Da'iyah Doctrine
The Lebanon suburb Dahiya (also pronounced Dahieh), located in southern Beirut, was at the center of Israel's military operations in 2006. Israel argued that it was a stronghold of Hezbollah. The Israeli military flattened the whole neighbourhood of Dahiya as a punishment to make the population stop supporting Hezbollah. The doctrine justifies asymmetric warfare, destruction of civilian infrastructure, collective punishment and the use of disproportionate force. "What happened in Dahiya, and operationalised as the Dahiya doctrine, was a complete disregard of international law… it violates two key provisions, proportionality and distinction," Rashid Khalidi, Professor of History at Columbia University, told TRT World.
The then-Israeli military commander, Gadi Eizenkot, had said that all the villages of the Dahiya neighbourhood were military bases from Israel's perspective. That has been Israel's policy to a certain extent in Gaza as well, Professor Khalidi says. Experts have highlighted the similarities between Israeli strikes in Dahiya and the ongoing war in Gaza, which claims to target Hamas but makes no distinction between combatants and civilians.
The Da'iyah Doctrine developed after the end of the Second Lebanon War, which was seen, among other things, as a failure of the IDF in exploiting its clear military advantage against the array of Hezbollah fighters. In this context, the use made of firepower and rapid maneuvers of infantry and armored forces along with "hunt and destroy" tactics " of individual launchers, was seen as ineffective in preventing missile and rocket fire on population concentrations in the Israeli rear and harming IDF soldiers.
The doctrine was formulated as a response to the development of a new model of asymmetric combat on the part of the terrorist organizations, led by Hezbollah. In this context, the massive bombings of the IDF forces on the Da'aheh neighborhood in southern Beirut during the Second Lebanon War seemed to be a more relevant model for dealing with them.[2]This attack on Hezbollah's "nerve center" was a key element in the IDF's attempt to create a balance of deterrence against Hezbollah.
During an interview conducted with him by " Yediot Ahronoth " journalists Alex Fishman and Ariela Ringel-Hoffman on October 4, 2008 , Northern Command Major General Gadi Eisenkot presented the principles of the doctrine, according to which: "Each of the Shiite villages (in Lebanon) was a military site. Dozens of rockets are stored in basements and attics The roof. Dozens of local activists and outside fighters are prepared for a defensive battle and fire missiles at Israel. We know that Hezbollah will fire much more widely than in the last war , and we will respond accordingly. We will use disproportionate force on it."
According to the doctrine, the targets against which the IDF will use disproportionate force are diverse and can range from the villages where missile and rocket launchers operate, between the political, social or religious centers of the terrorist organization, and the civilian infrastructure of the political entity from which the terrorist organization operates. In cases of military maneuvers, the doctrine holds, massive firepower must be used, mainly from the air. In addition, in cases of hunting for launch points of missiles and rockets, one must focus on massive fire towards the area from which the launch was made.
In the context of the intensity of the use of fire required to defeat and subdue the enemy, the doctrine holds that in order to create an effective deterrent, economic and physical destruction of infrastructure must be caused and this in light of the assumption that this may create a buffer between the local population and the organizations of the terrorist organization.
According to the doctrine, the Israeli Air Force will use its full force from the first moment of combat. The working assumption was that Hezbollah's response will not be phased and it will also use its full firepower in an effort to inflict maximum damage on the Israeli rear, especially in the center of the country. For this reason, the IDF will strive to shorten the duration of the fighting as much as possible. Even though the reserve forces will be mobilized immediately at the start of the war, the IDF will strive to end the fighting, without being dragged into an extensive ground operation, the realization of which will require many weeks.
In the conceptual document " IDF Strategy " signed by the Chief of Staff, Gadi Eisenkot, which was distributed in the IDF in August 2015, this doctrine was not specifically mentioned, but it was written there, among other things, that "in the event of fighting in Lebanon, tens of thousands of targets and objectives will be attacked."
On February 10, 2008, Gabi Siboni published an article in English on the " National Security Research Institute " website in which he expands on the theoretical basis on which the doctrine was built. In his opinion, the IDF should focus on a disproportionate strike as a response to the enemy's attack, when the effort to damage its launch capabilities was secondary. In this context, Siboni points out that as soon as the conflict breaks out, the IDF will be required to act quickly and with a force disproportionate to the threat and the enemy's actions, in order to damage and punish the scope which will require long and expensive rehabilitation processes. According to him, this damage must be realized in as short a time as possible, while preferring damage to assets over the pursuit of any launcher, since such a response will preserve a memory for many years among the decision makers in Lebanon, which will deepen the deterrence.
In November 2008 , Giora Island published an opinion piece on the " Institute for National Security Studies " website, which also deals with the principles of the doctrine. According to Eiland, Israel failed in the Second Lebanon War (and may also fail in the third) because it fought against the wrong enemy, which was Hezbollah, instead of in Lebanon. In this regard, Eiland claims that it was not possible to defeat a guerrilla organization operating under the auspices of a state immune to reaction. Hizbullah, according to Eiland, was operating under optimal conditions for him, since in Lebanon there was a legitimate government, supported by the West, but in practice completely subordinate to Hizbullah's will. In his article, Eiland proposed a preliminary move according to which Israel would send an unequivocal message to the Lebanese government threatening that in the next war the Lebanese army would be eliminated, the civilian infrastructure would be destroyed and the Lebanese population would suffer in the event of an attack initiated by Hezbollah.
At the heart of Israel's 2023-24 operatins in Gaza and in the number of civilian deaths lay a military philosophy known as the Dahiya doctrine, which junks every laid down norm of warfare, experts and analysts say. "At the core of the Israeli Dahiya doctrine is the idea of causing damage rather than accuracy (in target selection)," said Dr Ahron Bregman, who served in the Israeli army for six years and was later a lecturer at King's College. He was also a former parliamentary assistant to the Knesset. "That's why at least 40 percent of the bombs Israeli planes dropped on Gaza are dumb bombs," he told TRT World, referring to free-falling explosive devices which do not have any guidance system and hence are highly inaccurate.
This also explains the staggering number of civilian deaths in Gaza – a result of Israel not having any actual intent to protect civilians, including the prevention of aid delivery to the injured. Dr David Murphy, lecturer of military history at Maynooth University, likens Israel's war to bombing campaigns during World War II, aimed at destroying cities to make civilian populations rise and turn against their governments. "However, what we have seen in Gaza is the end point of this paradigm of 'the war in cities', since there are no survival options left for civilians… even to take shelter in any UN, Red Crescent centres, or hospitals," he tells TRT World.
"In the ongoing war, the Israelis define Hamas as the enemy though their actual brutal actions seem to suggest that they regard the Palestinian people as the enemy," Ahron adds. Dropping dumb bombs on the city also shows the real intent to cause damage, he points out. According to a recent media report, the US Office of the Director of National Intelligence says nearly half of the 29,000 air-to-ground munitions used to attack Gaza have been unguided 'dumb bombs'.
"Why drop an expensive bomb if all you want to do is cause damage and flatten whole neighbourhoods, which could be achieved by a relatively cheap stupid bomb?" Bregman says. "If you ask the Israelis why it is necessary to flatten whole neighbourhoods, they will tell you that it is necessary in order to protect their troops from snipers and so on. But the truth is that they do it in order to, well, cause damage."
Even though Israel issued evacuation orders, its airstrikes targeted the so-called 'safe routes' used by civilian convoys. "Palestinians in Gaza are trapped there, but Israel is still continuing to attack the city where the civilians are," Dr Murphy says.
In urban warfare, which is a very difficult place to minimise civilian casualties, if you keep attacking, it means you are deliberately targeting the civilians, Dr Murphy adds. Civilians in combat zones also serve the Israeli strategy because the concept behind this is that if they punish the civilian population enough, they are expected to turn against Hamas, he explains.
Some targets have been attacked simply because they are considered high-value targets without any necessary connection to the war, he explains, citing the examples of the Islamic University of Gaza, the parliament building, the court building, the library, and hospitals.
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