Given how badly the IDF was caught with their pants down by Hamas, and given how their first responses ended up alienating their Arab allies in the region (including Egypt, who was historically *opposed* to Hamas due to its ties with the Muslim Brotherhood; as well as Saudi Arabia, as all of the diplomatic work in establishing in alliance with them seems to have gone down the drain), I don't think they do; not to the degree they would have in the past. The overall sense I've been getting from Israeli media is that Netanyahu's prior long-term policy (the "existing plan", to use your phrase) of propping up Hamas to serve as a counter to Fatah in the West Bank (to keep the Palestiniand politically fractured) has backfired horrendously. He'll be lucky to be PM by this time next year.
The other problem is that their primary military ally - the United States - is on the decline in numerous ways, so they can't rely on the world hegemon as they have in the past. Time will tell if our fleets moving through the Mediterranean are just a bluff, or if we'll end up getting involved in a wider regional war at a time we literally cannot afford it (and with utter incompetents at the helm, to boot).
I personally believe a lot of Americans conflate the modern state of Israel with the biblical Israel, and likewise rely on their performance from decades-old wars, to perceive them with a degree of competency above and beyond what a parliamentary democracy infested with bureaucrats and opposing viewpoints deserves.
Try to imagine the angst Netanyahu is experiencing. He knows that when he orders the ground invasion of Gaza, those helpless hostages will be savagely murdered. He also knows that his enthusiastic, young soldiers are mostly combat inexperienced, will face hard urban fighting, and are likely to take significant casualties. He also knows his political career will soon be over. The failure of Israeli intelligence to detect the arsenal buildup up in Gaza ( or the failure to inform him) and the insecure, inadequately defended border for whatever reason happened on his watch. It is likely that when he leaves office , his goal of removing the great existential threat to Israel, the Iranian mullah regime, will remain unfullfilled. Netanyahu is facing horrible decisions and will in his heart , despite his many accomplishments, consider himself a failure. It is a story of biblical proportions.