In my last post I pointed out that Israel's reserve mobilisation of 360k troops is not just the largest Israel has ever done but is the largest of any country (including Russia's recent one) since WWII. I don't count Ukraine's general mobilisation as that is of untrained civilians rather than trained and equipped reserves.
I also pointed out that just 120-160k troops would give Israel a 4:1 numerical advantage over Hamas.
I now look at the qualitative difference and what Israel is going to do with the other 200k reserves called up.
An Israeli soldier (male or female) is equipped with the most advanced equipment, backed by all the ISR, communications and firepower support of a very advanced army and extremely high motivation fighting for homeland. It is a far more powerful package soldier-on-soldier than a Hamas Hizbollah fighter.
This is demonstrated most recently by the fact that once the IDF woke up from the initial surprise and confusion it killed 1500 infiltrators within 36 hours with minimal losses.
And this superiority at the individual soldier level is multiplied many times by the fact that Hamas and Hizbollah (unlike the Arabs in 1967 & 1973) are not proper balanced military forces with tanks, armoured fighting vehicles, mobile artillery, airpower, naval firepower etc etc.
By contrast Israel has the best and most modern tanks in the world. The new Barak (Mervaka V) has just been made operational and even the Mervakava IV is more advanced than all Western tanks and almost all Russian ones.
[A young me with a Mervaka IV]
Just as importantly Hamas and Hizbollah have no superpower or even great power providing wartime resupply and backup. Very different from Arab armies backed by the might of the USSR in 1967 & 1973.
Iran is at best a middle power with limited military manufacturing capability that is highly skewed to asymmetric warfare. It has virtually no modern tanks or air force, no substantial mechanised armoured fighting vehicles, mobile artillery etc. It has missiles, drones and some air defence of domestic production but not much else. It is at the end of a very long and tenuous supply route that may work in peacetime but is quickly put out of action in wartime - See Syria's international airports out of action.
Syria and Lebanon are failed states with no serious military capability. Syria's once powerful armoured forces have been completely attrited by 8 years of civil war.
Egypt has a powerful but completely US supplied army that can't fight Israel, even if they wanted to (no spare parts of re-supply and kill switch software).
Jordan has a small US supplied army with the same problem.
Russia is completely busy with Ukraine and has no spare capacity (even if it had interest) and has a strategic position in Latika in Syria that is indefensible against IDF armoured attack. It would be overrun within 48 hours of a single Merkava IV division attacking. Russia is being surprisingly balanced and simply cannot afford to make Israel an enemy. Israel is the only advanced military power to have not invaded Russia at some point. There is no historic enemity and 20% of Israel's population is Russian.
The only semi-great power that may support the terrorists is Turkey, but its strength is primarily naval and 2 US carriers in the Eastern Med should discourage interference.
In addition, the Israeli Air Force would make quick work of the Turkish navy if it came within range of Israel with hostile intent.
Turkey's land forces field low grade tanks (old US ones renovated by Israel) and are already in a land war in Northern Syria that they are struggling with. No way they can project land power through that hostile environment to threaten Israel with their weak land forces.
Moreover conflict with Israel would so weaken Turkey that the Greeks and Greek Cypriots would take the opportunity to settle old scores.
Even if Saudi and the Gulf States were to turn against Israel their military power is weak (couldn't defeat Yemen) and is again US dependent. They can't fight Israel.
Also they are completely dependent on oil and gas exports that Israel could easily take out if it wanted to with no negative effect on itself (and maybe even benefit as Israel is a major gas exporter).
At the end of the day, no country other than Iran will support Hamas and Hizbollah with re-supply or direct attack and Iran's ability support is very limited by distance and inherent capability.
So Hamas and Hizbollah are completely isolated in a real military sense (as opposed to irrelevant protests and random support terrorism).
The Arab street is all noise and no substance, more danger to their host countries than to Israel and already provoking harsh host country response (see eg France)
Iran, Hizbollah and Hamas's core, existential problem is that they have pushed terrorism and asymmetric warfare far beyond its fundamental limits.
In the real full scale total warfare that they now face they are at a massive disadvantage on every measure and face total annihilation.
It will take the IDF time (at least 2-3 months based on Russia in Mariopol) but time is on Israel's side.
The only obstacle to total Israeli victory is the USA, which may try to prevent Israel doing what it needs to do.
But America desperately needs a victory after the Afghanistan and Ukraine debacles.
Also the utter brutality and inhumanity of Hamas has already led them to being correctly designated as worse than ISIS and deserving of total destruction.
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