From a few days ago, but still valid.
[PJMedia] The veteran and venerable Israeli military-affairs analyst Ron Ben Yishai has filed a report from Gazoo...Hellhole adjunct to Israel and Egypt's Sinai Peninsula, inhabited by Gazooks. The place was acquired in the wake of the 1967 War and then presented to Paleostinian control in 2006 by Ariel Sharon, who had entered his dotage. It is currently ruled with a rusty iron fist by Hamas with about the living conditions you'd expect. It periodically attacks the Hated Zionist Entity whenever Iran needs a ruckus created or the hard boyz get bored, getting thumped by the IDF in return. The ruling turbans then wave the bloody shirt and holler loudly about
oppressionand
disproportionate response...
that gives—dare we say—an encouraging picture of the current condition of another of Iran’s terror proxies, Hamas
..the well-beloved offspring of the Moslem Brotherhood,...While Hezbollah is spread throughout Leb
...Formerly inhabited by hardy Phoenecian traders, its official language is now Arabic, with the usual unpleasant side effects....
, Hamas is concentrated in a much smaller space, Gaza. The IDF, which battled Hamas in Gaza for more than two years running since the debacle of October 7, 2023, now controls about 65% of Gaza, and Hamas is in a jam.
Ron Ben Yishai, now 83, spent some time at an IDF outpost in southern Gaza and has a lot of light to shed on the current state of the enclave.
The IDF, for one thing, has been using its presence in Gaza to blow up the notorious Hamas tunnels. Since October 7 the IDF has destroyed about 280 miles’ worth of them, and at present there’s nothing at all that Hamas can do to counteract the process.
The IDF has also, using high-quality intelligence, been "systematically eliminating senior [Hamas] commanders, key military specialists and police officials responsible for maintaining governance."
While Hamas still has about 20,000 operatives, only about 8,000 are experienced fighters and the rest are minimally trained, lightly armed "young men and teenagers" seeking to bring home some shekels.
And Hamas’s troubles go beyond that. Its popularity in Gaza is drying up, and armed clans living in the IDF-controlled areas—"whose members and families [number] in the tens of thousands"—have lately been seriously challenging its rule.
In terms of Israeli security, the situation is much better than it was on October 6, 2023. Six IDF brigades and 18 battalions now protect the Israeli border communities, compared to much fewer forces in the sleepy, self-delusive days before the catastrophe.
Ben Yishai puts it this way: "The way the IDF is currently deployed and operating in Gaza has almost completely neutralized Hamas’s ability to carry out attacks . . . the threat to communities in southern Israel has been almost entirely removed, at least as long as the IDF maintains its current posture."
Therein lie many questions about the future of Gaza.
Although grandiose plans were hatched about Hamas disarmament, the terror group—predictably enough—rejects that option. The "international stabilization force" that was supposed to take over in Gaza "has yet," Ben Yishai notes delicately, "to materialize."
And the Peace Council that’s supposed to help finance a new, peaceful Gaza "has failed to secure even one-third of the funding pledged by its member leaders." That, too, is predictable stuff—though it’s been worsened by the Gulf states’ cash-flow problems since the Strait of Hormuz was closed.
IDF commanders, for their part, are sure that only a few weeks would be needed to seize the remaining Gazook territory held by Hamas. "Plans already exist and require only government approval."
At that point, though, with Hamas neutralized, an old problem would arise: what to do with the two million mostly indigent Gazooks whom Hamas has been holding, in effect, as hostages, and who’ve been raised on a murderous hatred of Israelis.
It was the severe, demoralizing difficulty of ruling Gaza that led Israel—with half or more of the Israeli population supporting the move—to disengage from the enclave in the first place, back in 2005. Of course, that didn’t work out well either.
Ben Yishai hopes the international community, or a future Israeli government, will "succeed in formulating a realistic, adequately funded, phased long-term solution for Gaza’s population without endangering Israel."
It has always been a tall order. For now—unlike Iran, Hezbollah, and the Iran's Houthi sock puppets
...a Zaidi Shia insurgent group operating in Yemen. They have also been referred to as the
Believing Youth. Hussein Badreddin al-Houthi is said to be the spiritual leader of the group and most of the military leaders are his relatives. The legitimate Yemeni government has accused the them of having ties to the Iranian government. Honest they did. The group has managed to gain control over all of Saada Governorate and parts of Amran, Al Jawf and Hajjah Governorates. Its slogan is
God is Great, Death to Americaâ„¢, Death to Israel, a curse on the JewsThey like shooting off... ummm... missiles that they would have us believe they make at home in their basements. On the plus side, they did murder Ali Abdullah Saleh, which was the only way the country was ever going to be rid of him...
s—Gaza is quiet, and it’s a big improvement.