Over 100 Israelis have died and more than 900 were injured after rockets were fired from Gaza by Hamas militants, Israeli officials said Saturday.
The Palestinian Health Ministry said 198 were killed in Gaza and at least 1,610 were injured Saturday in retaliatory attacks from Israel.
“We are at war. We will win,” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Saturday.
The Israeli Defense Forces earlier declared “a state of alert for war,” according to a statement issued by the IDF.
“Over the past hour, the Hamas terrorist organization launched massive barrages of rockets from Gaza into Israel, and its terrorist operatives have infiltrated into Israel in a number of different locations in the south,” the IDF said early Saturday.
They have been pushed into a corner and kept on getting squeezed, so probably feel they have no other options (and might very well be right in light of what has happenned in the last decade).
Had Israel stopped expanding “colonates” and taking palestinian land, I doubt the likes of Hamas would have the internal support and manpower to do what they just did, but over the last several decades Bibi and his predecessors have been just dubbling down and announcing ever more anexation of land.
The massive difference in military power is also probably the reason for the kidnappings: I suspect it’s a “strategy” to try and get the Israeli authorities to not just bomb the whole of Gaza.
Whilst I disagree with their methods I can see how over 70 years, given the trend in israeli politics and the lack of genuine and effective pushback from the international community against appartheid in Israel and the occupation, so many Palestineans have come to believe they have no other options than this kind of thing and personally I actually see no other option (even this they’re doing now is not really an option, more like a lashing out of the desperate).
It is clearly impossible to solve this from the inside (to much hate by now, too many assholes on both side whose power rests in the assholes from the other side killing people), which is why I think the US’ and Europe’s treatement of Israel as if it’s a Developed, Democratic, Western nation, all the while it’s more akin to a Theocratic South Africa with a Russia-style leadership, is probably to blame more for this than anybody else (and I say this as an European) - they were the only ones who could have forced a peaceful resolution to this (rather than just mild criticism and no action, which is all that Europe did) by doing the same they did to South Africa, but instead they did nothing at all, effectivelly endorsing the choices of the Israeli leadership and totally disenfranchising the Palestinians, prolonging this cycle - want to see who has the most blood in their hands on this, go look in the White House, Number 10, Deutsche Kanselarie and the Palace Du Eliseé.
It’s a shame because western countries were starting to recognize the apartheid situation in Israel and were starting to criticize it. I think had things gone a bit longer there would have been an intervention.
In any case, this whole thing is just sad. So many innocent lives are destroyed on both sides. And I sincerely think Israel, their government and the Jewish extremists are the root cause.