To battle an enemy that has embedded itself deep underground within hundreds of miles of tunnels with hostages alongside the terrorist leaders is truly a nightmare scenario. 

That is why it is taking Israel more than 2 years to battle against the Hamas enemy. 

This coupled with the enemy’s willingness to starve its own people in order to force Israel to withstand international humanitarian pressure to not “starve” Arabs, has served as effective pressure tactics to cause Israel to pause, delay, or even hold off from “finishing the job” and destroying Hamas’ grip on Gaza once and for all.

The latter stages of war are often stages wherein costly mistakes are made. In the waning stages of World War II, the Battle of the Bulge was the most costly battle to US soldiers not only due to the surprise attack from the German side. 

It was also costly because General Eisenhower did not listen to General Patton and cut off the supply lines of the German Army first, and attack second. Instead, the United States fought back head-on and slogged it out for many weeks instead of starving the enemy by cutting the supply lines and shortening the timeline of the battle.

Israel now finds itself in a similar stage in it’s war against Hamas. It clearly has the upper hand, but still is having trouble finishing off Hamas’ handle of control in Gaza. 

The key is to move the population of Gazans as much as possible to separate out the civilians as much as possible from the terrorists. Israel did that in Rafah and then took over and destroyed Rafah. Forcing the population to move, even out of Gaza and into Israel proper, will allow Israel to once and for all clean up the hornet’s nest that Gaza still is. 

Israel should set up a refugee area outside of Gaza, in the southwest area of Israel that has foreign assistance delivering food and supplies. Every country that screams should be invited to take their chunk of refugees or stay quiet. 

There is probably no other effective way to bring the tunnel-based Gazans out of their hiding places outside of flooding the tunnels with water or some other method. They need to be hungry and/or run out of ammunition. But as long as the tons of food supplies continue to be delivered right above their heads, it will get down into their tunnels via the tens of thousands of shafts that Gaza is filled with.  

War is indeed cruel.

Source: Israel Unwired  PHOTO and VIDEO: Use according to Section 27 A