Netanyahu’s options range from bad to worst

Hamas wants more conflict. Its attack was designed to show that an armed struggle is far more effective than the failed political path chosen by the PA.

Fifty years to the day after the 1973 Yom Kippur war, Israel’s enemies were once again able to surprise the IDF and carry out a large-scale coordinated attack without any warning. The total lack of preliminary intelligence and the low readiness of the Israeli forces during a national holiday has contributed to a devastating outcome.

The main distinction between today and 1973 is that on this Saturday, many of the victims were not soldiers, but innocent civilians who found themselves facing hundreds of armed and well-trained aggressors. The photos and videos circulating on different social media platforms are shocking.

Men, women and children were slaughtered inside their homes or taken as prisoners and hostages and led into the Hamas-controlled Gaza strip as bargaining chips for future negotiations designated for the release of thousands of Palestinians terrorists from Israeli jails.

These unprecedented events of brutally massacred civilians in villages and settlements along the Gaza-strip border were of a kind no-one in Israel had ever conceived possible, and resembled incidents occurring only once before in secluded settlements during the 1948 war of independence.

The limited IDF forces in the area during the Shabbat and the Sukkot holiday were overwhelmed by the staggering number of Hamas militants who stormed the border barrier and crossed into Israel. This well-orchestrated attack, that no doubt took months of planning and training, was carried out in a few short hours, using a large salvo of rockets fired into central Israel at sunrise as a diversion.

Using motorcycles, motorised paragliders and light boats, the militants crossed the few kilometres separating Gaza and the Israeli civilian communities in a matter of hours. Today, more than 700 Israelis are dead, 1800 wounded and more than a hundred taken hostage.