In the past two weeks 19 IDF soldiers have been killed, bringing the total since the war in Gaza started to 311. Last week 8 IDF combat engineers were killed when the explosive they planted in a building failed to detonate, so they entered the building and it then exploded, killing all of them. This week an APC with IDF soldiers in it exploded, the reason is not clear, but they carried explosives on the outside of the APC that may have been detonated by an RPG or an IED from Hamas. Then 3 soldiers in a tank were killed when it was struck by a missile. All of these incidents add up to a terrible toll of young men that Israel can hardly afford. If this were in the UK for example, in proportion to the population. the total losses would be ca. 114 and if in the US it would be ca. 570 men.
But I have to point out that when the Jews in Europe had no army they were being killed at the rate of ca. 10,000 a day during the Holocaust. And does anyone think that the combined forces of Hamas, Hezbollah and Iran would spare any of the ca. 7 million Jews living in Israel if we did not have an army and an effective air force and security services to protect us. When Hamas attacked on Oct 7 their orders were to cut Israel in two by reaching the West Bank and making contact with the Palestinian forces there. They failed in making any strategic gains, they only managed to make tactical gains, they were too busy murdering 1,200 unarmed civilians and taking 252 hostages. These were the result of Hamas being an undisciplined gang of armed terrorists rather than a disciplined army with strategic aims like the IDF.
On Oct 7 the farthest Hamas terrorists managed to infiltrate into Israel was to Ofakim, a small town just 20 km (12 miles) west of Beersheva. I have no doubt that if they had managed to reach Beersheva they would have killed as many civilians as they could, possibly including me and my family. Who was there to stop them? Only a few determined armed soldiers, policemen and civilians who prevented a much greater massacre.
I am amused by the oft-repeated statements that “you cannot destroy Hamas.” Of course you can, its simply a matter of time and forces and weapons. You might as well have said, you can never defeat the Nazis, or the Communists. When an organization has more than 50% of its manpower destroyed randomly, as has happened to Hamas so far (the IDF estimates 15,000 Hamas deaths and many wounded or captured), it can never function as it did. Yes, if left alone it can regenerate, but if its capability is reduced to say 10% of its original manpower, there is much less chance for that to happen. That’s why the IDF must be allowed to gradually grind down Hamas until there is nothing significant left.
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