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Is Israel Winning the War in Gaza?
(Ha'aretz) Anshel Pfeffer - Media headlines saying "Israel isn't winning in Gaza" totally ignore the nature of this war. Hamas prepared for 16 years for this, building its tunnel network underground and its strongholds aboveground throughout Gaza's civilian urban environment. The IDF prepared as well. For years it has increased training to focus on urban warfare and invested in combat engineering units with an array of munitions and probes developed to detect and destroy tunnels. It has also acquired hundreds of new tanks and heavy-infantry fighting vehicles with "active" armor systems designed to protect crews from anti-tank rockets. The IDF believes it has killed 8,000 Hamas fighters so far. Thousands more have been wounded and captured. A large number of senior Hamas field commanders have been killed as well. Since the ground offensive began, around 160 Israeli soldiers have been killed and 2,000 wounded; of these, 300 remain hospitalized in fair or serious condition. The IDF, so far, has destroyed around half of Hamas' fighting force while its losses aren't heavy when considering the complexity of this type of urban warfare. Every senior IDF officer in every briefing has been clear that the campaign in Gaza would take many months. There have been no illusions among the professionals that this war would be won quickly.