Israel Reports Killing 1,500 Hamas Fighters: NBC News

The bodies of Hamas fighters were found strewn across the streets of a kibbutz near the Gaza border on Tuesday as Israeli soldiers conducted door-to-door operations to secure the area, as reported by Richard Engel, Marc Smith, and Alexander Smith for NBC News.

The casualties were among the 1,500 militants that Israel claims to have discovered within its borders following Hamas' unexpected incursion from Gaza. I Photo: יואב קרן - עיתונאי וסופר Wikimedia Commons

These casualties were among the 1,500 militants that Israel claims to have discovered within its borders following Hamas' unexpected incursion from Gaza.

Initially, Israel estimated that only 1,500 fighters had breached the border, attacking Israeli kibbutzim, communities, and even a desert rave party in which 260 people lost their lives. This raises questions about the overall size of Hamas' fighting force and what a bloody ground offensive within the Gaza Strip might entail if Israel launches one in the upcoming days.

Tobias Borck, a Middle East expert at the Royal United Services Institute, a London-based think tank, emphasized the extraordinary challenges such an offensive would pose, stating, "I don't think there's a way to overstate how extraordinarily difficult it will be. It's not going to be just a street-by-street operation but a house-by-house and tunnel-by-tunnel endeavor."

Most analysts concur that some form of ground offensive is becoming increasingly likely. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is under pressure to act swiftly and resolutely, vowing to annihilate Hamas' military capabilities.

This task would be extremely challenging, if not impossible, to accomplish solely through airstrikes, given the significant damage already inflicted on the blockaded Gaza Strip. Consequently, Israel has called up 360,000 reservists in addition to its standing army of 170,000.

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