A DIABOLICAL STRATEGY

It’s a verified fact that Hamas has been planning the ongoing war with Israel for decades. Hamas knew that they could not beat Israel militarily.  They also knew that  Israel would retaliate very strongly after the massacre on October 7^th - and the kidnapping and abuse of 252 men, women, children and babies.

Hamas spent almost twenty years preparing the Gaza Strip as a killing ground for Israeli soldiers and Palestinian civilians. The  massive network of tunnels spanned more kilometers than the London Underground and  New York metro combined!  By integrating their military operations throughout civilian infrastructure - these tunnels served as missile launchers and storehouses of lethal weapons underneath kindergartens, schools, hospitals, even mosques, etc. The IDF had no choice but to fight the terrorists from, or close to, residential and commercial areas.

In all those years, Hamas deliberately prepared nothing to protect it’s own civilians. On the contrary, they were used as human shields. The only protection the Gazan’s were offered was by the Israeli’s, who informed them of imminent bombing raids and directed them to safety areas. Never, in the history of warfare, has an army phoned or scattered leaflets to its enemy and told them where they are going to drop their bombs!

Maj. Spencer, retired head of Urban Warfare Studies at West Point stated, that the ratio of civilians compared to combatants in the current war is the lowest ever observed - for fighting in a densely populated area like Gaza. Especially, in light of the fact that Hamas deliberately designed its network of tunnels, making  Israel’s efforts to avoid hurting civilians an impossible task.

There is no intentional starvation in Gaza. Israel alone has sent 900,000 tons of food. The International Famine Classification System confirmed that Israel was supplying Gaza wih 109% to 157% of its daily caloric needs. Lawlessness has led to systematic looting of about a third of all aid brought into Gaza. On one occasion, armed gangs attacked a convoy of more than 100 trucks of UN food aid. Hamas has accumulated large stores of food which they then sell to citizens who can afford it, at high prices.

When the bodies of six newly executed Israeli hostages were found in a terror tunnel in Gaza in September, 24 year-old Eden Yerushalmi weighed just 36 kg.  That’s starvation.  

Hamas relies on the Israeli government’s aim to minimise collateral damage, and is also aware of the West‘s sensitivity towards civilian casualties. Hamas succeeds in gaining diplomatic and public opinion, by presenting Israel  as an aggressor that indiscriminately strikes civilians. By condemning Israel, the West has played right into the hands of Hamas.

For Hamas, civilian casualties are not tragedies but strategies. Called “tactical civilian sacrificies”, it is the most despicable, inhumane and cowardly device ever used in warfare. It is at the very heart of the war in Gaza. If anyone is guilty of genocide in Gaza, it is not the Israeli’s, but Hamas.  

And that is why there are no bomb shelters in Gaza!