Israel on verge of perilous push into Gaza: analysts

JERUSALEM — Israel has opened a new phase in its war on Hamas by expanding ground operations inside Gaza, but analysts warn the campaign is its riskiest in half a century with fallout threatening the whole Middle East.

With Gaza's hospitals and food supplies devastated, Israel's Arab neighbors worry that the images of Palestinian suffering could trigger a pro-Hamas backlash in their own countries. Images of the devastation have fuelled anger in many countries. Now tens of thousands of Israeli soldiers are waiting on the border for the toughest stage of a war that Netanyhu warned would be long and difficult.

Israeli troops have been given special training for urban warfare in the Palestinian territory's narrow rubble-strewn streets and huge network of Hamas underground tunnels that they call the "Gaza metro". Open conflict with Hezbollah could drag in the United States and would mean Israel having to accept "a scale of destruction that it has never experienced before," Rynhold said.

H.A. Hellyer, a security specialist for the Royal United Services Institute in London, said that Israel is not doing enough to head off new war fronts.

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