How Hamas Uses Brutality to Maintain Power

[MsAmerica]

How Hamas Uses Brutality to Maintain Power
The group has abused hostages and Palestinians in its efforts to maintain control of Gaza and wage an insurgent war.
By Julian E. BarnesAdam RasgonAdam Goldman and Ronen Bergman

Palestinians are quick to excoriate Israel for the deaths and destruction in Gaza. But some Palestinians said in interviews that Hamas has put Gazans in Israel’s cross hairs by launching attacks from neighborhoods, running tunnels under apartment buildings and hiding hostages in city centers.

And Hamas is still able to inspire fear among the people it rules, despite the chaos that has taken hold across the territory...

Still, Palestinians interviewed by The New York Times expressed frustration with Hamas, particularly over its practice of embedding in civilian areas. The Palestinians interviewed said that while Israel bore enormous responsibility for the suffering the war has brought upon them, Hamas did too. Hamas built access points to its extensive tunnel network inside homes. An aerial photo recovered by the Israeli military from a Hamas commander’s post shows three dozen hidden tunnel entrances marked with color-coded dots and arrows in one crowded neighborhood.

Acting on the standing orders not to allow hostages to be liberated, the militants executed their captives and fled the tunnel, according to Israeli officials. The soldiers above ground continued their patrol, not knowing they had come close to the hostages.

The Israeli military said that the entrance to the tunnel was located inside a child’s bedroom.

“A military force doesn’t do” what Hamas did, said Jonathan R. Cohen, a former U.S. ambassador to Egypt. “They’re a terrorist organization with a military structure. That’s a terrifying thing.”

For the whole article:
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/09/13/us/politics/hamas-power-gaza-violence-israel.html

We rarely hear about how Hamas or Hezbollah use their own people as human shields from the BBC. We also rarely hear about the daily rocket attacks by Hezbollah. It’s as if they don’t happen according to British mainstream press.

Same problem in the USA. I'm not at all knowledgeable, but even I know enough to know about the human shields, about Hamas' brutality when it took over Gaza, that current Hamas leadership has said the Gazan death toll doesn't bother them, that these are basically outlaw groups who can't govern but just wage war - and despite what many consider Israel's over-reaction, people seem to forget that it's a small country surrounded by enemies who want to wipe it off the face of the earth.

It’s incredibly sad, I completely understand people protesting for Palestinian civilians, we should be concerned about the human suffering in Gaza. What I don’t understand is the support for Hamas or Hezbollah from some elements in the west. The question should always be “what have they done that has made their peoples lives better”. Are Gazans better off having Hamas in charge or worse off? Are the Lebanese better or worse off for having Hezbollah in charge?

There are anti-hamas Palestinians on twitter who have protested against Hamas and had to flee Gaza because of it. People seem to forget that Sinwar started off as head of the morality police he was known as the “butcher of Khan Younis” he gained that nickname for what he did to Palestinians not Israelis. He’s intelligent and very able but he’s a psychopath. I feel uncomfortable about people claiming that Gazans all support Hamas, they are an armed militia, I’m not sure that I would be brave enough to protest them, yet people have, it just hasn’t hit western media.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2023_Gaza_economic_protests#:~:text=In%20July%20and%20August%202023,the%20poor%20paid%20by%20Qatar.

I’ve seen a lot of Lebanese blaming Hezbollah for bringing war onto their heads and anger at Iran. Genuinely worried they will suffer another civil war after the conflict with Israel is over.

I think some people see them as anti-imperialist forces so ignore their crimes against their own people. Some people see them as Islamic resistance so see them as projecting Islamic power in the region. It’s easy to support them when you have electricity, water, a house that isn’t just a pile of rubble and all your limbs intact and your children alive. Then yeah it’s easy to sit in your comfortable life cheering on these people who bring nothing but death and destruction to their own.

Change has got to come from within

I imagine many Gazans would prefer stable governance and good services rather than people skimming their aid money to spend in Qatar and in the real estate market in Turkey.

I wish wholeheartedly that they will be able to live in peace one day. But their leadership has let them down for decades. Projecting strength has to be dropped in favour of quiet intense work on material gains. Hamas and Hezbollah being destroyed is the best thing that can happen to the region. I used to think those american Iran hawks were a bit bonkers, I saw the Iranian regime as awful and oppressive to it’s own people but I didn’t realise the extent to which it had proxies and how much damage it was doing to the institutions of those proxies.

I genuinely believe that those protesters in the west who support hamas or see them as resistance fighters are fetishising Palestinians. I don’t think they see them as people.

Change has to come from within is far easier to say than achieve
Aid and help is fine if it reaches the people that need it and a ceasefire is in place
The perpetual cycle of violence and retaliation is getting people nowhere
an eye for an eye etc the whole region will end up blind !!

I actually think it may just change, Hamas and Hezbollah are both struggling. It may create some breathing space for those who want better.

I have no idea what that's supposed to mean.

Are you imagining that one day the Hamas leadership is suddenly going to have an epiphany and decide that slaughtering people may not be a great idea, and perhaps they should cede power to someone capable of actually governing?

I am suggesting that the people of Gaza need to find another way rather than Hamas
I have no solution but the
majority seem to be against violence

Hamas are nothing to do with helping Palestinians. Hamas are nothing to do with creating a Palestinian state. Israel's response to Hamas's pogrom was entirely predictable. Why would Hamas have inflicted such horror on the Gazans had they wanted anything positive to come out of it? Hamas are about spreading militant Islamism and destabilising the growing peace between Israel and the Arab nations.

The Israeli government funded the establishment of hamas. Hamas serves Israel's interests and enables them to demonise Palestinians and kill civilians indiscriminately.

Of course we know Hamas are not little cuddly flowers. They don't treat their people well. But bloody hell would I choose to to live under Hamas than die by Israel's carnage. I'd rather hamas than the utter and can mplete devastation the Israeli's have caused. At least under Hamas the people had functioning hospitals, schools, jobs, clean water.

Israel have obliterated Gaza, raised it to the ground, brutally murdered, decapitated, blown children to bits. Israel have rained down pure terror on Gaza for more than 365 days in a row. Can you imagine the trauma. Unbelievable, unspeakable.amounts of trauma. How the hell.does a 5 year old, and innocent child, deserve to endure what they have over the last year.

Those little orphaned kids won't be thinking 'ah thanks Israel, we needed freeing from hamas'. They will be thinking 'we hate Israel now more than ever'. And those little kids who are witnessing the smell of death daily, who live in fear 24 hours a day every single day, who see their family members shot, maimed, murdered. They will grow up to seek their revenge on Israel. If it's not Hamas they join, it will be another similar group.

And because the west (mainly UK, Germany and USA) have been complicit and not helped Palestinians in any way, and have sold the weapons to Israel that have destroyed thier schools, hospitals, family and friends, the west (USA, UK, Germany and others) will also now be at greater risk and under greater threat.

Israel has unleashed hell on earth and no-one has stopped them. They have set themselves up to be future targets and for the UK, USA and.others to b future targets. The world.is now more divided than ever. This whole section of Mumsnet illustrates that.

I think there are very very few people that think Hamas are all sweet and nice. But the number of people blind to the evil of the Israeli government is shocking.

@IceCreamIsTheDream but that is a completely false scenario. Of course people would prefer to live under anyone under a non-conflict situation than in the middle of an active conflict, but (a) those should not be the two choices and (b) under Hamas was not actually happy scenario for most people. Hamas are oppressive fanatics. Your post suggests that Hamas was not complicit in what has happened when in fact it was

I am not sure they have a huge amount of power to change it. Of course Hamas are awful. They are also no longer supported by most Palestinians I thought? But the more Israel kill the population, the less they are going to be super excited about supporting any government who Israel would get on with.
No one in their right mind would think Hamas are anything but awful. That can coexist with the fact Israel are committing genocide.

@IceCreamIsTheDream I think the majority of ordinary people are not blind to it. It suits our government to be so, however.

Hamas are probably a small percentage of the people who have been needlessly killed.

As much as you might like it to be the responsibility of Gaza's children to end the cycle of violence, that responsibility actually falls to Israel. Israel are the occupiers of Gaza. They are the ones who have encased Gaza in a wall and will not let anyone in or out.

Israel are responsible for 75 years of brutal occupation, of land theft, of a disproportionate number of Palestinian deaths.

I don't disagree that 7/10 was horrendous. I condemn it. But it's very very very different to what is happening in Gaza (and has been happening in west bank for years).

Gaza and west bank are occupied territories. Gaza has an Israeli patrolled wall and Israeli sea defence systems to stop people leaving gaza. You can't even attempt to swim away without being shit dead. West bank has armed guards and check points stopping the movement of people.

Israel are bombing a territory which is literally a prison. The people there can't get out to escape the bombs. They r stuck there.

Imagine you could leave UK and just had to sit here as it was bombed to nothing. You had to stay and watch the hospitals, schools, shops and people you love being destroyed day in day out. And if you tried to leave, even swim away, you'd be shot? Hell.

Israeli government treats ALL palestinians as animals. What right do they have to burn babies, blow them to bits, destroy a nations hospitals and schools? These are innocent kids, women and men suffering. These are people's children, spouses, parents, grandparents.

While innocent Israeli citizens enjoy coffee out, a trip to the cinema in Tel Aviv, after school clubs and work, their neighbours in Gaza are fearing for their lives and many are dead, burried under the rubble.

This is not a "war" of two sides. It is the actions of a government determined to destroy all human life on land they claim is theirs. The Israeli government do not see the innocent people of Gaza as human. They see them as animals, as barriers to their achieving a full state of Israel which encompasses Gaza and the west bank.

This devastation and trauma unleashed on Gaza, is all on Israel. They r 100% responsible. Responding to a terror attack committed by a small number of people by obliterating a nation and indiscriminately killing children is NOT and never will be, ok or proportional.

I condemn 7/10. But, I also know (because I have been involved with the Palestinian solidarity campaign for at least 10 years prior to 7/10) that what is happening in Gaza today did not start on 7/10. This goes much further back than that. That's why there have been protests against Israel going way back before 7/10.

The devastation on Gaza is not simply Israel "defending itself". It is the Israeli government finally fulfilling their evil dream of genocide, ethnic cleansing and land grab with zero care or compassion for humanity.

Hamas' actions on 7/10 were a v convenient excuse for Israel to do what they are doing

(And, this next bit will sound controversial, but given how lax the security at the wall was that day, and that they had a slick PR campaign with edited, high quality video ready for private showings to all world leaders ready to go from day 1, I am struggling not to believe that some Israeli government officials may have been complicit or even involved in orchestrating the events of 7/10. Hopefully that's not the case, but I do wonder).

@IceCreamIsTheDream I agree with you in general, but I would not put 100% blame on Israel.
We live in a world with a superpower that has outsized economic, diplomatic and military influence. This superpower can ignore an issue, can facilitate or prevent something from happening.
In the past 76 years it has not recognised the state of Palestine (and probably prevented its allies from recognising), it has not condemned the illigal occupation of territories, it has done nothing to stop illigal settlements. It has provided enourmous military assistance, and in the past 12 months this assistance has been unconditional.
The superpower is the main force that can assure the compliance with international laws. What we see is the legal framework being replaced by the "might is right". It's sickening and devastatingly hopeless.

I agree with you. I believe the USA are very happy with the idea of Israel trying to expand via force. Israel is essentially seen as a satellite of USA. A little part of them in a foreign land. An increasing western presence in the middle east.

What USA (and UK, Germany and other complicit countries) fail to realise is that pushing yourselves into a 'hostile' area, killing thousands of kids, stealing land, funding the destruction of a whole people ... is not a great look! We will not be 'safer' by these acts. In fact, the acts of Israel (backed by USA and others) will destabilise our safety even more and open us up for future hatred and conflict.

When, when, when will USA (and UK, Germany and others) realise that the best way to ensure our nations' safety moving forward is to learn to get along with countries who we have previously seen as our enemies. We need to stop having 'enemies' and aggrevating everything.

If UK and USA had reached out a hand to Palestine in October and November 2023. Been hard on Israel as soon as it was obvious they were beginning to target civilians and go beyond 'defense', called for an immediate ceasefire, stopped all arms sales. We might just have made a few friends in the middle east. Something v hard for us previously to have achieved. Instead, we did what we always do and made things worse. USA and UK globally hated more than before, and thus more unsafe.

I am so ashamed to be western these days. I just want a government who actually wants to do the right thing for their people as well as humanity. Not a government with hidden interests, secret agendas, boys club loyalties and determined to maintain enemies globally.

I also think, with the advent of social media, western governments cannot get away with what they used to get away with. Maybe USA can for a bit, but UK less so. If it weren't for twitter, access to world wide media and video evidence straight to our phones, we may have believed the government propaganda that Israel is fighting some kind of war to protect democracy and the rights of the west. We may well have believed that those defending Palestine and marching for peace are some kind of antisimetic haters. Goodness knows the government tried to get his line out there, but fortunately people have resisted! Remember Rishi giving us all a lecture from outside number 10!? Braverman spouting nonsense about hate marches! It might all have worked before social media. But thank god it no longer cuts the mustard.

Governments can't just spin us a yarn anymore. We can make our own minds up about the truth, and that means governments need to start changing the way they behave and showing more global humanity than self interest

I am struggling not to believe that some Israeli government officials may have been complicit or even involved in orchestrating the events of 7/10. Hopefully that's not the case, but I do wonder).

Are you not concerned how insanely offensive that sounds?

Its hard to know where to start with this post, but as ever, lets start with facts. No Israel is not 'essentially seen as a satellite of USA.' It may have US support interms of military aid but until this current war it was in fact a very small part of Israel's military budget (I dont know what the % is now). Israel is a completely distinct nation with a proud sense of its own identity & independence. Which brings us to the amazing claim 'A little part of them in a foreign land. An increasing western presence in the middle east.' How many people in Israel are 'western'? Do you realise that around 25ish% are Arab, Palestinian, Circassian, Druze etc. That of the Jews around 40ish% are directly of North African/ME descent?

@IceCreamIsTheDream that'll teach me to read posts backwards. I had not seen your previous post of unashamed Hamas apologism.
And, this next bit will sound controversial, but given how lax the security at the wall was that day, and that they had a slick PR campaign with edited, high quality video ready for private showings to all world leaders ready to go from day 1, I am struggling not to believe that some Israeli government officials may have been complicit or even involved in orchestrating the events of 7/10. Hopefully that's not the case, but I do wonder).
To post something like this with not a shred of evidence is an absolute disgrace and exposes that you have no concern whatsoever for peace but just want to stoke division.

All these terrorist ideologies use their people. They don't value them at all. They are brutal and control and use them.

The world would be a better place without ISis, ISIL, Hamas, Hezbollah, The Houthis, Al Quieda, (sp), and all the other random offshoots of brutality.

I would add Netanyahu and his right wing extremists to that list.