Arab affairs analyst Zvi Yehezkeli on Wednesday night posted a summary of the first 82 days of the Hamas-Israel war, contradicting the voices claiming that Israel has already lost its war against Hamas.
"I hear a lot of disagreements within Israel, which say that we lost, we didn't win. It hurts our soldiers and our fighting spirit," he explained. "First of all, if there is a question of whether we won - apparently, we didn't win. We lost on October 7, we will not lose any longer. So we must understand the concept we held has collapsed and brought us to this situation, and why it is repeating itself now."
"The issue is with the concepts held above. Israel is allowing Gazan citizens to return to the north - that's a mistake. Terrorists will return in civilian clothing, place an RPG on a porch, and booby-trap. In southern Gaza I am starting to hear that they are talking about raids and changing tactics, so long as there isn't a flow of civilians from the fighting areas. This means that we are not advancing in the southern Strip as we did in the northern Strip. If we want to defeat them, the way northern Gaza went must repeat itself in southern Gaza, and create a sort of pressure on the residents to draw nearer to the Egyptian border.
Yehezkeli also discussed the security tensions and exchanges of fire on the Lebanon-Israel border, saying, "With Hezbollah, the concept of proportionality is problematic. On the one hand we cannot start a war, because the US told us not to start it, and in the meantime Hezbollah is hitting our towns and homes. It's true that it's harming empty homes, but it's significantly harming the towns, and we will discover that it caused significant destruction to homes in the towns."
"The harm that Israel does to Hezbollah does not matter to [Hezbollah], just like Hamas doesn't care. From Hamas' perspective, the story is patience. If you put enough military pressure on Hamas - they will run for a deal. Right now they are receiving enough merchandise, as a result of US pressure, and that's the same concept."