More than 10,000 Palestinians have been killed in the month since Hamas’ terrorist attacks inside southern Israel, the group’s health ministry in Gaza says.
But Hamas officials say the mounting death toll, believed to include thousands of children, has not caused the group to regret its actions in southern Israel, which Israeli officials said killed 1,400 people.
In fact, Hamas leaders say that their goal was to trigger this very response and that they’re still hoping for a bigger war. It’s all part of a strategy, they say, to derail talks over Israel normalizing relations with regional powers — namely, Saudi Arabia — and draw the world’s attention to the Palestinian cause.
Hamas, these officials say, is more interested in the destruction of Israel than what it sees as the temporary hardships faced by Palestinians under Israeli bombardment.
“What could change the equation was a great act, and without a doubt, it was known that the reaction to this great act would be big,” Khalil al-Hayya, a member of the group’s governing politburo, told The New York Times in an interview.
Hamas isn’t the Palestinian people, their leaders are wealthy and living abroad. Stop muddying the waters and acting as if Hamas is an oppressed group, they’re not, they’re terrorists. They are NOT representative of the Palestinian people.
Is there a reason why we make this distinction for Gaza? Not every country gives its people the ability to elect its leadership, and my understanding is that the ruling party in Gaza is Hamas.
Why is this conflict not portrayed as state on state violence when it’s two state actors?
Because neither Gaza nor the whole of Palestine are a state. That’s been the end-goal of the peace process for a few decades now, but it isn’t the current reality.
It’s the Palestinians in Gaza paying the price regardless. Right or wrong they haven’t ousted Hamas and thus, right or wrong, Israel sees them as one and the same as proven by their indiscriminate bombings.
I didn’t state Hamas represents all Palestinians.
Likewise I didn’t state Hamas is oppressed, a terror organization can’t by definition be “oppressed” in the sense that we should pity them.
What I did state was that driving someone into a corner like Israel has been doing with Palestinians for decades leads to attacks. And it’s not like 100% of Hamas members are non-Palestinians.