What Hamas still doesn’t seem to understand is that Israel doesn’t have to win. It just has to continue. This is something Hamas itself said about itself, something it seems to have learned from Nasrallah: If it’s still standing at the end, that’s victory enough. But that works for Israel too, and doubly so. Because as long as Hamas stands, Gaza cannot get back up. Israel, on the other hand, can maintain the current situation as a more or less permanent status quo. Whether one likes that fact or not doesn’t really matter. It’s a cold, hard strategic truth. Hamas has lost. Gazans know it. The only question left to answer, and it’s a question no one has the answer to, is how long it will take for Hamas to admit it. A great many lives and a tremendous amount of suffering ride on that question.
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