The Imminent Bloodbath in Gaza

The World is on the brink as Israel falls for the trap Hamas has set

Mookie Spitz
3 min readOct 15, 2023

Israel is poised for a major military operation inside Gaza, with the express goal of destroying Hamas’ capacity to ever again harm the Jewish State.

A wide but related range of objectives has also been articulated, from killing Hamas leadership to annihilating the organization once and for all.

Israel’s zeal for revenge is as unprecedented as the October 7th attack triggering them: More than 1,300 killed, as many as 150 hostages taken.

In proportion to Israel’s population, these numbers translate in America to 61,000 dead and 7,050 kidnapped, exponentially higher losses than 9/11.

The fury of Israel’s population is understandable, compounded by the ISIS-level brutality they endured, including beheadings, burnings, and rapes.

Israel’s leadership, population, and military are therefore united in their focused determination to “do whatever must be done” to destroy Hamas.

The only way to try and do that — while wreaking emotionally satisfying vengeance— is to launch an open-ended, full scale ground assault.

The consequences of this invasion are impossible to fully predict and horrifying to fathom, yet one thing is clear: Israel is doing Hamas’ bidding.

As Alex Younger, Head of UK Foreign Intelligence from 2014–2020 observed: “You shouldn’t do what your enemy wants you to do.”

“Operation Al-Aqsa Flood” was planned and rehearsed for at least two years, Hamas knowing full well the dire consequences of it being a success.

The savagery of its implementation further reinforces the assumption that Hamas’ intent was for Israel to respond with even greater brutality.

By drawing Israel into a predictable and imminent land invasion and temporary occupation of Gaza, Hamas accomplishes multiple goals:

  1. Short circuit or at least greatly delay the Saudi-Israel security deal, which was poised to further tip the balance of power away from Iran
  2. Put the Palestinians back into the equation of Middle East politics, from which they have been marginalized to the point of disappearing
  3. Make the Lebanon border and the West Bank more vulnerable by bogging down a hundred thousand or more Israeli troops in Gaza
  4. Precipitate the mass slaughter of Palestinians, leading to even more radicalization and cross-generational hatred of the Jews and Israel
  5. Enrage and justify Hezbollah in the north and the Palestinian Authority in the east to launch their own full scale, multifront attacks
  6. Survive and flourish in the wake of the Israeli invasion, thanks to the infeasibility of a mission within a region called “Fallujah on steroids”
  7. Destabilize Israel and its allies, while simultaneously empowering and unifying an otherwise weakened and fractured Arab alliance

Hamas’ attack was merely Stage 1 of a multiphased operation, of which Stage 2, fighting the Israelis within Gaza, has been equally well-planned.

The Israelis are understandably enraged and reacting on impulse, taking Hamas’ bait and blasting into a trap that will likely prove disastrous.

Sadly, the IDF will soon be welcomed by urban guerilla warfare on a scale not seen since WWII. Hostage “negotiations” are already a pipe dream.

Even in a best case scenario, thousands of Israeli soldiers will be killed and wounded, while Hamas continues their bloody retreat to the south.

The path of destruction will embroil hundreds of thousands of Palestinians, creating an unimaginable humanitarian crisis.

Even if Hamas leadership and fighters are all killed, the forces that engendered their power will only increase in the wake of this suffering.

And then what? Any government Israel brings to Gaza will be considered shrills of the Jewish State, with zero legitimacy, spawning more revolt.

That’s the best case scenario — an even worse one involves thousands of rockets launched from Lebanon soon raining down on Tel Aviv, Haifa…

Just the beginning, otherwise fragmented and contentious Arab groups, enraged over the crisis in Gaza, will breach Israel’s compromised defenses.

Most alarming, regardless how this catastrophe plays out, is the magnitude of human suffering about to unfold, already bad, set to get far, far worse.

Tribalism engenders desensitization, spouts absurdities that culminate in atrocities. Lack of empathy and imagination is our species’ scourge.

Doesn’t matter which “side’ you are on: Strategically and tactically, the imminent invasion of Gaza will be a horrifying — and avoidable — disaster.

#tragediesofhistory #takingthebait #doesnthave2bethisway

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Mookie Spitz
Mookie Spitz

Written by Mookie Spitz

Author and communications strategist. His latest book SUPER SANTA is available on Amazon, with a sci fi adventure set for Valentine's Day 2025...

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