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A former Israeli officer has admitted to a \u201ccollapse within a year\u201d of Israel if the occupying entity presses ahead with its months-long war against the Palestinian resistance movement Hamas and its Lebanese counterpart, Hezbollah.<\/strong><\/p>\n Israel \u201creally is galloping towards the edge of an abyss. If the war of attrition against Hamas and Hezbollah continues, Israel will collapse within no more than a year,\u201d\u00a0Yitzhak Brik wrote in an opinion piece published by Israeli newspaper\u00a0Haaretz, on Thursday.<\/p>\n Brik cast doubts on claims of Israeli officials about Hamas surrender and that its leader, Yahya Sinwar, would be caught.<\/p>\n Rejecting Israeli officials’ claims regarding Hamas’ surrender and the capture of its leader, Yahya Sinwar, Brik wrote,\u00a0\u201cMost of the pretentious declarations made by defense minister, Yoav Gallant, throughout the war in Gaza have proven to be groundless.\u201d<\/p>\n With these pronouncements, Gallant, along with his colleagues, IDF chief of staff Herzi Halevi and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, has been throwing dust in the eyes of the Israeli public.\u201d<\/p>\n Gallant has begun to realize that \u201cthe concept of total victory in Gaza is nonsense,\u201d and that failure to reach a prisoner exchange deal with Hamas “would lead to a regional war that would put Israel in serious danger,\u201d added the retired officer.<\/p>\n As for a potential prisoner swap deal with Hamas, he said it has \u201cbecome impossible\u201d to achieve what Israel could have gained earlier with a ceasefire deal \u201cdue to the new conditions that Netanyahu introduced into the proposed deal.\u201d<\/p>\n Mediators, including Qatar and Egypt,\u00a0have for months been trying to reach an agreement between Israel and Hamas to ensure a prisoner exchange and ceasefire and allow humanitarian aid to enter Gaza. However, mediation efforts have been stalled due to Netanyahu\u2019s refusal to meet Hamas\u2019s demands to stop the war.<\/p>\n Israel unleashed its relentless war on the besieged Gaza Strip after Operation al-Aqsa Storm, a retaliatory operation staged by Hamas-led resistance groups in reprisal for the regime\u2019s decades-long crimes against Palestinians.<\/p>\n The surprise foray left some 1,200 Israelis dead and 250 others in captivity, among whom more than 60 were killed in Israeli strikes on Gaza.<\/p>\n Hamas has repeatedly said it would release the remaining captives in exchange for a complete cessation of Israeli aggression and the regime\u2019s full withdrawal from the narrow Strip.<\/p>\n It has also conditioned their release on the return of the displaced people, an end to the siege that Tel Aviv has imposed on Gaza.<\/p>\n