General Robert Abrams said it’s unlikely Israel will be able to accomplish their purported goal of eliminating Hamas while also protecting Palestinian civilians.
Retired US General Robert Adams sounded a note of pessimism early Sunday when asked by US media for his thoughts on Israel’s ongoing military action in the besieged Gaza Strip.
“I think it’s going to be what I would consider nearly impossible, to destroy Hamas, to eliminate their capability to do harm to Israel and Israeli people, while simultaneously protecting what some people have estimated as to be a million Palestinians who are in harm’s way and they can’t get out of harm’s way,” said Adams in an interview on US television.
Adams noted the difficulty of Israel’s objective given the complex urban terrain of Gaza.
“This is going to be a very difficult task for the Israeli Defense Forces, that the defense that Hamas will put up in that very dense urban terrain, unlike anything that we’ve seen in recent years, is going to require some very siege fighting, and simultaneously trying to ensure that the Israelis do not target unwittingly the locations of the hostages,” said Adams.