Our second question comes from Luciano Sisi in the Scottish
Borders, who asks: What is Israel’s
overall objective with the anticipated ground war, and does Hamas stand a
chance to withstand it?
In past wars, Israel vowed to “hit Hamas hard”, to
destroy its capacity to fire rockets into Israel – including its vast web of
subterranean tunnels.
This time is different. Israel is vowing “to destroy
Hamas” – an organisation it says should be obliterated, like the Islamic
State group.
Israel has the military might to smash Hamas’s infrastructure,
crush its tunnels, and cripple its command and control networks.
Copyright: EPA
But it’s not clear how much Israel knows about what awaits in Gaza. Hamas’s military prowess, including an astonishingly granular understanding of Israeli security that enabled it to outsmart its formidable defences, has shocked Israelis.
Hamas is likely to possess the same sophistication when it confronts what it knows will be a ferocious Israeli response.
And unlike the Islamic State group, Hamas is also a political and social organisation embedded in Palestinian society.
A military onslaught can destroy its metal and concrete but not the mettle of the people whose resolve to die for their cause will only harden.