Why Israel Is Not Trying To Destroy Hamas

Smoke: The aftermath of a reported Israeli air strike today in Rafah, which has been pummeled by the military for days in the escalating Gaza conflict

Senior IDF Official: We Could've Taken Down Hamas In 10 Days -- YNet News

Army says Hamas was left in power so that one organization could be held accountable for terrorist attacks coming from Gaza.

The IDF did not take over the Gaza Strip or worked to completely destroy Hamas in order to leave an organization in power that would have to answer for terrorism in the Strip, a senior IDF source said on Sunday.

"There's an Israeli interest to have one address in Gaza, we don't want a Somalization in the Strip, but rather one group to enforce its control of the Strip. This is why the collapse of Hamas was not defined as one of the objectives," the senior source said.

"We wanted to have an address on the other side on the day after. This address could be the enforcer against militants and take care of its citizens," he added.

The senior source said that if the objective was to take down Hamas, the IDF could've easily have taken over the Gaza Strip within 10 days, and taken another year or two to search for and destroy terror infrastructure.

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My Comment: If they want to hold Hamas accountable .... it is not working. This conflict has revealed that Hamas has limited (if any) control over the more radical groups .... they do what they want knowing that Hamas is not in a position (or unwilling) to stop them.