The Israeli Defence Force has recently announced that the toll of slain troops in the ground offensive against Hamas has increased to over 100. These soldiers have tragically fallen in a war Israel did not start and did not seek.

The war was started on 7 October by an internationally proscribed terrorist organisation, Hamas, which butchered and massacred over 1,200 Israeli civilians including babies, children, women and the elderly some of whom were Holocaust survivors. Furthermore, Hamas abducted over 200 hostages, many of which are still being held somewhere in Gaza and none of whom have been visited by the Red Cross.

Israel has always believed that to dismantle and disarm the group was always going to lead to significant civilian bloodshed and the inflaming of anti Israel world opinion. This would have been a prohibitive proposition for Israel before the 7th of October but the world now understands that Israel cannot continue living next to a Hamas controlled Gaza and tolerate the continuous threat of having Hamas on its border.

And so today Israel is facing a challenge which is a reminder to itself and the world that tolerating the intolerable, even grudgingly, is never sustainable in the long term as otherwise Israelis would have to continue to exist in perpetual fear for themselves, for their families and their homeland.

It should be noted that over the past two decades, successive Israeli governments have tended to regard Hamas’s presence in Gaza as a legitimate governing organisation that could be managed and engaged through diplomatic and economic means.

Israel has been a willing partner to the transfer of financial aid from Qatar to Hamas. Israel had continued to provide fuel, electricity, and water to the residents of Gaza. Israel had agreed to issue tens of thousands of work permits to Gazan labourers to work in Israel and it has vigorously pursued the expansion of trade between Israel and Gaza with the intention of creating a relationship for reconciliation with the Hamas terrorist government in Gaza.

Furthermore, since 2014, Hamas leaders have enjoyed immunity from assassinations due to Benjamin Netanyahu’s belief that the strengthening of Hamas was in Israel’s interest. This was a period of more than 9 years when the leaders of the murderous organisation were given reprieves that had never been gifted to them before.

The objective of this strategy by the Israeli government was to try and ensure the well being of Gaza’s residents and thus compel Hamas to assume increased safety as well as greater civil and social responsibility for the people of Gaza.

The plan therefore was to keep things calm and convince the people of Gaza in general, and Hamas in particular, that their efforts to destroy Israel were futile. The message was that the war is over and you have lost. Progress can only be achieved if the presence of the Jewish State is accepted as otherwise the supply of food, water, energy and medicine from Israel would cease.

But the strategy adopted by the Israeli leaders was erroneous and naïve. Whilst pretending to accommodate the Israeli government’s approach, Hamas was preparing a clandestine and secretive plan to attack Israel with the intention of killing as many Israelis as possible and to capture others in order to use them as an exchange for terrorists held in Israeli prisons.

Early in the Hamas terror war on Israel, its Political Bureau member Ghazi Hamad stated that “We need to educate Israel, and we will educate it a second time and a third time. The Al-Aqsa Flood won’t be only one time. No, it will be a second time, a third, and a fourth, because we have the will, the decision, and the capabilities to fight. We will pay a price, indeed, we are prepared. Allow me to tell you clearly, we are called “the people of Martyrs” and we are proud to sacrifice Martyrs.”

In addition, senior Hamas official Khaled Mashaal made it clear that Hamas leaders, sitting safely in Turkey or Qatar, are not perturbed or concerned by the sacrifice of thousands if not millions of Palestinians for “the liberation.” Furthermore, he compared potential dead Palestinian “Martyrs” to the millions of “Martyrs” who died for Russia, Vietnam, and Afghanistan during their “liberation” wars. Mashaal made it clear he doesn’t care about dead Palestinians.

As of today, Israel is planning a long war against Hamas that aims to kill its top leaders and eradicate its military capability. Israel is determined to release the hostages as well as securing a decisive military victory against the Hamas fighting forces and the destruction of its underground tunnel network.

It is absolutely imperative that Israel adopts this strategy as to permit Hamas to remain in Gaza is comparable to accepting al-Qaeda’s control of Afghanistan or Islamic State’s control of territory in Syria and Iraq. It is now well understood that the presence of Hamas in Gaza is a fundamental obstacle to long term peace in the region. Any genuine peace effort by Israel can only succeed by finding a stable and secure alternative to Hamas and its neutralisation. The people of Gaza must understand that war and terrorism will never deliver Palestinian aspirations but instead will only bring further misery to them.

For the thousands of people around the world who are marching in support of the Palestinians and making endless demands for ceasefires, their actions may seem like the humane and wise thing to do, but realistically any cease fire would only cause more suffering.

The goal cannot be a series of transitory ceasefires. Hamas ended the recent ceasefire with a rocket barrage on Israel’s largest city of Tel Aviv. The same activists who continuously demand an immediate cease fire do not seem to be concerned that such a humanitarian act only leads to further attacks by Hamas on Israeli civilians.

The Israeli government has pledged that at the end of the war, there will be no more Hamas in Gaza. There will be no more security threat from Gaza to Israel.

It must be remembered that the Hamas leadership is responsible for the misery experienced by the people of Gaza. Why else would they have invaded Israel?

Israel’s Defence Minister Yoav Gallant said that people in Gaza could end the war sooner by killing Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar themselves. Israel will eventually get to Yahya Sinwar and eliminate him but if the residents of Gaza get there first, this will shorten the war.