None of the answers here have properly addressed or acknowledged “Palestine’s” military capabilities, so I will do my best to summarize in layman’s terms. First, one would have to define what constitutes a “full war.” The Palestinians have never engaged in Israel in a conventional conflict, outside limited battles and of course the first Arab-Israeli conflict.
Also critical to note, virtually every other military interaction historically between Israel and Palestine - or whoever represented Palestinian forces - was triggered by Arab actions. The Israeli’s have never preemptively targeted and moved against Palestinian forces without some precipitating event organized by the Palestinians. This is important to note, as a reactive operation is much different than say, a planned, offensive operation. The Palestinians get to choose the battlefield and day when the conflict starts, not Israel. The Israeli’s would never engage in a total war against Palestine unless prompted to by active, legitimate military threats.
The first borderline - and only real example of a conventional engagement between the PLO and IDF - occurred during the Lebanon Civil War:
PLO forces
Israeli
Battle of the Beaufort (1982) - Wikipedia
Keep in mind the Palestinians rarely wore uniforms and always combined some elements of asymmetrical warfare. For example, in Beirut the Palestinians militarized protected areas and Arafat hide deep in heavily-populated areas.
After suffering humiliating defeats against IDF, Syrian, and Lebanese armies, the PLO returned to an exclusively asymmetrical-oriented war-fighting behavior ala ISIS, Taliban, Al Qaeda, etc. Generally going after soft-targets - civilians for example - and avoiding direct confrontations with military personnel.
If the Israeli’s fought like the Russians or Syrians, Palestinian forces - in terms of their military capabilities - would be obliterated in a matter of days, and the civilian population forcibly displaced.
However, the Israeli’s don’t operate in such a manner, thus Hamas and its affiliates/allies have established their military infrastructure predicated on IDF’s limited rules of engagement. You can find Israel’s legal and military philosophy here:
http://www.law.idf.il/456-en/Patzar.aspx
The Israeli’s so far haven’t articulated an official military code that would destroy the Palestinian’s total war-fighting capabilities. This is largely because the Palestinian military is embedded deep in the civilian population, draws heavily from civilian infrastructure, and combatants operate from - and organize attacks in - protected areas (hospitals, schools, mosques, etc.)
Asking how long Palestine would last against the IDF is like asking how long ISIS would last against the US. The outcome is already known, Israel has the means to topple and destroy the Palestinian leadership and degrade their military capabilities in a way that would eliminate future engagements. The question is at what cost.
A more focused question should be - how long would Palestinian military forces last against Israel’s. Assuming the Palestinian’s deploy a total-warfare approach and use all of their combined forces (Hamas, PLO, outside forces stationed in Arab nations), the time it would take to defeat ultimately depends on what precise offensive movements the Palestinian’s make.
Most likely, the Israeli’s would eliminate PLO/PNA/Hamas commanders, then go after political leaders that would be considered not amenable to a total termination of hostilities. During the 2nd Intifada, Hamas openly admitted it ceased direct confrontations with Israelis have losing so many of their commanders and political leaders. If we look at past conflicts, the Israelis were able to degrade 50–80% of Hamas’ offensive capabilities in less than two months, while suffering minimal casualties on their own side.
Hamas’ warfighting behavior hasn’t changed much in the past five years, therefore we can extrapolate and guesstimate that a full-scale conflict focused on destroying Hamas, rather than simply targeting its munitions, would take roughly 2–3 months provided the Israel’s took their time avoiding civilian casualties.
If the Palestinians started aggressively going after Israeli targets, particularly hot zones like Israel’s airport and large population centers, the IDF would be forced to react more aggressively to eliminate the threat.
This would accelerate the eventual demise of Palestinian military infrastructure. As far as the PNA goes, their military forces are more conventional, and the IDF has heavy ties with their mini-army, so destroying the PNA’s security forces would be less challenging.
OVERALL, Palestine wouldn’t last very long against the IDF. Most likely they would capitulate after losing their commanders and political leaders. If Israel was faced with an existential military threat, they might decide on a strategic expulsion of the Palestinian population as that would be less devastating - death-wise - to the overall Palestinian people as their entire military is embedded in civilian locales.
Now, if Arab forces come to the aid of Palestine - or the Iranian military - that changes everything. The outcome is still Israel wins, the unknown is how many casualties the Palestinians/Iranians/Arab suffer.
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