Gaza and the world’s outrage

Day after day we’ve seen images on our screens of Gaza being bombed and the world has responded with outrage.

But in this messy situation, few seem willing to look closely at the facts. Most are willing to accept the popular narrative without question, that Israel is somehow a force for evil, intent on perpetrating genocide on the Palestinian people.

Let’s not forget that on the 7 October, it was Hamas that broke a ceasefire and instigated a slaughter of Israelis and other nationals.  Hamas knew it would provoke a massive reaction from Israel. This was in fact their goal.

Hamas also knew its attack on Israel would cost many Palestinian lives - and they welcomed it. In their view, nothing is more honourable than becoming a martyr and indeed, from childhood, Palestinians are encouraged to become martyrs while killing Jews. 

There was no strategic goal in the 7 October attack other than torturing, mercilessly killing innocent people and starting a war.

And yes, some civilians are dying in Gaza. But why is that?  Because Hamas intentionally and cynically uses Palestinian civilians as human shields. They set up their bases in or near hospitals, schools and mosques. Ample evidence has been uncovered in the past couple of weeks for those who are interested in the truth.

Still, it’s hard to see images of civilian casualties. However, we don’t actually know how many have died or who they are. All information that comes out of Gaza is controlled by Hamas. There is no freedom of press and Hamas cynically uses civilian casualties as a strategy of war.  Hamas also has a long record of fabricating scenes - you might have heard of Mr Fafo - The ‘Pallywood’ actor from Gaza who is a radiologist one day, air strike victim the next, and sometimes a dead body. He’s a social media star who creates videos to manipulate public sentiment.

And yes, Hamas lies about the numbers. We saw evidence of that when a misfired Islamic jihad rocket landed on a hospital carpark. Hamas immediately informed the press that Israel targetted a hospital and 500 were killed. And much of the world’s mainstream media were perfectly willing to broadcast this lie around the world. News sources had to walk back their headlines throughout the day as the truth was revealed. Credible independent sources in fact reported that no-one was killed, a couple were injured. It has even been found that some of the images used by the media were from other wars. 

There is no reason to believe the casualty figures published by Hamas. Would Mainstream media accept statistics provided by Isis? Of course not. But when a conflict involves Israel, for some reason, bias kicks in and standards are dropped. 

Hamas uses casualty figures as a strategy of war, unlike Israel who cares about accuracy and revised its figures downward when its forensics team identified 200 of its earlier reported 1400 dead, as Hamas terrorists.

Hamas doesn’t differentiate between civilians and combatants; their numbers include teenage fighters as children, and those killed by their own misfired rockets or killed by Hamas for trying to escape.

Yes, we should be outraged by the deaths of Gazan civilians. But that rage should be directed at Hamas who does not care about the lives of its people and deliberately puts them in harm's way. Indeed, the terror tunnels were built with child labour and at least 160 children were killed in the process. 

So Israel is faced with the complexity of fighting a terrorist organisation that embeds itself amongst civilians. Israel goes beyond its obligation under international law, to protect civilian life - the IDF sends warnings with thousands of leaflet drops and phone calls and has urged civilians to leave for safe areas. Israel has given civilians time to evacuate to the north, while Hamas has tried to prevent them leaving, setting up roadblocks and even firing on them. Israelis had no such warning when Hamas descended on their homes and communities. 

Unlike Hamas, Israel never targets civilians. Claims that Israel does so, are either deeply negligent or simply malicious.

Meanwhile, the world is ignoring the fact Israelis are living under the stress of constant bombing, as Hamas has fired at least 10,000 rockets on Israel; hundreds of thousands of Israelis are displaced, some of their communities razed to the ground; many are traumatized over the murder of friends and relatives and life will never return to normal - life is disrupted as thousands have had to go to war. This in addition to the massacre denial Israel is facing and negation of the voices of Israeli rape victims. Apparently the #me too movement has no place for the voices of Israeli women. 

Let me ask this: what would you do, if a terrorist group lived an hour from your main city, a group that declares in its charter its intention to annihilate your people?

A group that has demonstrated its willingness to carry out the most barbaric acts - murder, vicious rape, burning people alive, a baby placed in a hot oven while its mother was gang raped, beheadings, mutilation of bodies. 

Ignoring, or justifying such behaviour, or engaging in moral equivalence, tells us more about Israel’s critics than it does about Israel. 

And while Israel haters demonstrate their moral bankruptcy, Israel is apparently determined that such things must not happen again. Rightly so. Hence Israel's determination to destroy Hamas.

Every decent human being needs to see this for what it is - a battle of humanity versus barbarism.