By ignoring the Bidenites’ advice, Israel managed to eliminate many Hamas jihadis

Now the Bidenites are urging Israel to end its war in Gaza because, they claim, there is not much more of Hamas to destroy.

By Hugh Fitzgerald, Frontpage Magazine

The New York Times insists that if Israel rejects the Bidenites’ advice to pull out of Gaza, it does so at its peril:

“NYT admits US officials were wrong about the IDF in October, and wrong about Rafah, but thinks they are right now,” Elder of Ziyon, August 15, 2024:

So these officials were completely wrong in October. They were also wrong about Israel’s taking Rafah, which they now admit is exactly what destroyed Hamas’ supply lines from Egypt – and cost far fewer casualties thna they had confidently predicted.

By ignoring warnings from the Americans not to seize Rafah because of worries over civilian casualties, the IDF managed to kill a great many terrorists who had fled to the southernmost city in the Strip both from Gaza City and from Khan Yunis.

Its control of Rafah has also made it easier for the IDF to control the Kerem Shalom crossing and to seize the Philadelphi Corridor, control of which has allowed the IDF to locate and destroy many tunnels bringing smuggled weapons from Egypt into Gaza.

But the US wants to send a message to Israel, and the New York Times is more than happy to do their bidding:

William J. Burns, the C.I.A. director, is due in Qatar on Thursday. Brett McGurk, President Biden’s Middle East coordinator, has headed to Egypt and Qatar.

Amos Hochstein, a senior White House adviser, landed in Lebanon. One of the messages the officials are expected to deliver is that there is little more Israel can accomplish against Hamas.

Which is the entire point. This article isn’t reporting; it is a mouthpiece for Biden administration talking points.

If you look at what Israel has actually been doing, you would see that its success is not diminishing, but increasing. As it gathers more intelligence from captured terrorists and taking materials it discovers, it is getting more and more accurate than when it started….

Consistently, Israel has gotten better and better at targeting the terrorists.

The entire reason that the Palestinians made up huge casualty lies about the airstrike on the Al Taabin school is becase [sic] it was a triumph of intelligence, taking out over 30 terrorists gathered in the mosque – a proportional attack by any definition of the term under international law….

In its latest statement on the airstrike, the IDF has now identified by name 38 Hamas terrorists killed at the command-and-control center functioning inside the Al Tabin school.

That means in that operation at most 55 civilians were killed, and the ratio of civilian-to-combatant deaths was 55:36, or 1:5:1, an unheard-of ratio in the annals of warfare.

Many Hamas commanders, and leaders of its “political” wing, too, are being systematically eliminated by the IDF.

Ismail Haniyeh, head of Hamas’ “political wing,” was recently blown up in at a Tehran guesthouse. Hamas’ military commander in Gaza, Muhammad Deif, was killed on July 13. A deputy commander of the Al-Qassam Brigades, Marwan Issa, was killed in March.

And dozens of other high-ranking Hamas combatants have also been killed, as the IDF continues its relentless campaign of targeted assassinations.

Those in Washington who predicted last October that an Israeli invasion of Gaza to destroy Hamas would not succeed were proven wrong.

Those who then insisted that the IDF should refrain from entering Rafah because it could not possibly evacuate more than a handful of its estimated one million inhabitants were proven wrong again.

In May, the IDF managed in a matter of weeks to move 950,000 people out of the city.

Now the Bidenites are urging Israel to end its war in Gaza because, they claim, there is not much more of Hamas to destroy, and the IDF needs to avoid further civilian casualties. Neither is correct.

Though the IDF has had a stunning success in dismantling Hamas, killing at least 17,000 of its combatants, there remain roughly the same number who, if not seriously wounded, are still capable of fighting, and they need to be smashed as a fighting force even if they cannot be entirely eliminated.

As for civilian casualties, in the last three months Hamas has continued to claim roughly 38,000-39,000 casualties, as usual without distinguishing between civilians and Hamas operatives.

The IDF has over the past nine months honed its ability to minimize civilian casualties, having ever greater success in warning people away from places about to be targeted, by making greater use of precision weapons, and by relying less on airstrikes and more on ground troops in its operations.

When Hamas recognizes reality, and agrees to the deal that Israel now is willing to accept, this war in Gaza will stop, and the IDF can turn its full attention to much more threatening enemies — Hezbollah and its puppet-master Iran.

The IDF high command has not forgotten the Talmudic injunction: “If someone comes to kill you, rise up and kill him first.”