I don't agree that 7 October was the spark to this conflict at all. It was a major escalation (or reaction) to a decades long series of sparks (or conflagrations), most of them started by Israel as part of its ideological drive for a Greater Israel.
Most of the citizens killed by Israel since 7 October did not elect Hamas into power in 2006-7. They were children or not born then. A third of the victims of Israeli genocidal attacks in Gaza were children at the time they were crushed, dismembered or burned to death under their bombs, shells and rockets.
Yes Hamas built a lot of tunnels (although some like under the Gaza City hospital were Israeli built 20 years ago) and yes they have their fighters in areas where there are a lot of civilians. That is inevitable in one of the most congested places on earth where Israel (with Egyptian help in the south) has blockaded the population for over 17 years. This is not a symmetrical conflict. Hamas' military wing is an underground militia with significant small arms from Qatar and Iran, but it faces one of the largest and best equipped (nuclear) armies in the world - one that is being re-armed every month by the USA on a massive scale. In October Hamas had about 30,000 fighters and Israel had 170,000 troops backed by another 465,000 reservists.
I do not agree that in an imagined world where Hamas fighters could separate themselves from civilians there would have been no civilian deaths from the IDF/IOF. I posted the article below at the start of January, where Paul Rodgers explains the evolution of Israeli military thinking from the pogroms and ethnic cleansing of 1948 through to the current Dahiya doctrine, used in the 2006 Lebanon war.
Destruction of homes and infrastructure for power and clean water (along with hospitals, mosques, churches, UN refuges etc) and civilian deaths to (demoralise the enemy fighters) is intentional. Not some kind of regrettable 'collateral damage'.
https://www.theguardian.com/commenti...ian-casualties
Hamas is a deeply conservative, authoritarian organisation and has used internal violence as well as military violence against Israeli targets that spilled over into atrocities on the day of the attack. I also agree with your claim that the Hamas leadership (in Gaza and those in relative safely elsewhere) were prepared to see Israel impose collective punishment on the innocent civilians of Gaza in reprisals in the hope that would refocus the attention of the world on Palestinians' plight. Israel has always done that. I suspect they were surprised by the damage they were able to do on 7 October, but I also doubt they planned to unleash an Israeli genocide on the population of Gaza. I think both parties miscalculated at the start of this chapter of violence.
However only one side is driving the mass murder, expulsions, starvation, disease and injuries now. They continue to point the finger everywhere else (including at the UN and most of the rest of the world who don't swallow their propaganda).
But the constant repetition of lies and deflection does, to use your words, 'create the sort of reaction that you and so many others have predictably provided'.
Reply With QuoteOriginally Posted by truthpaste
