Hamas wants to or needs to count coup to declare victory. They have been making threats from Damascus and Gaza in the last week about what they would do to Israeli soldiers if Israel proceeded with a ground assault. Hamas needs to kill numbers of Israeli soldiers. They need to destroy some tanks. They would love to capture some soldiers and hold them, like their recent threat to capture a female soldier so she and Shalit could start a family.

Up until now, about 24 hours into the ground assault, nothing like this has been reported. One soldier is reported killed, due to a mortar attack, and a few dozen reported wounded. Israel reports a few dozen terrorists killed. Israel says that the resistance is less than expected. There have been no reports of massive land mines or use of anti-tank missiles. However, Hamas is reported to be fighting from fortifications in the North.

Curiously it seems that Israel’s forces are only or mostly in northern Gaza. One might expect them to try to secure the Philadelphi corridor. Possible reasons for this are that they want to concentrate their forces and work from the North of Gaza towards the south. They didn’t call up large numbers of reserves until the ground assault started so maybe they didn’t have enough forces to invade the entire strip at once. Also, they might want to push civilians southward in order to clear the battlefield of civilians. Reports say that Israel hasn’t entered built up areas. Apparently Hamas is expecting to make a stand in Gaza city and Israel hasn’t entered Gaza city as of yet.

In the end the terrorists may win by not losing but if Israel does get a long period of complete quiet afterwards they may call that a victory. Also, Gaza has become a zero-sum game for Hamas and Fatah. It’s within the realm of possibility the Fatah will fill the vacuum afterwards.