If you select target liberally enough, classify combatants on liberal enough criteria and use munition liberal enough, as shown by IDF reports, numbers and whistelblower accounts, the colleteral damage becomes the target.
And hell, you are really surprised after everything Israel did in Gaza so far, that support for Hamas rises? Really? I suggest to whatch the first season of Andor for an in-depth explanation of why a hard crackdown is usually only hardening resistence.
Not sure what want to say, but here some dates, courtesy of wiki:
- Hamas won 42.5% in the elections in 2006, no elections took place since
- Hamas support was not strong, based in the few pols done, it increased after Israels attack
And the last bit what is so not surprising.
Edit: If you are interested in how we ended up with this cluster fuck, wikipedia is good place. Start way back so, in 50s, to get the necessary context. I don't have everything in my head, and reading up yourself is way faster than me retyping a summary.
Israel not leveling Gaza would have a great option.
> Hamas won 42.5% in the elections in 2006, no elections took place since
...because Israel (which still occupies and directly administers some of the territory involved) has refused to cooperate with joint PA/Hamas agreements on subsequent all-Palestine elections, preferring to freeze in place the current split and presence of "elected" governments that most people subject to weren't eligible to vote (and in Gaza, where the median age is about the interval since the election, its right on the edge of the the majority not even having been alive) at the last election.
Genozid and ethinic cleansing are not an act of self defence. That people fail to see that is troublesome.
And no, I won't go back to King David and the Romans. The current conflict between Palestinians and Israel can be traced back to right after WW2. That's were the interesting events start. Going back further is not helpful.
That's your choice, but it's just an arbitrary point in time, by which Arabs have airway been slaughtering Jews for generations. You could have just as well choose last week as a starting point.
> Calling what happened in 2006 “an election” is not a good idea.
From Wikipedia:
> An 84-delegate international observer delegation monitored the elections. It judged the elections to have been peaceful and well-administered.[33] Twenty-seven members of the European parliament were included. Edward McMillan-Scott, the British Conservative head of the European Parliament's monitoring team described the polls as "extremely professional, in line with international standards, free, transparent and without violence".
So you’re gonna have to explain to me who the Arabs were that colonized Palestine in the 17th-19th century. And why that matters in relation to the current conflict. I don’t know whether the Ottoman Empire was a nation state or not (it obviously wasn’t; and I never claimed it was) has any bearing on the popularity of a resistance movement fighting a completely different occupying force.
> Because Hamas have physically killed all major opposition politicians prior to these elections.
The Palestinian Civil War (aka the Battle for Gaza) was after this election. The onset was much more complex then “Hamas killed all opposition”. But even if it was, this civil war had no effect on the election because it happened after it. If you are not referring the the civil war, which instances of political violence are you referring to? The dozens of international observers observing the election certainly didn’t see any? Were they all wrong? Is there some conspiracy we don’t know about?
Elected in 2006. Half the population weren't even alive then. Over then thousand dead children the last months also have had no say even if there had been a recent election. Don't try to blame this on the victims.
