To anyone who has been following the conflict in Gaza so far, the gap between the opposing forces is astonishing. So much so, indeed, that almost the only way to describe it is by using superlatives. On one hand we see what can only be described as a juggernaut. One armed with the most modern, most powerful weapons and weapon systems in the world today; including artillery barrels, armored personnel carriers, and tanks (the latest Israeli tank, known as Merkava IV, is literally the heaviest, best-protected, in the world today); and covered from the air by what is widely believed to be the best air force in the world today. All defended from above by the most advanced anti-missile systems in the world today; all preceded by huge bulldozers fully capable of reducing anything in front of them to rubble; and all linked by inconceivably complicated, if largely hidden, networks of computers and communications produced by one of the digitally most advanced societies in the world today.

Now look at the other side. Men (not women, incidentally), many of them dressed not in uniform but in ordinary civilian clothes. Some wear steel helmets, but most do not. Some drive vehicles such as the famed Toyota Highlanders, but most must go on foot; given the extent of Israel’s technological and numerical superiority, as well as its command of the air, catching a ride in Gaza is bad for one’s health and can easily become deadly. Small crews of missile-launchers apart, very few Hamasniks—that is what Israelis call them—possess heavy weapons of any kind. The weapons they do possess consist mainly of assault rifles, hand grenades, anti-tank rockets and missiles, mines, and booby traps.

Nor is it a question of technological superiority alone. On one hand there stands a regular, well organized and well trained army counting almost 600,000 mobilized men and women; on the other, a semi-clandestine organization numbering, as far as anyone can make out, a few tens of thousands fighters. On one hand a state which, though small in size, surrounds its enemy on three sides. On the other, a heavily populated piece of land just 41 kilometers long and nowhere more than 12 kilometers wide—a distance that, given a little determination and a little drive, can easily be covered in half an hour.

To repeat, the gap between the opposing forces, the result of years of work during which each side prepared as best he could, can only be called astonishing. Such being the case, how to explain the fact that, after more than a month of ferocious fighting, the side with all the advantages had still not managed to decisively defeat the other?

Follows a very short review of some of the factors involved:

Surprise. Surprise, by confusing the opponent and degrading his ability to react, has always played a prominent part in war. Never more so than in this case when even Israel’s vaunted air force taken unawares, needed hours and hours before it finally got its aircraft to the point where they started fighting back. Indeed it could be argued that, by sounding the alarm and alerting all sides to the dangers that the Israeli-Palestinian impasse poses to world peace, Hamas’ offensive had achieved its main objective almost as soon as it got under way.

War on several fronts. Throughout the month-long war, in- and out of Israel, both participants and observers have focused their attention almost exclusively on the Gaza Strip. That is understandable, but it does not change the fact that Israel was fighting on several fronts. Including its border with Lebanon, and including some Houthi missiles coming from as far as Yemen a thousand or so miles to the south. Other IDF forces had to be kept in readiness lest the Palestinians in the West Bank—to the extent that they were able—as well as Syria, Jordan, and Iran join in the battle. Now Israel, owing to its small size, has always been lacking in strategic depth; like Germany (West) during the Cold War, but to a much greater degree, it simply does not have territory it can afford to give up. Willy nilly a cardinal principle of war, namely the concentration of forces, had to be violated.

Urban warfare. The Gaza strip is home to an estimated 2,300,000 people—in truth, no one knows. It is one of the most heavily urbanized regions on earth, second only to places such as Hong Kong and Singapore. As the recent months-long battle for Bakhmut, in Ukraine, has shown once again, urban terrain presents the defender with many advantages. Including the ability to fight not in two dimensions but in three—witness the 300-mile long network of underground corridors Hamas has constructed. And including also the practically unlimited opportunity to find cover. Conversely, the maze of streets and alleys limits the attacker’s ability to maneuver as well as bring up supplies and reinforcements on one hand and evacuate his wounded on the other. Fought at extremely close range among every kind of obstacle, such warfare can also rob an attacker of at least some of any technological advantages he may possess.

The war’s asymmetric character. Here is a story told of American Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara early in the Vietnam War. Asked why the US Air Force did not knock out North Vietnam’s electricity network, he explained that the entire network in question was smaller than that of Alexandria, VA, a suburb of Washington, DC. As such it had been knocked out several times already, to no visible effect either on urban terrorism or on guerrilla operations in the countryside. Ere the current war got under way Gaza’s per capita GDP only amounted to just 7 percent of that of Israel.  Calculated in terms of per capita consumption of electricity, the difference is larger still. In other words, the reason why the Palestinians, like so many others before them since at least 1945, are able to hold out and even emerge victorious is because they have nothing to lose.

The need to minimize casualties. Taking 1948 as the starting point Israel’s Jewish population has grown tenfold, far more than that of any other developed country. Still it is a small and intimate society; as anyone who visits these days will soon notice, people are extremely reluctant to suffering casualties.

Finally, international pressure. Strangely enough, Israel is the world’s only country that is not permitted to win its wars. Time upon time—in 1948 (the war of independence), in 1956 (the Suez campaign), in 1967 (when the US prohibited it from crossing the Jordan River to the east) and in 1973 (when it had to ab abandon its hold on the encircled Egyptian Third Army as well as some of the land it had conquered) international pressure forced it to relinquish some of the fruits of its victories. With the exception of the 1973 War, which later led to peace with Egypt, in each case the outcome was to enable Israel’s enemies to rearm and steer their way to another war.

In seeking a way to finally put an end to the conflict, let the world take care lest the pattern be repeated.