Who decides where the bombs fall in Gaza?

THE TIMES OF ISRAEL

When Israel’s southern communities are hit by rocket fire, as they were on Tuesday evening, the IDF is called upon to respond to the attack and strike targets in the Gaza Strip to deter future assaults.

But who picks those targets? Who decides how and where to strike? Who weighs the possible risk to civilians versus the potential gains in a given operation?

The Times of Israel spoke this week with the operations officer of the unit that coordinates these actions — Major Reut of the Southern Command’s Fire Command Center (due to the sensitive nature of her position, Reut can only be identified by her first name).

The Fire Command Center works with “anyone you can think of,” Major Reut explained, including Military Intelligence, the Israeli Air Force, the Israel Navy and the Artillery Corps, in order to identify targets and determine the best way of hitting them — by sea, by air, or from the ground.

But success for the unit is not measured solely in the number or quality of strategic sites it hits. The Fire Command Center also works closely with the Military Advocate General (MAG) and the Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT) to ensure that innocent Gaza civilians are spared as much as possible, and that strikes are carried out to the letter of international law, Reut said.

Following Tuesday night’s rocket strike from Gaza, which hit by the border fence, the Israeli Air Force struck two Hamas sites. That bombing run, according to Reut, was a success.

“We carried out the mission, and no innocent people were hurt,” she told TOI on Wednesday.

The rocket attack is unlikely to have been carried out by Hamas, which has refrained from launching attacks on Israel since the 2014 summer war. Some small, extreme Salafist groups have engaged in sporadic rocket fire, often in defiance of Gaza’s Hamas rulers.

But Israel has long held Hamas accountable for any attacks emanating from the territory under its control. This policy is designed to put the onus on Hamas, instead of Israel, to enforce a ceasefire.

“Obviously we prefer hitting the people who carried out the attack, but Hamas is in charge and so that is where we strike,” Reut explained.

A well-oiled machine

The primary duty of the Fire Command Center is to translate the orders that come from up top — from the head of the Southern Command, the Israel Defense Forces chief of staff and the Defense Ministry — into action, Reut explained.

Turning those commands into an actual plan requires that the center collaborate with a host of military units, analyze their information and recommendations and incorporate them into a definitive plan of action.

In general, the unit, led by Colonel Yuval Ben-Dov, first receives information on potential targets from Military Intelligence. These can include static sites, such as smuggling tunnels, or more mobile targets, such as weapons caches, which are given an “expiration date.”

Those targets are then discussed with the MAG to ensure that a strike would be legally permissible.

However, Reut stressed, just because a target is deemed legal does not necessarily mean that it will be hit, if there are concerns over civilian casualties.

“It’s not only whether [a strike] will hurt civilians, but even whether it might hurt civilians,” she said.

Representatives from the air force, navy and ground forces then weigh in with their best options for hitting those sites.

All of that information is then compiled by the Fire Command Center and turned into an actionable plan that is entered into a “target bank,” a list of possible locations that can be hit by the IDF.

With all of those army units involved, this process has its fair share of red tape and bureaucratic hurdles. However, due to the frequency of rocket attacks from Gaza — approximately every week, or every other week — the Fire Command Center has learned to streamline that process.

“Unfortunately, we are so well versed in the process that the bureaucracy is handled quickly — within minutes,” Reut said. “We have become a well-oiled machine.” That speed is crucial, Reut explained, as there are some targets with “short life-spans.”

Arbiters of death

Though the Fire Command Center has existed for decades, it is only in the past six years or so that the army has begun fully appreciating its importance.

Up until Operation Cast Lead in 2008-2009, the head of the unit generally held the position as secondary to another role in the Southern Command. Since then, however, the unit has been led by a dedicated commander, at the rank of colonel.

In August, Ben-Dov took over the unit, which operates out of a newly renovated building in the Southern Command’s home base in Beersheba. In “peacetime,” the unit is staffed with just nine people from the IDF’s Artillery Corps — five officers and four soldiers. But in wartime, their ranks can swell to include close to 200 people, many of them reservists, Reut said.

The unit is constantly updating the list of potential targets — weapons stores, terrorist hideouts and the like. But although the intelligence continually pours in, the IDF will typically only carry out a strike in retaliation, in order to help maintain quiet in Israel’s southern communities, Reut said.

“We don’t respond to everything, because we don’t want to escalate the situation,” she explained.

The people serving in the Fire Command Center appreciate the grave importance of their task. Within an air-conditioned building in Beersheba, miles away from Gaza, the team acts as arbiters of death, deciding, potentially days or weeks in advance, who will be hit in an IDF strike.

“No one here derives any pleasure from having to kill people. If someone dies in a strike, we don’t give each other high fives and laugh,” Reut said.

“But it’s a matter of prioritizing. If we don’t act, innocent Israeli citizens can die,” she stated.