undisclosed location on the border with the Gaza Strip on October 15, 2023. (Photo by Menahem KAHANA / AFP).
/ MENAHEM KAHANA
The power of Israel and its war once morest Hamas
The Israeli Army. (AFP).
He Global Fire Power (GFP) analyzes each year the power of each nation to confront wars on land, sea and air by conventional means.
In this analysis, Israel ranks 18th out of the 145 countries that are part of the annual study, according to the GFP.
It should be noted that the five countries ranked as the world’s greatest military powers are: 1. United States, 2 Russia, 3 China, 4 India and 5 United Kingdom.
In terms of troops, Israel has 646,000 military personnel, including active and reservists.
Of that total, active military personnel are made up of 173,000 people, reserve military personnel are 465,000 and there are 8,000 paramilitaries.
An Israel F-35 fighter jet flies over the Mediterranean coastal city of Tel Aviv during the country’s 73rd Independence Day celebrations on April 15, 2021. (Photo by JACK GUEZ/AFP).
/ JACK GUEZ
Israel’s air power is made up of 601 available aircraft, including 241 fighters, 32 attack, 15 transport, 153 training, 23 special missions, 11 tanker-tankers, 126 helicopters, 48 attack helicopters.
On land, Israel’s power is made up of 2,200 tanks, 56,290 armored combat vehicles, 650 self-propelled artillery devices, 300 towed artillery devices and 300 rocket launchers.
While naval power is made up of 67 warships and submarines. Among them are 7 war corvettes, 45 patrol vessels and 5 submarines.
An Israeli Army M109 155mm self-propelled howitzer fires rounds near the border with Gaza, southern Israel, on October 11, 2023. (Photo by JACK GUEZ / AFP).
/ JACK GUEZ
By 2023, Israel’s Defense budget amounted to US$24.3 billion.
Chain CNN interviewed Alexei Chévez, security and armed forces consultant, who said that Israel’s firepower is indisputable, immensely superior when compared to Hamas, an Islamist group designated as terrorist by the United States and the European Union to whom the prime minister Israeli Benjamin Netanyahu declared war.
“The numbers between the capacity of the Israel Defense Forces and the militants of this Hamas terrorist group are very, very, different,” said Chévez.
He added that Israel’s millionaire military budget allows it to have the latest technology combat aircraft, a considerable number of tanks and attack helicopters, among other cutting-edge equipment.
Is it enough to defeat Hamas?
Chévez told CNN that although Israel’s numbers may be very compelling, “not everything that you see reflected in numbers can be transferred to the universe that is the Gaza Strip,” where there are hundreds of thousands of civilians trapped between two fires. .
“You are not going to send an atomic bomb to Gaza, you are not going to use fighter planes that you do not need, any more than those they are using right now to drop bombs and destroy apparently military facilities of Hamas,” he said.
The specialist estimated that very soon Israel will have to invade Gaza with its soldiers, supported by armored vehicles and helicopters. And there, he maintains, the weight of the combat will fall on the experience of the Israeli soldiers once morest the Hamas fighters and their equipment: “It becomes more even,” he remarks.
Regarding why Israel did not detect the Hamas plan, Chévez said: “This is a question that will take the Israelis years to resolve. Let’s say there was fluid peace on the southern border and they never imagined that they might be surprised. And, above all, there is another thing: that they were surprised in the way they did it; that is, in using bulldozers to demolish the protections that the Israelis had on their border, launching 2,500 rockets simultaneously (Hamas says there were 5,000), since it was something that they had neither projected in their war games, nor had they expected.” .
Regarding the future of the conflict, Chévez estimated: “Today, the majority of public opinion is committed to supporting Israel because of the atrocities that we saw they (Hamas) committed, but when we also began to see collateral damage from the Israeli bombings, of the clashes in the cities, since this unilateral and unconditional support is probably going to diminish a little.”
A photo provided by the Iranian military’s media office on Oct. 4, 2023, shows locally made drones during a military drill at an undisclosed location in Iran. (AFP).
/ –
The most powerful armies in the Middle East
The Global Fire Power analysis also places the most powerful armies in the Middle East in its ranking, in addition to Israel.
The best positioned is Pakistan, which occupies position 7 of the 145 analyzed.
Next comes Turkey, a NATO member that is ranked 11th among the world’s major powers.
It is followed by Egypt, which is ranked 14th out of 145 among the countries considered for the annual PFM review.
The fourth most powerful nation in the Middle East is Iran, which is ranked 17th in the Global Fire Power analysis.
And the fifth most powerful army in the Middle East is Saudi Arabia, in 22nd place in the ranking.
Of all these powerful Middle Eastern countries, it is Iran that openly backs Hamas and has been ratcheting up its threats to Israel in recent days.
This Sunday, Iran’s Foreign Minister, Hosein Amir Abdolahian, told the Qatari network Al Jazeera that his country will not be a mere “spectator” to the crimes committed in Gaza by Israel, and once once more warned regarding the possibility that The conflict spreads throughout the region.
The possibility of other fronts opening in the war “increases every hour,” he warned. He said the only way to avoid that scenario is to stop the bombings in Gaza. He repeated that “all scenarios are on the table.”
If the conflict expands in the region, “the United States will also suffer great losses,” Abdolahian threatened.
1697406704
#Israels #military #power #strongest #armies #Middle #East #hamas #gauze #strip #Global #Fire #Power #GFP #nuclear #weapons #Bombing #deaths #injuries #WORLD
