FROM OUR CORRESPONDENT IN GAZA

“THIS IS HOW you launch an offensive,” the Ukrainian officer watching events in Gaza and Israel told me by video-link from Kyiv. “The Israelis will probably win in the end, but at least they will know they have fought an army with a real plan.”

Early Palestinian success is likely to be reversed with a high price exacted by Israel, but the propaganda value of what is happening will reverberate here for years. And then there are the hostages. If Israel has to release Palestinian prisoners to get back its own soldiers and citizens, then its once impregnable armor will have been seriously dented. Gaza being pummeled by Israeli jets is situation-normal for its millions of inhabitants. Hamas fighters in charge of Israeli settlements, shooting soldiers and citizens, and destroying Israeli tanks, that is not situation-normal for Israel. That’s a nightmare.

And of course behind it all, pulling strings, is Iran.