Nevertheless, he added, Mr. Netanyahu has in the past rejected calls to send thousands of troops into Gaza to try to destroy armed Palestinian groups like Hamas, given the cost and the inevitable question of what happens the day after.
“But the psychological impact of this for Israel is similar to 9/11,” he said. “So the calculus about cost could be quite different this time.”
The question will always be what happens afterward, said Mark Heller, a senior researcher at Israel’s Institute for National Security Studies. Nearly every year there have been limited Israeli military operations in the occupied territories, but they have not provided any solutions.
“There is a lot of heavy pressure already for a large-scale incursion, to ‘finish with Hamas,’ but I don’t think it will solve anything in the longer run,” Mr. Heller said.
