Why no ground attack?

Received via email from David G.

In all the hysteria about the four boys who were killed under mysterious circumstances, there's a huge story that's been missed. From the New York Times:

“Every day that passes makes the possibility more evident,” the military official said of a ground campaign. The official, who has been briefing Israeli ministers responsible for strategic decisions and spoke on the condition of anonymity under military protocol, said that his assessment was based on “the signals I get” and that the likelihood of an invasion was “very high.”

“We can hurt them very hard from the air but not get rid of them,” he told a handful of international journalists in a briefing at the military’s Tel Aviv headquarters. An Israeli takeover of Gaza would not be “a huge challenge,” he said, estimating that it would take “a matter of days or weeks.” But he added that preventing a more dangerous deterioration in the territory would require a presence “of many months.”

The stark assessment came as Israel bombed scores of targets, many of them homes in northern Gaza, after warning 100,000 residents via leaflets, text messages and automated telephone calls to evacuate by 8 a.m. Palestinian health officials said that more than 1,500 people had been injured since the Israeli operation began July 8, and that several young children, including four boys on a beach, were killed in strikes on Wednesday.

But there was no ground campaign. No escalation today. Why not?

Ron Ben Yishai:

Israeli defense chiefs were also surprised at the lackluster response to IDF leaflets and electronic messages warning residents of neighborhoods in northern Gaza to evacuate. The IDF informed the more than 100,000 people in these areas that it was preparing to attack and they should leave to avoid harm. Of the 120,000 or so people in those neighborhoods, just 20,000 took shelter in UNRWA facilities. The majority remained in their homes following Hamas threats. If they did leave, Hamas announced, it would settle the score with them after the war.

Hamas also instructed UN refugee agency UNRWA not to open its facilities as shelters for those fleeing the neighborhoods that received IDF warnings. UNRWA officials refused, and it is likely that Hamas will seek to settle accounts with them as well after the operation.

“The key problem is that Gazans are more afraid of disobeying Hamas than they are of disregarding IDF warnings.”

If Israel had gone ahead with its (apparently) intended attack hundreds would have died. But they didn't. And instead we have Shepard Smith asking Mark Regev how he can deal with the crying mother, because four boys died. (The circumstances under which they died are not 100% clear, but still "journalists" are all too preoccupied on attributing to Israeli bloodthirstiness.)

Hmmm.