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Israel has amassed some 300,000 troops, armed with tanks, infantry fighting vehicles, and artillery, and supported by helicopters and fixed wing aircraft.
Their mission is to secure the perimeter around Gaza to make sure that Hamas fighters are not able to sortie forth and
commit atrocities against the citizens of Israel like those that occurred on October 7 and 8. At some point it is estimated that these troops will be ordered into Gaza for the purpose of destroying Hamas as an organization. But
the sad fact is that the Israeli Army today is not up to such a mission. It lacks the training and fortitude for a task like that, regardless of outcome, and will cost Israel thousands of lives if seen to fruition. Any Israeli assault on Gaza is doomed to fail before it even begins.A short look back at the preparedness and training of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) helps underscore the reasoning behind such a bleak assessment. Earlier this year, over the course of two weeks, stretching from late May through early June, the IDF carried out a massive exercise, code named "Firm Hand," which tested the
Israeli capability to wage war on multiple fronts. Like a similar exercise held the year before, code named "Chariots of Fire," the "Firm Hand" event focused on a major air campaign being waged against Iran, and a major ground war being waged against Hezbollah, in northern Israel/southern Lebanon. Both exercises envisioned that there would be outbreaks of localized violence in the West Bank and along the Gaza Strip that would need to be contained by forces allocated to the Central and Southern military commands, respectively.
Comment: The majority of families in Gaza are descendents of those expelled by Israel in the 1948 Nakba. They know if they are pushed into Egypt (who is currently refusing to take any refugees) and Israel moves in, they will never be allowed to return to even the small sliver of land Palestine holds now.