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Former CIA Director Gen. Petraeus: Hamas Has to Be Destroyed
(Times of Israel) Lazar Berman - U.S. Gen. David Petraeus, who commanded the 2007-8 "surge" of troops in Iraq and later directed the CIA, told the Times of Israel that Hamas has to be destroyed. "Hamas is irreconcilable," he said. "This is a very, very fundamental idea....They are the equivalent of al-Qaeda or the Islamic State. They have to be destroyed, just as we had to destroy the core al-Qaeda and how we helped the Iraqi security forces and the Syrian Democratic Forces destroy the Islamic State." Petraeus doesn't see any option other than an offensive in the southern Gaza city of Rafah. "Benny Gantz, my old comrade and friend, is exactly right when he said that you don't send the fire department to extinguish 80% of the blaze. You have to deal with all of it." "This is the most fiendishly difficult context for urban operations since 1945 at least. You have 350 miles of very well-developed tunnels, subterranean infrastructure, factories, headquarters, all these different facilities underground. You have high rises that have to be cleared. You've got to clear every building, every floor, every room, every cellar, every tunnel. You have an enemy who doesn't wear a uniform in most cases, who uses civilians as human shields, still holds over 130 hostages, which obviously complicates a very complex situation."