https://x.com/SpencerGuard/status/1897479946769195375
Here's the full tweet for those without access.
I strongly disagree with any positions that says the IDF tried military force to destroy Hamas, failed, and if they try again they would continue to fail. This completely lacks context of what occurred over the last 16 months or the context of March 2025. 1) Thanks to Arab nations, especially Egypt, the IDF was forced to fight battles against Hamas with civilians within the operating environment, moving them area by area or into expanded humanitarian zones rather than completely out of the operating environment such as into an IDP camp in the Sinai. Hamas used the population and hostages as human shields and created safe havens in Gaza where the IDF did not even go once. 2) The IDF was politically constrained and threatened by nations like the U.S. to not send weapons or to not protect Israel if attacked during many phases from to not to go into Rafah for months, demanding civilian casualties be reduced to zero, demanding bombing of military targets be reduced because of perceptions, demanding halts in operations beyond daily 4 plus hour pauses because of humanitarian concerns based unverified data, to even use less amounts of forces in the beginning of the war and then later in Rafah. 3) The IDF were constrained on force power by having to split its forces and supplies to Northern Israel as Hezbollah attacked and threatened large scale ground attack, add Houthis attacking, Iran attacking, Shiite backed groups of Iraq. If the IDF restarts operations against Hamas, they will have more political support from the U.S., there is a strong possibility of moving civilians completely out of harms way, there is a possible call up of greater IDF forces than were used the entire war in Gaza so far, new leadership, resupplies of weapons, more support for the defense of Israel against attack, battle trained IDF forces. Hamas is also not the Hamas of October 2023 - February 2024 with 5 brigades, 24 battalions, 20,000 rockets, fully stocked units, decades of experienced leaders, trained forces, defensive positions. It is now an trained, poorly led, guerrilla forces equipped with small to medium weapons, improvised explosives, unable to form large units for attack and defense. Yes, the IDF would have to approach the war differently, They would have to actually seize and clear terrain, not the raiding in and out they have done for most of the war. It was not until the later months of 2024 did the IDF conduct methodical clearing in Northern Gaza for instance. Then, they would have to hold areas to prevent Hamas rebuilding even as guerrilla forces as seen in the last 16 months. In summary, yes Hamas can absolutely be defeated with military force and everything is different.
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