As Israel prepares for war in Gaza, debate is over how and how long
Israel, already bombing intensively in Gaza, is gearing up for a major military operation there unlike any in the past, warning the world that for Israel, after the massacre of its citizens by Hamas on Saturday, the rules have changed.
«Every Hamas member is marked by death,» Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Wednesday night, reflecting the government's aggressive new vocabulary. On Thursday, standing with U.S.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken, he compared Hamas to the Islamic State and said: «Hamas is ISIS, and just as ISIS was crushed, so too will Hamas be crushed.»
There is no disagreement in the new unity government, which must approve the military's plans, on the need to dismantle Hamas — to ensure that it can never threaten Israel again and that those responsible for the killing of more than 1,200 Israeli civilians are hunted down, officials say.
That a major operation is coming is hardly in doubt. Already, near the border, there are massive, overt Israeli troop and tank deployments, and the country has called up 360,000 reservists.
But there are tactical arguments over how any operation should start, whether it will begin massively or with raiding parties, and how best to coordinate Israel's overwhelming strength in land, sea and especially air power, said Yaakov Amidror, a retired major general who served as national security adviser to Netanyahu in an earlier government and has spoken to government officials.
Any invasion of Gaza, a small, densely populated territory of 2 million people, would be daunting.
