Sunday, 29 October 2023

How will the Israel/Hamas war end?

This war has been building up for so long it is difficult to see how or when it will come to an end. In Israel's view it will end only when Hamas has been totally eliminated. It took the mighty US-led coalition five years to defeat the Islamic State in Syria and Iraq but the Isis ideology lives to this day with several franchises existing and operating in different parts of the world. The territory Israel has to contend with is much smaller. The Gaza Strip from end to end is only 25 miles long by just over six miles wide. But Gaza city and the north are densely packed urban areas while the south is more agricultural. But the challenge to defeat and eliminate Hamas is almost as complex as it was for the US coalition to eradicate Isis. However, for geopolitical and humanitarian reasons, the defeat of Hamas cannot take five years. Benjamin Netanyahu talks of it being a long war ahead, but I doubt the world at large will allow five years of war in a place as tiny as Gaza. There will be growing pressures for a ceasefire and for an accommodation. But the reality is, Israel will not and cannot agree to any deal with Hamas that allows them to survive as rulers of Gaza, able to reconstitute its weaponry and threaten Israel again in the future. So as of now, there is no end solution in sight.

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