Monday, August 30, 2010

Preparing for the Next Last War

Israeli air dominance made the last round with Gaza two years ago a clear Israeli military win, with much better coordination of aircraft and helicopters with ground forces than we witnessed in southern Lebanon in 2006. Hamas is trying to arm up to keep Israeli helicopters at a distance:

Egyptian police raided three arms depots in the central Sinai Peninsula Saturday containing nearly 200 surface-to-air missiles apparently headed for Gaza, the Palestinian news agency Ma'an reported.

So how many made it through already?

But not to worry, if the Egyptians nabbed the first shipment. I'm sure a peace flotilla could sail in with some missiles to make up for the seizure.

And if such missiles keep the Israelis from carying out better recon over Gaza and the Israelis have to use artillery in an indiscriminate fashion to fight a future war with hamas, the resulting civilian casualties will be a bonus for Hamas.

Oh, and while such old SAMs are not terribly effective against warplanes so I assume the intended targets are helicopters, to be safe the Israelis should probably watch the flight paths of their passenger planes near Gaza.