i don't personally know any Palestinians OR Israelis
but can all those defending Israel's ongoing civilian-negligent attacks support the enormous numbers of Palestinian deaths compared to Israeli ones?
i don't purport to know how Israel can root out hamas without such casualties when so many civilians are herded into such small areas that then get bombed, and i do want to see the end of hamas... but i cannot turn a blind eye to the massively uneven ratio of palestinian to israeli civilians. Even if the figures provided by the health ministry cannot be trusted (they produced lists with names that can be verified or not and these are mainly from hospitals' recordings of death counts though there are also outside sources), as far as i'm aware that count is incomplete, not taking into account bodies still buried beneath buildings. There are multiple blocks of collapsed apartments, for example, with no way yet of reaching anyone who lost their lives in the bombings.
even if you halve that health ministry number, when you add in all the unaccounted for still lost because there's no chance of recovering them yet when the populations are being herded one place to another, it's wildly disproportionate.
Reuters: https://www.reuters.com/world/middl...ilitary-offensive-gaza-since-oct7-2024-04-09/
https://www.npr.org/2024/02/29/1234159514/gaza-death-toll-30000-palestinians-israel-hamas-war
Sadly (and tragically), Hamas is counting / preying on your humanity to help them achieve their goals.
I am generally the most peace loving / conflict resolution type person you will ever meet: Then something like 10/7 happens, and I steel myself and harden my heart to support the difficult work that must be done to address such evil and barbaric behavior.
I hate Hamas for putting me in this position. And my anger toward Hamas fuels my determination that their plan not succeed - even at the cost of some innocent lives among the population that purportedly supports them.
Ask yourself this:
If, after all of the death and suffering brought about by the Hamas terrorists’ October 7th rape, torture, murder, and kidnapping operation, (and the subsequent Israeli response), the Hamas terrorists are allowed to not only remain in power, but have their ranks swelled by the release of murderers from Israeli prisons, will that be an acceptable outcome???
Because, short of the intrusive rooting out of the Hamas terrorists from Gaza (and the inevitable and unavoidable accompanying death and destruction), that WILL be the outcome.
As tragic and painful as this conflict is proving to be, the Hamas reign of terror must end now (imho).
I can only hope that this taste of real death and suffering is enough to get the Palestinian people to choose a different path than Hanas, etc.
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