Former Shin Bet chief and Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee Chair Avi Dichter said that a major IDF ground operation in Gaza which could take as long as three years is necessary to completely wipe out Hamas and Islamic Jihad terror, according to a Jerusalem Post report on Monday.

Dichter, speaking at the ICT-IDC Herzliya conference on Monday, added that although he wishes that a diplomatic solution to terror from Gaza would be possible, he thinks it’s completely unlikely. He compared the length of the operation necessary – as long as three years – to Israel’s ongoing operation in the West Bank in the wake of the Second Intifada.

Following Israel’s withdrawal from Gaza in 2006, the coastal enclave was soon taken over by Hamas, and Israel has engaged in three wars with the terror organization since then. Operation Protective Edge, the most recent war which took place in 2014, lasted seven weeks and was the IDF’s longest operation in the area.

(YWN World Headquarters – NYC)