War in Gaza

[RZehr]

I can understand why Israel thinks they need to eliminate Hamas.

What if Israel had not begun the bombing campaign/ground invasion right away, had secured the border between Israel and Gaza, and then began a long campaign to destroy the evil doers one-by-one and their stockpiles of weapons.

Can someone help me understand why Israel feels a need to do a massive war, ground invasion included? Israel already lost 41 lives in Gaza since they started the ground invasion and I expect they will lose more in the coming months. Would they have lost 41 lives the last month by simply securing the borders and shooting down rockets?

The news media seems to think that Israel only has a short time to exact its revenge, or it may result in a wider conflict with Arab nations. I think the wider conflict has already begun, due to the atrocities Israel is committing against civilians, and can't imagine the Arabs are less outraged now than what they would be if Israel had taken a more measured and targeted approach.

For the record, I am not encouraging the destruction of evil doers. The Bible seems to indicate that this is the job of such people and I let that up to God and them.
I'm simply asking this question from the perspective of how nations go about accomplishing their strategies and agendas.

It probably has more than a small part to do with the hostages.

[ken_sylvania]

I can understand why Israel thinks they need to eliminate Hamas.

What if Israel had not begun the bombing campaign/ground invasion right away, had secured the border between Israel and Gaza, and then began a long campaign to destroy the evil doers one-by-one and their stockpiles of weapons.

Can someone help me understand why Israel feels a need to do a massive war, ground invasion included? Israel already lost 41 lives in Gaza since they started the ground invasion and I expect they will lose more in the coming months. Would they have lost 41 lives the last month by simply securing the borders and shooting down rockets?

The news media seems to think that Israel only has a short time to exact its revenge, or it may result in a wider conflict with Arab nations. I think the wider conflict has already begun, due to the atrocities Israel is committing against civilians, and can't imagine the Arabs are less outraged now than what they would be if Israel had taken a more measured and targeted approach.

For the record, I am not encouraging the destruction of evil doers. The Bible seems to indicate that this is the job of such people and I let that up to God and them.
I'm simply asking this question from the perspective of how nations go about accomplishing their strategies and agendas.

With regard to this suggestion, how would you envision they would destroy the evil doers and their weapons?

[Ernie]

The US has the technology to target only one person in a moving car with 4 people. This seems to be quite different from what is happening in Gaza.

https://www.army-technology.com/project ... i-missile/

[Ernie]

Israel already lost 41 lives in Gaza since they started the ground invasion and I expect they will lose more in the coming months. Would they have lost 41 lives the last month by simply securing the borders and shooting down rockets?

It probably has more than a small part to do with the hostages.
[/quote]
So lose 41??? 200??? 300??? lives to rescue 250 hostages?

[Ken]

I can understand why Israel thinks they need to eliminate Hamas.

What if Israel had not begun the bombing campaign/ground invasion right away, had secured the border between Israel and Gaza, and then began a long campaign to destroy the evil doers one-by-one and their stockpiles of weapons.

A "long campaign to destroy Hamas one-by-one and their stockpile of weapons" is a ground campaign.

Do you think Hamas fighters are going to stay still one by one to let Israel come get them? Of course not. They are going to fight guerilla style in organized mobile units. And taking them on is going to require an actual ground invasion.

Even without aerial bombing, fighting inside urban areas is always incredibly dangerous and destructive. During WW2, American armies often took German cities from the ground by blowing up buildings one by one with tanks and artillery. Or look at Ukraine. Very little aerial bombing is happening because both sides have robust anti-aircraft defenses. It is ground fighting that has left many Ukrainian cities looking like this:



Gaza City looks like this. How do you go door to door looking for Hamas in an environment like this when suicidal snipers and fighters with limitless supplies of weapons and ammo can fire at you from any window or pop up out of any manhole or sewer? And are deliberately using civilian populations as human shields?




This is a google map image of about 1% of Gaza City. Which represents only about 10% of the Gaza Strip. Multiply this by 1000 and that is what house-to-house fighting to clear Hamas out of Gaza is going to look like.



Here is a NYT article showing what the tunnel network in Gaza looks like. https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/202 ... =url-share

[Valerie]

I can understand why Israel thinks they need to eliminate Hamas.

What if Israel had not begun the bombing campaign/ground invasion right away, had secured the border between Israel and Gaza, and then began a long campaign to destroy the evil doers one-by-one and their stockpiles of weapons.

Can someone help me understand why Israel feels a need to do a massive war, ground invasion included? Israel already lost 41 lives in Gaza since they started the ground invasion and I expect they will lose more in the coming months. Would they have lost 41 lives the last month by simply securing the borders and shooting down rockets?

The news media seems to think that Israel only has a short time to exact its revenge, or it may result in a wider conflict with Arab nations. I think the wider conflict has already begun, due to the atrocities Israel is committing against civilians, and can't imagine the Arabs are less outraged now than what they would be if Israel had taken a more measured and targeted approach.

For the record, I am not encouraging the destruction of evil doers. The Bible seems to indicate that this is the job of such people and I let that up to God and them.
I'm simply asking this question from the perspective of how nations go about accomplishing their strategies and agendas.

It probably has more than a small part to do with the hostages.

Yes. That is what they keep stating. The hostages which include elderly and many children, some under 5 years old. One thing you have to keep in mind. The massacre on Oct 7 would not be a one time event. It's just the beginning of more to come unless Hamas is destroyed. They purposely put Palestinians in harms way so they not only want to rid the world of Jews (asdo many) bit yhey show they do not care about their own people. They're ruthless cold hearted cold blooded killers

[RZehr]

Israel already lost 41 lives in Gaza since they started the ground invasion and I expect they will lose more in the coming months. Would they have lost 41 lives the last month by simply securing the borders and shooting down rockets?

It probably has more than a small part to do with the hostages.

So lose 41??? 200??? 300??? lives to rescue 250 hostages?

Expenses can be split and categorized. I have no idea. Maybe the costs in Israeli soldiers is accounted and offset by the Hamas soldiers that are killed.
And the destruction and Gazan civilians lives lost, are the cost of bringing Hamas to the hostage negotiating table.
Ground force destruction may not be about rescuing per se, but instead things like negotiations, revenge, etc.

[Ken]

Israel already lost 41 lives in Gaza since they started the ground invasion and I expect they will lose more in the coming months. Would they have lost 41 lives the last month by simply securing the borders and shooting down rockets?

It probably has more than a small part to do with the hostages.

So lose 41??? 200??? 300??? lives to rescue 250 hostages?

Expenses can be split and categorized. I have no idea. Maybe the costs in Israeli soldiers is accounted and offset by the Hamas soldiers that are killed.
And the destruction and Gazan civilians lives lost, are the cost of bringing Hamas to the hostage negotiating table.
Ground force destruction may not be about rescuing per se, but instead things like negotiations, revenge, etc.

I think Israel has already written off the hostages. Most won't make it out alive.

They won't be rescued by force, only negotiations. Which Israel seems unwilling to do.

[RZehr]

Israel already lost 41 lives in Gaza since they started the ground invasion and I expect they will lose more in the coming months. Would they have lost 41 lives the last month by simply securing the borders and shooting down rockets?

It probably has more than a small part to do with the hostages.

So lose 41??? 200??? 300??? lives to rescue 250 hostages?

Expenses can be split and categorized. I have no idea. Maybe the costs in Israeli soldiers is accounted and offset by the Hamas soldiers that are killed.
And the destruction and Gazan civilians lives lost, are the cost of bringing Hamas to the hostage negotiating table.
Ground force destruction may not be about rescuing per se, but instead things like negotiations, revenge, etc.

I think Israel has already written off the hostages. Most won't make it out alive.

They won't be rescued by force, only negotiations. Which Israel seems unwilling to do.

I disagree with the view that Israel has written them off. Israel has a history of making bitter trades just to get their people back.

[Ernie]

This is a few weeks old (Nov. 9) but as of then Hamas had no regrets for what it did in Israel. Everything is going according to plan so far.

https://www.businessinsider.in/internat ... worth%20it

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/08/worl ... a-war.html