I think we need to prepare for lots of shocks in the coming months that, in retrospect were there to see.
Israel lost this war. Despite claiming for 20 years that Tzahal could be small because there was no fear of a major land invasion and that the priorities were Hamas and Hezbollah, when Hamas actually attacks it took the army three weeks to figure out how to invade Hamas. If they didn't have a plan in place, what were they doing for 20 years?
Consider in retrospect what would've happened if Hezbollah had launched a simultaneous invasion on Oct 7. Just like the Syrians miraculously stopped in 1973 before overrunning the Galil, Hezbollah inexplicably didn't jump into the fight. Had they, one can only assume they'd have overrun Metullah and a good chunk of the Galil.
And now, after 16 months of fighting, it's hard to ignore "Israeli forces engage Hamas in..." and the same place names appearing over and over again. We were told that pretty much all of Hamas' active forces were wiped out. Who are the 1000's of terrorist in uniform? And after 16 months, why are there still so many tunnels in full operation?
And remember - Tzahal never entered more than 50% of Gaza and never established firm control, even according to their reports, of more than 30%. It took 6 days in 1967 to take the whole thing.
My horrible suspicion is that we were so desperate to cheer for our side, we missed that other than blowing up a few tunnels and lots of apartment buildings, Tzahal accomplished precious little. Meanwhile, through its humiliation of the hostages as they're released along with Israel begging for specific ones and being denied, Hamas has rebuilt its leadership role in Gaza and is going to soon start getting ready for another assault in a couple of years.