What do Hamas and Israel see as the endgame? What would ‘victory’ look like?
JERUSALEM — Israeli troops and armor are massed on the periphery of the Gaza Strip. Hamas fighters, ensconced in tunnels deep beneath the ravaged coastal enclave, boast that they stand ready to inflict huge losses on invaders.
A potential ground offensive in Gaza, which Israeli leaders have signaled could begin at any time against the militant group Hamas, poses a perhaps unanswerable question for both sides: What would victory even look like?
“It’s hard to think of this in terms of an endgame,” said Tareq Baconi, author of a recent book on Hamas and a visiting scholar at Columbia University’s Middle East Institute. “It’s anyone’s guess now — including Hamas — what the endgame is.”
The utter unpredictability of the course of Israel’s confrontation with Hamas came into horrifying relief Tuesday when a fiery blast enveloped a hospital in Gaza City that was packed with Palestinian civilians seeking shelter from ongoing airstrikes, killing hundreds.
Israel denied responsibility, saying the cause
