John Smith wrote on Jun 17^th, 2024 at 6:37am:



So we can conclude that 9,000 Hamas fighters were hiding among their 25,000 women and children??? Despicable.




The Palestinian numbers are unreliable and unverifiable. They include deaths caused by Palestinian rockets falling within Gaza and natural and accidental deaths. Nor do they specify how many Hamas fighters have been killed since there is no clear distinction between Hamas and the rest of Gazans.


What is The Hamas strategy and aim? Why did Hamas attack Israel on 7 October and what are they still fighting for? Please explain.

Frank wrote on Jun 17^th, 2024 at 9:18am:


No.

The IDF deliberately targeted the women & children.

They weren't targeting Hamas fighters.

Belgarion wrote on Jun 17^th, 2024 at 11:24am:


The thousands of dead women & children are proof that the IDF is deliberately targeting women & children.

Why do you support these acts of terrorism?

Belgarion wrote on Jun 17^th, 2024 at 11:42am:


I have the undeniable fact that thousands of women & children are dead as a direct result of the IDF targeting them.

Why do you support these war crimes?

John Smith wrote on Jun 17^th, 2024 at 6:37am:


So, it is in the last 12 months?

greggerypeccary wrote on Jun 17^th, 2024 at 11:47am:

It's bollocks, turd, far from 'undeniable fact'. Civilians are not 'targeted' by the IDF.
By Hamas, yes, evidently.

Frank wrote on Jun 17^th, 2024 at 1:29pm:


Both Hamas and the IDF are deliberately targeting innocent civilians.

They are both terrorist organisations.

Why can't you condemn them both for their war crimes?

As Amnesty International has noted, “significant areas within the 365sq km of territory are not residential, and conducting hostilities or launching munitions from these areas presents a lower risk of endangering Palestinian civilians”.

Yet only a trivial share of Hamas’s attacks are launched from less densely populated areas; instead, they virtually all originate in the residential parts of the major urban centres.

And Hamas has gone even further than that, deliberately choosing facilities such as schools, childcare centres and hospitals – which are typically in or adjacent to housing complexes – as shelters for weapons and combatants, launching pads for drones and rockets, and command and control centres.

In part, Hamas’s reliance on human shields reflects its deeply entrenched cult of death.  Hamas views civilian deaths not as a human tragedy but as a sign of strength. “Hamas despise those defeatist Palestinians that criticise the high number of civilian casualties,” said Abu Zuhri. “We lead our people to death … I mean, to war.”

“We have the Israelis right where we want them,” Sinwar said in a recent message to Hamas officials seeking to broker an agreement with Qatari and Egyptian officials.

In dozens of messages – reviewed by The Wall Street Journal – that Sinwar has transmitted to ceasefire negotiators, Hamas compatriots outside Gaza and others, he’s shown a cold disregard for human life and made clear he believes Israel has more to lose from the war than Hamas. The messages were shared by multiple people with differing views of Sinwar.


Even without a lasting truce, Sinwar believes Netanyahu has few options other than occupying Gaza and getting bogged down fighting a Hamas-led insurgency for months or years.

It is an outcome that Sinwar foreshadowed six years ago when he first became leader in the Gaza Strip. Hamas might lose a war with Israel, but it would cause an Israeli occupation of more than two million Palestinians.

“For Netanyahu, a victory would be even worse than a defeat,” Sinwar told an Italian journalist writing in 2018 in an Israeli daily, Yedioth Ahronoth.