Hamas has learned its lessons from Israel’s Operation Cast Lead campaign and “concluded that as long as they do not have rockets that can threaten Tel Aviv, they have no tangible card to influence Israeli public opinion and genuinely deter the Government and the IDF," journalist Alex Fishman wrote in a Hebrew-language daily Wednesday.

Another newspaper op-ed noted that the existence of long-range rockets in Hamas's arsenal "undercuts the Israeli belief that it is possible to put Gaza under lock and key." Yaakov Amidror, former IDF intelligence officer, wrote in the Yisrael HaYom (Israel Today) newspaper. "Hamas emerged from Operation Cast Lead battered but not beaten and is now implementing lessons from the fighting in order to be better prepared for the next operation. The State of Israel is eating the rotten fruit of the Oslo Accords and the unilateral withdrawal together."