The devastating violence we have witnessed in the last few days ends all that. Prime Minister Netanyahu has no option other than to send his troops in on the ground with great force rather than deal with terrorist commanders by stand-off precision strike.
When Israel launches a ground offensive, it will be very bloody. The whole of Gaza will have been sewn with explosive booby traps, ambushes and snipers, in open country, in houses, apartment blocks, mosques, schools and hospitals.
It is likely large numbers of Israeli soldiers will die or be seriously wounded. Undoubtedly, Hamas and Islamic Jihad terrorists will be killed in much larger numbers. But many civilians are also likely to die, given the terrorists’ habitual use of human shields.
All that is without taking into account the numerous Israeli hostages that will be dispersed across the Gaza Strip, with terrorist guns trained on them. Rescuing those hostages will be by far the IDF’s greatest challenge.
As the campaign unfolds, we are also likely to see violence against police, soldiers and civilians from elements of the Arab population within Israel and in the West Bank.
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There is also the potential that this war will expand northwards, if Hizballah unleashes the 150,000 missiles in Lebanon pointed into Israel.
There will be reverberations across the region. Iran, which trains, funds, arms and directs Hamas, Islamic Jihad and Hezbollah, has sworn to annihilate the Jewish State, is undoubtedly behind this aggression.
It is likely that Iran’s purpose in ordering this attack at this time is to derail the diplomatic normalisation between Israel and Saudi Arabia which was looking increasingly promising just days ago.
Fearful of pro-Palestinian street protests as Israel moves to destroy Hamas, the Saudi leadership may well pull back, for the time being at least.
Today’s warm relations between Israel and the UAE might suffer for the same reason. Thus we could well see renewed isolation of Israel across the region, which after all is Iran’s purpose.
This war also plays into Russia’s hands. It has a strong military alliance with Iran, and it’s not inconceivable that Moscow helped provoke this conflict, given its close relationships also with all the terrorist protagonists.
Part of Putin’s strategy is to divert Western attention and support away from Ukraine at a time when the US and European countries are already weary of the war. What better way than fomenting a war elsewhere?
Israel’s isolation will expand beyond the region as worldwide protests, including in the UK, demand that the IDF cease their operations, forgetting or dismissing the violent and unprovoked aggression that triggered it.
Countries like Egypt, Jordan, Turkey and Qatar will be working behind the scenes to bring about a ceasefire, as they have done in the past. But it won’t work this time.
With the brutal murders of hundreds of Israeli people on the streets and the abduction of so many others, Israel will have to go on to the end, with the objective of destroying the terrorist groups in Gaza, the West Bank and perhaps even Lebanon.
We are in for a long and very painful campaign.