Just made this point to Admiral Hagari in IDF HQ and I think it’s a good one so I’ll share it. Even though I have combat experience myself, have degrees in Law, War Studies and Psychology, on first seeing the destruction in Rafah my nanosecond first reaction was: “Fucking hell.” I *know* why the damage occurred. If you’re destroying Hamas’ capability and infrastructure root and branch, the fact that their infrastructure is in every school, hospital, mosque and house means that those things are all going to be damaged. If every home contains a booby trap, every home is going to be explosively damaged. No army in the world has sufficient engineers to diffuse every bomb like that in a kinetic clearance operation. The IDF don’t want to damage people’s homes, but they’re taking the only tactical option they have to achieve operational goals. This does mean two things, though. If I, with my experience and knowledge, am having that reaction, so will the world when they see it. And for the wider world, without the knowledge to rationalise and understand what they’re seeing, that reaction will be enduring. So the first requirement is for the IDF to explain to world leaders and opinion leaders, simply, what has happened and why. The second thing is the priority that must be given to reconstruction. Palestinian Arabs cannot stay in tents indefinitely. The wider world needs to step up as they did in Germany in 1945 to create a society that is enduring and can live at peace alongside Israel. It’s going to require billions of currency and huge efforts. Get this right, and Gaza could be a Mediterranean paradise.
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