Israeli officer admits to underestimating Gaza resistance

A senior Israeli army intelligence official has admitted that Israel underestimated the determination of Gaza resistance forces and did not expect a 50-day conflict to last so long, but he insisted they were soundly beaten.

“If you’d asked me two months ago, I wouldn’t assess that it’s going to take us 50 days,” the official told journalists in English at a briefing in Tel Aviv late yesterday.

“It’s a tactical assessment mistake, but it’s a mistake,” said the official, speaking on condition of anonymity.

He said the training of some Hamas members had impressed him.

“They were in pretty good shape and pretty well trained,” he said of amphibious commando-style raids by Hamas members on Israeli shores.

The official however claimed the Hamas members were trained outside of the Gaza Strip.

He also claimed Hamas, the main power in Gaza, and it fellow movement, the Islamic Jihad 'were soundly beaten.'

“We think they are in very bad shape,” he said, suggesting that two-thirds of the Palestinian movements' rocket stores had been wiped out and several hundred of them killed.