Hamas claims that it has a standing army of 50,000 in the Gaza Strip, in anticipation of a large-scale Israeli ground invasion aimed at curbing Palestinian rocket attacks on southern Israel.

The Hamas website said that “50,000 fighters, armed and brave in the battlefield” have been deployed, including some 400 suicide bombers, half of whom are women, whose mission is to attack Israeli tanks and armored vehicles.

The Israeli military believes the Hamas army totals 10 to 20,000, which is still much more than the 5,000 Hizbollah fighters Israel was unable to defeat in last year’s Lebanon War.

Hamas has been the recipient of the same weapons and Iranian- style training that made Hizbollah such a formidable battlefield foe last year. Hamas captured massive amounts of CIA-supplied weapons when it routed Fatah forces in the Gaza civil war last June. And now it’s smuggling in tons of weapons through tunnels under the porous border with Egypt, including explosives, ammunition, anti-tank and anti-aircraft missiles, and longer range rockets.

This rearmament is a direct result of Israel’s pullout from Gaza two years ago, when it abandoned the volatile Philadelphi Corridor, despite dire warnings from the army. Israel’s presence on the Gaza-Egypt order enabled the army to curb most of the weapons smuggling. Now, the army says there is an “underground city” of weapons smuggling tunnels.

Israeli defense officials say a major Gaza offensive is just a matter of time. But it’s been postponed time and again because of fears of heavy casualties among both soldiers and Palestinian civilians, and because of so-called “peace” moves.

In the meantime, Hamas is arming to the teeth and building heavily fortified bunkers.

Israel has a formidable, but visible military machine, but when it comes\ to guerrilla warfare, the home team has the advantage.