Judging by the scale of the Israel offensive against Gaza, it is becoming increasingly obvious that the war had been planned long before the end of the six-month truce between Hamas and Israel.

The plan to wage war on Hamas must have been on Israeli drawing board for quite some time now, and all Israeli leaders were waiting for was a pretext, no matter how flimsy or insignificant, to start their military operations.

The driving point behind this Israeli strategy must have been the desire to restore the aura of invincibility after the army’s defeat in the summer of 2006, in Lebanon, at the hands of Hizbollah.

Israel has been itching to uproot Hamas, and found in the end of the ceasefire the opportunity to achieve its military and political objectives, however obscure they are.

Even if Israel emerges triumphant in its war against Hamas, its security and political problems will not simply go away. Israel won a war against the neighbouring Arab countries in 1967, but failed to win security and stability for its people.

If anything, after every military success the Jewish state scores, there are major losses on the political front.

To be sure, the Palestinian crisis has become more complex and difficult to resolve after every military victory Israel achieved over the past decades. Any military confrontation must have certain political objectives, and if they are not achieved, the military victory becomes irrelevant.

But this time around, even though Israel is poised to win militarily against Hamas, it will surely fail to attain its political goals. The Israeli slaughter of Gazans has only served to harden the Arab world, especially the Palestinians, against the Jewish state.

How can Israel hope to attain peace with the Palestinians after killing hundreds of them, mostly children and women? How does it hope to see the Palestinians stretch their hand in peace after indiscriminately massacring the people of Gaza?

If anything, Israel has created a new environment among the Arabs, Palestinians foremost among them, that is hostile to peace. This much its leaders should have been able to figure out before they decided to execute their military plan against Gaza.

For all intents and purposes, the region is back to square one when it comes to peace. The pictures of the Palestinians killed and injured in Gaza are going to haunt the entire region for many years to come. This is where Israel has already lost the war in Gaza.