Israel will take 10-12 years to “defeat” Hamas if they do it correctly.
1. Kill every single supporter, terrorist, suppliers and those that paid.
2. Get the mothers of the children (especially) male children to realize that they will all DIE if they support Hamas.
3. Educate the children and infect them with the virus of freedom, capitalism, and global participation (not a perpetual victim).
4. Terrorize every living Palestinian to be more afraid of the IDF, Mossad and Jews than of Hamas....including the wholesale death of every man, woman and child in an area.
The calculus is if you kill 10,000 or 20,000 now or drag it out and kill 50-60,000 over 10-20 years and then add that Israel will suffer additional 1000-2000 casualties every year for 10-20 years with those decades spent continually looking over your shoulder for the next terrorist attack....
Either way, civilians and others will die... so either Israel is an active participant or a passive punching bag, their choice.
That’s the only way to defeat an insurgency but very few people have the spine or the stomach to watch the sausage made. They somehow believer the myth of a bloodless “political” maneuver or “targeted” killings..... but insurgencies aren’t just people... it is the “idea” that must be destroyed...or it will simply metastasize and infect or spread another generation of Palestinians.
For quite some time, I made the point that Israel’s war aims are too small. Defeating ham ass and returning the (now dead) hostages is small thinking.
Israel’s proper objective should be:
Defeat the will of the population to ever wage war again!