On war – Amos Harel:

‘The State of Israel has been at war since Saturday morning. Hamas initiated an effective, sudden attack that caught the Israeli intelligence organizations completely by surprise and shattered the operational defense doctrine on the Gaza Strip border.
There is a large number, which has yet to be finally determined, of dead and wounded on the Israeli side. According to reports in Gaza, a considerable number of hostages and corpses have been brought there from Israel.’

(…)

‘The Israeli response – at this time and even more so in the days to come – will exact a high price in blood on the Palestinian side. However, Gaza is not the only arena that could go up in flames. Though the IDF is now concentrating forces on the southern front, it must also consider that fighting could develop on multiple fronts. These could include the West Bank, East Jerusalem and possibly also Hezbollah in the north and also extremist Arab elements within Israel proper. Hezbollah is eyeing developments and weighing its options. Presumably Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah’s trigger finger is itchy.
The historical comparison in this case is inevitable. It is sad to say this: The Israeli konzeptzia (the term for the mistaken concept of its defense doctrine as infallible became known after 1973’s Yom Kippur War) has collapsed – with respect to policy, deployment of forces for defense, preparedness for a surprise attack and the total absence of any intelligence alert.’

(…)

‘The trouble is that Israel is entering this from an unprecedented internal crisis in which the government’s extremist and insane conduct has dictated an agenda in the framework of which the state has been focusing on all the wrong things. This does not absolve the professional levels of civil responsibility, but it will definitely make the functioning of the country harder during the difficult days ahead.
Hamas learned its lessons from Operation Protective Edge in the summer of 2014 and prepared accordingly. During that campaign, even though it tried to send militants out through tunnels, the organization failed in almost all its efforts as most of the attacks crashed against the Israeli army’s defense forces. This time, there have been attacks on military outposts, which were at a relatively low level of readiness and with forces deployed only to a limited extent.’

(…)

‘Moreover, the barrier Israel built by means of a tremendous defensive wall against tunnels did not help. It was simply circumvented. The voices emerging from inhabitants of the Israeli communities – some of them literally occupied by Hamas – are heartbreaking. This drama is unfolding live on national television as the entire nation watches and sees what is happening. The long-term consequences – for the Israeli settlements along the Gaza border, relations between Israel and the Palestinians, and also perhaps the entire region – will be massive.’

(…)

‘The nightmare scenario to come will not necessarily end in Gaza. Things will quite possibly also spill over into the other arenas. As noted, all of this has caught Israel at a bad time domestically. This was possibly part of the calculation by Hamas, which assumed it is possible to exploit the Israeli weakness.
In light of the grave intelligence failure, it is impossible to rule out the assumption that we do not know what is happening on other fronts. Has there been a coordinated move with Hezbollah and Iran here? Is Hezbollah waiting for Israel to waste a large part of its Iron Dome missile defense rockets before it too joins the fight? Presumably Israel is now sending very severe warnings via various channels to Tehran, Damascus and Beirut.’

(…)
‘Exactly as happened 50 years ago, the surprise came on a Shabbat. When the day of rest is over, the mouthpieces will begin the battle for control of the narrative: the Shin Bet security service is to blame; Military Intelligence is to blame; the chief of staff is to blame; the protest is to blame. Those demonstrations will stop now until the war is over, and rightly so. At its conclusion, it will be impossible to avoid the big question: What happened to us, and how did we fall into such a murderous trap?’

Read the article here.

1973, maybe. According to Esther Salomon it’s more 1948

Hamas managed to unify the Israeli population, to a certain extent, and for the moment at least.

It might be true that the Hamas operation was much more successful than Hamas anticipated and that as Harel (and others) stated Israel will respond ‘with very few restrictions’ and will bring ‘diaster’ to Hamas and the people living in Gaza.

After the Yom Kipur war the peace treaty followed between Sadat and Begin, but I don’t see how this will lead to peace or any solution that resembles peace.

Hezbollah has threatened to attack Israel if Israel starts a ground operation in Gaza, which was just approved by the Israeli government. Whether these are just words, we’ll see, but the possibility of a regional war remains wide open.

(Abductions of Israeli soldiers led to the last Lebanon-war in 2006. After that the Lebanese-Israeli border has been remarkably quiet)

Also, it’s not clear if Iran, which is a Hamas sponsor, will be attacked or will attack, directly or through proxies in Lebanon and Syria.

Is this going to be paradigm shift? I'm doubtful. If, most probably for the intelligent community in Israel.

Politically?

The Saudi-Israeli negotiations might come to an end, but discrete collaboration will continue.

A lot of blood will be spilled, and as often is the case, after that not much of the status quo of October 6, 2023 will have been changed.

Some people will say: deterioration is restored.

What it means for the situation inside Israel is a completely other question.