Israel’s offensive against Hamas enters its crucial stage

ON DECEMBER 1st Israel embarked on what could be the most crucial stage in its . Its week-long truce with Hamas early that morning and its forces began to converge on the Islamist movement’s main remaining strongholds throughout the coastal strip. The tactics will be different in this phase but to many watching the mounting Palestinian death toll, that will be of little relevance. Israel is acutely aware that time and support for its offensive in Gaza are running out—and that it has an impossible set of aims to achieve before that happens.