On October 7, 2023, fighters from Hamas attacked Israel from Gaza. This was a well-coordinated attack using air, sea, and ground forces, including firing thousands of missiles from Gaza into Israeli cities. The targets was civilians. They entered towns and villages, killed many of the inhabitants, and took others as hostages.
Israel was caught completely by surprise, reminiscent of the Yom Kippur war of 1973. The Hamas attack came 50 years later, almost to the day.
Among other attacks, the Hamas fighters mowed down over 250 young people attending a music festival. Clearly these were not military or police personnel, but just unarmed civilians, kids trying to have a good time.
In response, Israel moved to clear out the invading fighters; they also began to attack various locations in Gaza that housed or sheltered Hamas. Many sites were bombed or shelled.
Today as I looked at the news I found a site that accused Israel of “ethnic cleansing.” I was disappointed, but not at all surprised. Hamas has sworn to wipe Israel off the map, kill the Jews. If that’s not ethnic cleansing, I don’t know what is. But when Israel is attacked and responds with force, they’re committing ethnic cleansing.
The difference is that Hamas targeted unarmed civilians. IDF targets Hamas. Civilian casualties are collateral damage, not the target.
Pisses me off, but it’s typical.
Many news outlets tell us that if Israel conducts bombings, Hamas will “execute” hostages. This is bullshit. Killing hostages is not executing them. It is murdering them.
No one is going to win this war. No matter what the outcome, everyone loses. Israel could not do anything besides fight back, and fight back hard enough to dissuade others from attacking them. But they won’t win; Hamas won’t win. No one will.