In a strange turn of events, I was able to come home last week and entirely missed the start of the airstrikes in Gaza. Since several people have asked me what I thought I figured I would share a few words here (both on the situation and my potential involvement).
Like most people my knowledge of the current events in Gaza is mostly limited to what I read. Accordingly, it appears that Israel is in a rather precarious position. All media slants and angles aside, Israel is now trying to eliminate Hamas's potential to launch Qassam rockets. The problem they face is that they do not actually want to uproot the Hamas organization. This means that rather than actually going into Gaza and trying to extricate Hamas, they are gathering information and trying to locate both launch points and weapon caches. In terms of military objectives it would seem to me that the latter is more difficult. If they simply wanted to oust Hamas they could commit their full military strength to the effort, but as it stands the IDF will be forced to infiltrate hostile territory in order to reach their objectives.
In terms of my team, our training is supposed to last until mid-May. Therefore, to the best of my knowledge I do not think we will be participating in the current incursion, but I assume that will depend on how long it lasts.
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