☕️ Some midnight thoughts (not really)

When trying to assess the current situation in Gaza and Lebanon, you come to a few conclusions that are very important and show how the future is being shaped.

I'll put as, carved by a knife who no one controls.

Not recalling all the points I wanted to share, but it's clear now that the situation in Gaza has progressed badly for Hamas in terms of what is lost and to a lesser extent Israel to what it have not gained and how it lost more than it planned to.

I'm not minimizing what the Israeli army and state is suffering, but to highlight some points, the losses are focused on the:
- Expenses in this war that broke all planned finances
- Economic toll caused by the tens of thousands of reservists leaving their work and businesses
- Relative exhaustion of the Israeli army who isn't rotating its forces
- Higher than sought for casualties
- Need to replenish stocks

These will be the major factor why the Israeli government might be forced to pull out of a much needed ground confrontation with Lebanon, because the Israeli society could not handle additional crippling nor the economy and the army. It's not easy to shift focus from the south to the north.

But despite all that, and I honestly still think the Israeli losses are very acceptable, the army achievement tremendous success in Gaza.

To make that point clear, the success is simply what it achieved in terms of what it intended and what damages it inflicted against its enemy. To Israel, that's the Palestinians.

To start to elaborate this point frankly, let's assume the war ended now. Where is Gaza and where is Hamas. To answer that, we can see that:
- Catastrophic destruction in all Gaza, that prohibits the displaced from going home for many years to come
- Crippling economic losses unprecedented for Gaza
- Loss of most/all civil institutes for services needed and loss of infrastructure (electricity, water, etc)

These will keep tens of thousands if not hundreds of thousands of Gazans displaced like refugees away from their homes, especially the north, and that's assuming the Israeli army withdraws from Gaza fully. There is unimaginable material losses.

The Israeli army punished everyone wickedly. But that aside, assuming funds move in fast and Gaza is able to be rebuilt and pain elevated, what was the actual impact of the Israeli military campaign on Hamas and PIJ.

Before that, just wanted to note that it took Lebanon 6 years to fully rebuild what was destroyed in the 2006 war, and that's despite Iran sending billions of dollars. Literally trucks shipping crates of fresh crisp USD. Gaza will not be able to enjoy such luxury, neither could Hezbullah anymore that easily. Times have changed.

Today, the death toll in Gaza stands at 20,000 worth about 40-50k injured. Of the 20,000 deaths there are about 6,000 confirmed men. Additionally, there are several hundred Palestinians killed in Israel during 7-October.

This excluding a few thousand under rubble and many (hundreds) of lives unaccounted for. To put it roughly, Hamas and PIJ (a much smaller resistance group) has suffered immensely in terms of manpower, especially nukhba (better trained fighters) and loss extensively in material and assets. That's evident and anyone assuming else is delusional.

These losses will be a major factor that will force Gaza to calm for some time, and cripple its own special role had a multi-front war start. That war is one were Hezbullah is the one all in. To rebuild, the lost stocks of cash, weapons, machinery, tunnels, everything..it's hard to assess how long they will take. A lot to say at least.

Gaza neither has the cash nor the open borders to accelerate the rebuilding of the resistance, a luxury Hezbullah had but Hamas never did.

This brings to mind, a question on how Hezbullah's leadership is reasoning this war and how they assess the limited involvement (its not limited, 120+ martyrs rose) is satisfactory, despite the probability of losing Hamas, if its leadership is killed and fighters diminished.