For Hamas, dead Jews and Israelis is the goal and dead Palestinians is the strategy. Every action they’ve taken before and since October 7th attests to this.
Instead of investing the billions of dollars in international aid they’ve received over the years to create a stable societal infrastructure for Gaza’s civilian population, Hamas has chosen to use those funds to build a comprehensive terror infrastructure and an extensive underground tunnel network that civilians are not allowed to enter. They build tunnel entrances and exits in civilian homes and facilities (schools, hospitals, mosques) – which they also use as places to shelter and hide weapons as well as from which to attack Israel and its soldiers.
Unsurprisingly, Hamas has also made the calculated decision to hide at least some of the innocent hostages they abducted on October 7th in densely populated civilian centers – stashing them with families in private homes where “innocent” civilians live.
Four of those hostages were rescued yesterday from two separate apartments in the heart of Nuseirat – a “refugee camp” in central Gaza. It was a daring, dangerous mission in which Arnon Zmora, an officer in an elite counter-terrorism unit, was killed, leaving behind a wife and two young children.
The mother of rescued hostage Noa Argamani has stage four brain cancer – her only wish was to see Noa one more time before she died. While Noa’s mother’s wish has now been granted, the father of another rescued hostage, Almog Meir Jan, unexpectedly died hours before the rescue mission. The past eight months took such a toll on his physical and mental health that his body gave out and his heart stopped beating. Almog’s father died of a broken heart, without knowing that his son’s rescue was imminent.
For months, Noa, Almog, Andrey Kozlov, and Shlomo Ziv were held in apartment buildings filled with Gazan civilians, in a “refugee camp” where multiple international humanitarian aid organizations maintain a presence. And yet, during this time, the civilians living there opted to turn a blind eye to the hostages in their midst while the so-called “humanitarian” organizations did the same. Fortunately, at least one anonymous individual seems to have provided information regarding their whereabouts, which led to yesterday’s rescue operation.
Hamas is claiming that approximately 200 Palestinians were killed, without providing any verification or stating how many of those allegedly killed were Hamas operatives. Predictably, the world’s media, organizations like the UN, and a various cross-section of useless idiots are tripping over themselves to blame Israel, or accusing Israel of valuing the lives of the hostages more than the lives of the Palestinians that were reportedly killed yesterday.
Does it surprise you that Israel places greater value on the lives of its own citizens than on the lives of those who actively took part in traumatizing and hurting them (and holding them hostage!), or those who were complicit by turning a blind eye and putting their own people in danger? Does it make sense to you to demand that Israel choose to endanger the lives of its own soldiers and hostages by sparing the lives of enemy combatants and those colluding with them?
Israel seized an opportunity to rescue four hostages and bring them home to Israel. If innocent Palestinians died while this was happening, that’s solely on Hamas. Hamas leaders and operatives don’t care about Palestinian civilians of any age and routinely and knowingly place them in dangerous, potentially life-threatening situations. As I wrote at the beginning, this is their strategy. A resistance movement would do what it could to try to ensure the safety and protection of its people – not try to maximize their suffering. Hamas is not a resistance movement, and if you believe them when they say they are despite all evidence to the contrary, you might want to ask yourself why you believe terrorists – about anything.
