Major General (res.) Yaakov Amidror, former National Security Council chief and a senior fellow at the Jerusalem Institute for Strategy and Security, has warned that Israel cannot afford to compromise on its goal of dismantling Hamas in Gaza.
"I do not think that Israel needs to expand the war right now, if it can focus only on Gaza," Amidror told 103 FM Radio. "It needs to focus in Gaza for the next month or two, in order to complete the dismantling of Hamas' abilities, and afterwards it will stand at a crossroads."
"From the perspective of the State of Israel's timeline, there is no need to rush to make decisions unless there is no deal. If we end the war now, all of the victims [who were killed] over the course of the war will have fallen in vain, because Hamas will reorganize and the Philadelphi [Corridor] will be opened before it.
"It will not have been in vain meaning that the war will not have been justified - it will have been extremely justified - but the result which we wanted to achieve, that Hamas will no longer present a threat from Gaza - that will not be achieved."
Later, Amidror stressed, "The current demand is that we exit and abandon the Philadelphi [Corridor]. What that means on the ground is that Hamas will reconnect to Sinai. We cannot present only one side of the problem, without presenting its cost."