AP Photo

The end result of Operation Cast Lead, last year's conflict between Israel and Hamas in the Gaza Strip, was quite clear. During three weeks of fighting over December 2008 and January 2009, more than 1,300 Palestinians and 13 Israelis were killed and at least 2,500 houses in the strip were demolished. There is an ongoing debate about the number of armed Palestinians killed, but even Hamas does not contest that hundreds of its men died, among them three of the Islamist organization's senior leaders. The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) penetrated to the heart of the strip -- the center of Gaza City, where most of Hamas's major compounds are located. The organization's defensive infrastructure, which had been painstakingly built over three years and included hundreds of booby-trapped houses,...