. >> he is an associate fellow for the royal united services inst institute. he joins me now from brisbane, australia. good to have you with us. people are still very mystified by the unpreparedness of the intelligence and security services of israel. so what i wonder, is this a case of people overestimating security services or did israel underestimate hamas? >> i think the letter, israel holds hamas in fairly poor regard. this is a tactical surprise. not a strategic surprise. bear in mind, israel has a strategy called mowing the launch means regular wars, or small wars against hamas. there has been seven since 2008. it was just a matter of time before there was another one. it's a tactical surprise as far as the scale of the attack and the timing of it. that has clearly shocked the israelis. >> how long can hamas keep this up now? the israeli prime minister has basically declared war, not basically. he has declared war on hamas. and the potential of the israeli ground offensive. are they prepared to confront that? >> so i think that hamas has been chasing a