‘Occupied Gaza’

Prior to Oct. 7, there were roughly 2 million Arab citizens of Israel but no Jewish citizens in the Gaza Strip. Gazans in 2006 voted in Hamas to rule them. It summarily executed its Palestinian Authority rivals.

Hamas canceled all future scheduled elections. It established a dictatorship and diverted hundreds of billions of dollars in international aid to build a vast underground labyrinth of military installations.

‘Collateral Damage’

Hamas began the Israel-Hamas war by deliberately targeting civilians. It massacred them on Oct. 7 when it invaded Israel during a time of peace and holidays. It sent more than 7,000 rockets into Israeli cities for the sole purpose of killing noncombatants.

Hamas has no vocabulary for the collateral damage of Israeli civilians, since it believes any Jewish death under any circumstances is cause for celebration.

Hamas places its terrorist centers beneath and inside hospitals, schools, and mosques. Why? Israel is assumed to have more reservations about collaterally hitting Gaza civilians than Hamas does about exposing them as human shields.