FEARS OF A WIDER WAR

An angry Israeli invasion of Gaza could eliminate Hamas and its war making potential, but could also spark a wider war that will be impossible to contain.

- AJAY SINGH

A LOOMING INVASION

It has been three weeks since the horrific 10/7 attacks on Israel, and already the Middle East has become a different place. The toll of the attacks is still unfolding with over 1,400 Israelis killed, 5,000 injured and 222 taken hostage. But in the retribution that followed, Gaza has been placed under siege and pummeled to the ground with over 7,000 dead, and over a million displaced from their homes. The toll is already three times that of the Gaza War of 2014; and the ground invasion has not even begun.

Israel has called up over 360,000 reservists and has mobilized half a million men and over 2,000 tanks as it prepares for the ground invasion of Gaza to decimate Hamas. But the much-vaunted invasion will be more difficult than imagined. The 41-kilometer-long Gaza Strip is defended by an estimated 30,000 Hamas fighters of the Al-Qassam Brigade-each one indifferentiable from a civilian. But it also has over 500,000 angry young men of fighting age, who can provide an endless pool of fresh recruits. And beneath one of the world's most densely populated areas, runs the "Gaza Metro"-a 500-kilometer network of tunnels that Hamas has created 70 meters below ground to enable their fighters to move under protection from one place to another. It will not be easy clearing this dense builtup area. To draw a parallel, the Battle of Stalingrad was fought over six months for the 40-kilometer-long city on the Volga River and cost the Wehrmacht a quarter of a million casualties. The carnage would not be on such a scale, but the battle would be fought in intense media glare that covers each bomb and casualty. The collateral damage caused to 2.3 million Palestinians under siege there will only serve to paint Israel as the aggressor, and add to the pressure to terminate operations before it achieves its goals.