WATCH: 'Hamas has declared war on Israel. We didn’t want it, but we will finish it on our terms'

Maayan Hoffman, Deputy CEO - Strategy and Innovation of the Jerusalem Post Group, and Zvika Klein, Deputy Editor-in-Chief and Jewish World analyst, discuss Israel’s goals in the Hamas war with Mark Regev, former ambassador and advisor to the Prime Minister.

“Hama launched a war that in its scope, size, intensity, and ferocity was above and beyond anything we have seen in the past. Hamas has declared war on Israel. We didn’t want it.  But if they’ve started it, we will finish it on our terms.”

Regev says that the war will be difficult and will not be a short conflict. “It will take an effort and a commitment to get this done, and it will not be easy,” he points out. He adds that while Hamas has been compared to ISIS, in many ways, it is more dangerous because, unlike Islamic State, it has a state sponsor – Iran. 

While some have called for a cease-fire, Regev says a “band-aid” solution would not be successful. If Israel were to do that, “Hamas would attack again, and we would be back to square one. They launched the war, and we will finish it with a new reality in Gaza, in which there will no longer be a terror organization with the will or capability to carry out this attack that we saw.”

Regev adds that despite the unprecedented internal polarization of Israeli society that preceded the conflict, ultimately, Israeli citizens have a common bond and trajectory. “We are facing people who don’t care how we vote. They want to kill us because we are Israelis and are Jews.”