On a more military tactical and technical note, I’ve heard well-formulated analyses by political and military analysts etc. (radio, so no readable sources, unfortunately) that conclude that Hamas have planned and considered the current course of action very carefully. Meaning that the recent Hamas excursions into Israel to kill, rape, maim, and abduct civilians are done precisely to make Israel react and overreact in such a way that Hamas can bring the fight to their own home turf and to their advantage. According to what I am being led to understand, urban warfare is among the most complex and dangerous endeavours any military can participate in. The reason being that the advantages of powerful high-tech equipment is largely negated, the attacking soldiers have to get out from their armored vehicles, and we have a situation where the attacker needs to clear the area building by building, room by room, all the time looking out for booby traps, tactical traps, and locate and destroy secret tunnels etc. The defending soldiers, on the other hand, have had lots of time to prepare their positions, tactics, traps, secret tunnels, etc. And given that Hamas seems to have received help from Iran, one would think that this also have included training. In short, there are some very good reasons to think that Hamas wanted Israel to enter Gaza, in order for Hamas to do this war on their terms, giving Israel nothing but disadvantages.
A while ago, during the Trump precidency, I read about these utra-religious “doomsday-promoters”, what made them tick, and how it all fit in with the religious right MAGA-movement in the US (no sources, unfortunately, I seem to have lost the links), and how it fits in like a jigsaw puzzle with anti-abortion legislation, gerrymandering, neo-Jim Crow-laws, and the resurrection of the notion that women should know their place and stay in the home and take care of the kitchen, the kids, and be baby factories. All as part of grand long-term plan to restore some kind of theocracy. Now, I certainly do not want to be or sound conspirational, but if the above have any sort of core truth, it scares the shit out of me, and it illustrates why organized religion is not a force for good.