Israel must steel itself over the coming weeks for more national trauma as the fighting against Hamas in Gaza intensifies and troops losses begin to mount. The country’s armed forces have already paid a high price, with 348 deaths since October 7th. To give some context, this is almost twice as high as the number of British soldiers killed in eight years of fighting in Iraq. In a country with just a tenth of the population of the UK, the losses will be even more difficult to bear.

The break-in battle was always going to be the easiest part for the Israeli Defence Forces. The aerial bombardment, like a first world war artillery barrage, sent Hamas terrorists retreating into command bunkers buried many feet below ground. But the real battle – where the metal meets the meat, as the US troops might say – is only just beginning.

In the coming days and weeks the fighting will only become increasingly messy, with Israeli troops being picked off by snipers and targeted by Iranian-supplied improvised explosive devices, triggered by an infrared beam and capable of destroying a tank or armoured personnel.

The mission facing the IDF will be made much harder by the vast network of deep tunnels which run beneath Gaza city and across the whole strip. Emerging from below, Hamas terrorists can easily carry out hit and run attacks, killing and maiming before disappearing again.

The young IDF reservists, who just a few weeks ago were sitting behind desks looking at spreadsheets or tending to their almond groves in the Jezreel valley, will have to decide whether a lone Palestinian picking their way through bomb damaged streets is a distressed civilian or a Hamas suicide bomber.

In urban warfare, where death can lurk beneath every step and around every corner, it is easy for fear to take hold and chip away at previously high levels of  morale as the days of street fighting turn into weeks and months. The slow drum beat of casualties from hit and run attacks can be more psychologically damaging to the IDF than relatively large losses in fixed battles.

Battle fatigue will set in and those fighting on the bomb-cratered streets of Gaza today will soon have to be replaced with fresh blood if the current momentum is to be maintained.

The IDF’s mission is essentially to annihilate Hamas’s high command – but that is a vague mission where the end point is difficult to identify. Hamas has an estimated 30,000 fighters – does Israel intend to kill them all or just the strategic masterminds responsible for the October 7th attacks?

There is also the question of what happens to the estimated 1.1 million Palestinians in Gaza who have been displaced in the current crisis, many of whom will have no home to return to when the crisis ends.

Time is not on the Israelis’ side. So far, and according to Hamas, more than 10,000 civilians have been killed along with 4,000 children, and it would appear that US patience with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s relentless bombing campaign is being exhausted.

In that sense, the claim that Israel has walked into a trap set by Hamas appears to be true. But as General Jack Keane, a former vice-chief of the United States army puts it, Israel had no choice but to enter Gaza and destroy Hamas. If they didn’t more terrorist attacks certainly would follow.

Speaking to the BBC, he said:

‘Hamas’s strategic objective in conducting this savage brutal attack, largely against civilians, was a departure from past Hamas attacks when the focus was usually on the IDF. What they were seeking by this savage attack on civilians was a very violent response from Israel and they are looking for widespread international condemnation of the Israeli response.

I think they have likely accomplished that. Hamas also wants to undermine the people’s confidence in the Israeli government to protect them, and I think they have accomplished that. The other strategic objective they (Hamas) are attempting to achieve is international isolation of Israel. I don’t think that is necessarily accomplished but there is certainly a tendency towards that.’

General Keane also said that part of Hamas’s strategy was to dismantle the Abraham Accords, the peace agreement and the process of normalisation between Israel and Arab countries, which Saudi Arabia was moving towards. He added: ‘The Israelis don’t have any choice but to attempt to dismantle this organisation once and for all because the fact is Hamas will be back in two or three more years doing exactly the same things. You saw their political leader giving an interview where they indicated they would do just that. So the Israelis have got to get about finishing this as quickly as they can. The Israelis need to keep moving in the right direction to exterminate this terrorist organisation.’

It has often been said that there is no military solution to the Israeli-Palestinian crisis but it would appear that there is not a political one either – not in the short term anyway. There may come a time for the Israeli government to talk about the future of Gaza but it is not now and not with Hamas.