A surprise Hamas attack in southern Gaza’s Khan Younis on Wednesday shocked Israeli forces and prompted the military to brand the security breach a “failure”.
According to Israeli media, between 15-20 Hamas fighters emerged from a tunnel and separated into three groups: one to enter an unoccupied building, another to enter a building with soldiers stationed inside, and a third to lay down suppressive fire.
The existence of the tunnel had been previously known to the military, and it had been partially demolished, the Times of Israel said.
Fighting reportedly began when an Israeli officer standing on an upper floor opened fire on a fighter below.
A close-quarter firefight lasting around five minutes ensued between the fighters and about 15 soldiers from Israel’s Nahshon Battalion, which required backup from the air force and a tank.
According to the Israeli reporters, the battle lasted around three hours and no Israelis were killed. Three soldiers were wounded in the attack, the military said, one of them seriously.
Hamas, meanwhile, said its fighters “eliminated several occupation soldiers”, including “the commander of a Merkava 4 tank, fatally wounding him”.
I think we’re more or less on the same page here. I don’t refer to the Israeli forces as terrorist for the same reason I don’t refer to the Russian army as terrorist, as they are both a state organization.
By that definition, if, (and it does seem to be the case) Hamas is the legitimate political lead of Palestine, that does make the ‘terrorists’ the ‘Palestinian forces’.
I also agree the label of ‘terrorist organisation’ is heavily politicised as ‘terrorist’ and ‘rebel’ are relative labels.
We’re on the same page here, the difference being the extent of emotional investment each of us may have.
State level terrorism exists. This comment show really well your bias. According to you Hamas can’t be a resistance group because they committed act of terrorism and are terrorists but Israel does the same thing amplified but they are not terrorists and are a legitimate army
Is an whole population getting genocide not a good reason to be so emotionality passionate about Palestinians right to self defense and opposing that genocide with concrete actions?
I feel for the Palestinian people the same way I feel for the people of Libya, Sudan, Myanmar, Haiti and Niger.
I understand and empathise with their plight and donate what I can.
These emotionally charged online ‘debates’ don’t help their cause.
The other countries you mentioned have civil wars not occupation. So it’s kind of irrelevant to mention them in this context but I still care about them. Civil war don’t happen unless both party have some kind of support from the population. The actions needed to be used are different, for civil wars the best thing to do is not arming any side but most importantly deradicalization efforts . For occupation, the occupier need to be forced to end occupation then a process of punishing war criminals on both side
Denying Palestinians right to armed struggle against the occupier and both siding the conflict don’t help their cause.
I don’t know about you, but I’m not in the position to grant any rights. Country I live in also fully supported the light off the Palestinians and are actively moving to support them, so I don’t have reps I need to convince. If you don’t live in such a country, write to your reps.
Which country are you from?
You don’t have to be able to grant rights to support rights of people , group of people and populations etc. so you don’t have to have power to support Palestinians right to self defense.
There is not a single country that sanctioned Israel itself for genocide . Not a single one did all it’s obligation to try to stop it. No matter how much support any country give to Palestine, they still have zero right to tell Palestinians to not fight the genocidal army in the battlefield.