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

I agree.

One good rule might be: DON'T VOTE FOR A TERRORIST ORGANIZATION NEXT TIME.

As I understand it, I gather Israel funneled funds to Hamas/Gaza as a counter-balance the West Bank. To say Hamas doesn't treat people well is a vast understatement. They began their rule by murdering their opponents. They have used funding not to better the lives of the Gazas, but just toward more weapons and more tunnels.

And Israel - unlike the various Muslim factions - normally doesn't deliberately target civilians (in comparison with, say, Arabs attacking a bus of schoolchildren). On top of the always awful collateral damage, Hamas is known for hiding among civilians, inviting this kind of catastrophe. The catastrophe which, by the way, was unleashed by Hamas, not by Israel. When interviewed, various Hamas leaders have expressed no regret, but are basically content with the carnage and say they would do the same thing again.

By the way, one reason that people aren't "helping" the Palestinians is that even their fellow-Arabs dislike them. Gaza had been part of Egypt, but the media never much mentioned that Egypt closed the border. Gazans are apparently more or less Jordanians, more than anything else, but Jordan doesn't want to have anything to do with them. They continue to create a society that it based not on improving itself, but rather dedicated to attacking, or obliterating, Israel.

By the way, one reason that people aren't "helping" the Palestinians is that even their fellow-Arabs dislike them.

That is is v dehumanising. How could anyone not like children? not want to help a fellow women? Not see that there are innocent fathers and grandfather's in Gaza just trying to make a living and survive, that need our help.

A person cannot help where they were born. A baby born in Gaza today faces unimaginable pain and suffering through no fault of their own.

Every person in Gaza is a human being. They very much need and deserve our help, just like innocent Israelis would if they were being bombed, murdered and seeing their livelihoods, homes, schools and hospitals destroyed on a daily basis.

(And before you ask, yes I condemn 7/10. Yes I would want to help those family members of the kibbutzniks that died and family members of the hostages).

Humanity must come first. We must help those who are suffering and we must help those who have been oppressed or who suffer apartheid.

Palestinians are people. People from Gaza are parents, friends, doctors, poets, bus drivers, teachers, lovers, mothers. They must be humanised. They must be helped.

What Israel is doing is evil

Israel ... normally doesn't deliberately target civilians (in comparison with, say, Arabs attacking a bus of schoolchildren).

Are you serious??? Where have you been this last year? Israel has been deliberately targeting civilians EVERY SINGLE DAY. And far more than a bus full (though even that is far too many). Are you not aware of the vast numbers of civilians targeted and now dead.

Have you seen the images of children with no heads, baby's ripped to pieces, poor Hind, schools destroyed, hospitals destroyed, civilians shot dead by snipers and filmed for the world to see.

Can you tell me this - why will Israel not allow foreign journalists into Gaza so they can report what Israel is doing? If they r doing nothing wrong, surely they'd b happy to have journalists there telling the world how moral they are and how they don't target civilians?? Why did Israel kill, by targetted shooting, so many journalists in the first few months of this slaughter on Gaza?

please wake up

Hamas’ absolute rule of Gaza is not what the Palestinians voted for back in 2006. In fact, since the median age of Gazans is 18, half of Hamas’ subjects weren’t even born when the election took place. Since they have known no alternative, have absorbed little information but Hamas propaganda, and have witnessed periodic outbursts of violent conflict with Israel throughout their lives, it is impossible to know what they really think about their rulers.

Slate.com

They voted for a political party that in Palestine is (was) not a terrorist organisation, but that's not that relevant.

This is not an excuse for the behaviour of Israel (US, UK and Germany).
Nothing is an excuse for what we are witnessing.

That may be true, but they were known to be a terrorist organization even then.

And most of the Gazans alive today didn't vote for them.

You do realise that your nutcase conspiracy theory of "the Jews did this to themselves, probably" ignores that a lot of the "slick" video of Hamas atrocities was produced and distributed by Hamas themselves?

I, too, had been going on "Free Palestine" marches for decades before last year. I've been to countless meetings, have a couple of keffiyehs hanging in my wardrobe, I believe in a two-state solution, and all the rest if it. I haven't been to any demos or meetings since Oct 7th, because I stumbled into a pro-Palestine demonstration immediately afterwards, and I couldn't bear the excitement and glee displayed at it - so many young men, so utterly joyful that people had been murdered in absolutely horrible ways. I've considered carefully whether to join subsequent ones, but the level of atrocity-justification and antisemitism on display at each of them has turned my stomach. I wonder if it was there before, but I was too stupid to notice it. I want a ceasefire. I don't want anything to do with the people who think that atrocities against Palestinians are a crime, but that atrocities against Israelis either didn't happen, or was their own fault, or (a new one on me, but you managed it @IceCreamIsTheDream , well done) they literally did it to themselves in some sort of bizarre false flag operation. The murder of civilians, wherever they are from and whichever citizenship they hold, is wrong. If you worry about "people's children, spouses, parents, grandchildren", but only if they are from one side of the conflict, then you are part of the problem.

I don't want anything to do with the people who think that atrocities against Palestinians are a crime, but that atrocities against Israelis either didn't happen, or was their own fault

Many people believe that what Hamas did to Israel on Oct 7 was terrible, but that the atrocities against Palestinians have gone way beyond Israel defending themselves and into genocide territory. It is possible to condemn both actions, whilst also not actually blaming the general public of Gaza or Israel, and wanting it all to end.

Yes - hopefully Sinwar’s death is a turning point

Thank you for your honesty. There is an awful lot of denial and looking the other way about the celebrations of October 7th on these threads. Campaign Against Antisemitism & others have been interviewing people on those marches and the things they say are jaw dropping. I have slso always been 'pro-Pal' and though not a marcher I boycotted Israel for years. Realising the depth of antisemitism in the movement was the turning point for me.

Sadly, this.