The Jewish state has long prided itself on the ability to pre-empt and crush threats to its borders and people.
Hamas’s brazen dawn assault began with rocket fire from the Gaza Strip into southern Israel. Simultaneously, the Palestinian militant group dispatched armed drones, fighters on motorbikes and paragliders across the strip’s border, targeting civilian towns and military checkpoints.
Israeli analysts describe the attack as the worst inside the Jewish state’s territory since 1948 — the year it was founded. At least 200 people have been killed in Israel, and Hamas has taken an unknown number of hostages. It has echoes of the 1973 war when Egypt and Syria caught Israel unawares by leading an Arab offensive in the Sinai and the Golan Heights on Yom Kippur, the holiest day in Judaism. It is unlikely to be a coincidence that Hamas launched its assault close to the 50th anniversary of that war.
More than 250 Palestinians, including women and children, died in that 11-day conflict, while 13 people were killed in Israel. That would be the first land offensive in the densely populated strip of 2 million people since the 2014 war and would lead to even greater casualties on all sides — and further devastation for Gaza’s long-suffering population.
Its involvement in the conflict would threaten to overwhelm Israel’s Iron Dome defence system, which protects its towns and cities.Hizbollah delivered a bloody nose to Israel during a month-long conflict in 2006 and it has gained battleground experience after intervening in Syria’s civil war to back President Bashar al-Assad.
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