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Israel Must Now Defeat, Not Just Contain, Hamas
(Fathom-BICOM-UK) Brig.-Gen. (res.) Yossi Kuperwasser - Hamas remained a fanatical radical Islamist organization that was ready to perform cruel and horrific terror attacks and other war crimes against Israel, driven by similar ideologies to those of the Islamic State. Israel is preparing now to take the initiative and embark on a wide-scale operation against Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad in Gaza, while maintaining readiness to confront potential widening of the war to other fronts. The Hamas offensive reflects its commitment to terror and to its merciless Jihadist identity. Hamas prepared itself for a long time for this attack - using Iranian military and financial support to accumulate rockets and develop capabilities to infiltrate Israel. Hamas took the Iranian Islamic idea of swarm attacks and implemented it very successfully. Israel has no choice but to change its policy towards Hamas from containment and deterrence to decisively defeating it to make sure it will not be able to rearm itself. This is necessary to get rid of the threat from Gaza, and it is also critical to deter Iran and Hizbullah. It should do so regardless of the complexity created by the holding of so many hostages in Hamas custody. The writer was chief of the research division in IDF Military Intelligence and a former director general of the Israel Ministry of Strategic Affairs.