The premise here is “the elimination of Hamas”. In the thinking here, unless that happens there will be no follow through on the other two points of reeducation and rebuilding. How is the elimination of Hamas going? On his substack, Simplicius highlights an X post that points out IDF and Israeli claims that just don’t add up.
At the start of this Gaza war, the IDF claimed that Hamas’s full forces numbered 25,000. Now at this point in the Gaza war, the IDF claims that 17,000 to 20,000 fighters have been killed and 14,000 to 16,000 have been wounded. Meanwhile, Israeli media reports that 20,000 to 23,000 fighters remain. What?! Even revising the number of fighters that Hamas had at the start of the war–up to 40,000 as some had claimed–still doesn’t make it add up.
What Israel is doing in Gaza is not eliminating Hamas, but making it grow. With each day of indiscriminate bombings and wholesale massacres, new volunteers swell its ranks. Netanyahu knows this. But he insists on “the elimination of Hamas” as the first point, because it guarantees him a forever war. It’s unfortunate to see Elon Musk falling for it.