Norway’s prime minister says the Israeli army’s response to the deadly Hamas attack that killed 1,400 people and saw over 230 abducted by terrorists has been disproportionate, and denounces a “catastrophic” humanitarian situation in Gaza.
Norway’s prime minister says the Israeli army’s response to the deadly Hamas attack that killed 1,400 people and saw over 230 abducted by terrorists has been disproportionate, and denounces a “catastrophic” humanitarian situation in Gaza.
In the past Israel beloved that. But the organization of Hamas has scared them. They believe that they need to destroy the Command and Control infrastructure Hamas has for its 40k person military or Hamas will simply organize followup slave raids.
Even if you magically manage to kill every member of Hamas… You don’t think all the killing won’t start another terror cell under a different name?
Maybe but in that case they’d have to rebuild their command and control infrastructure to stage another attack like this and to stockpile rocket artillery.
That gives Gazans time to grow older and hopefully push for change.
Grow older and push for change? Palestinians have been growing older and pushing for change since 1948. Have you seen how the IDF responds when they have had mass protests? A massive key for change will be when tax dollars in the US stop funding IDF bombing. And in the meantime, the alleged ‘command and control infrastructure’ that was destroyed was likely a tower block holding dozens of families who are now dead or have no home.
The average age in Gaza is 18 years old. So yes, they can grow older and hopefully the international community will withhold aid dollars until regular elections are restored in the region.
When’s the last time they had mass protests against their own government?
Unfortunately that will likely be counter productive if the goal is minimizing casualties. What the IDF is doing could be done significantly cheaper with artillery strikes instead of smart bombs. It just requires more wide spread bombing, more acceptance of civillian casualties and less regard for civilian infrastructure and a result that looks like Bakhmut.
And without funding for things like the Iron Dome, Israel would have been forced to re-invade and partition Gaza similar to the West Bank years ago and would have likely restarted settlements and colonization efforts there.
Dude the average age is 18 because they keep dying. They aren’t getting older. They’re getting dead. Israel keeps killing them through starvation, lack of medical access, and shooting them for any reason they can think of.
The Demographics don’t back that up. It seems more like those who can emigrate away from the Strip as soon as they can and those who stay have had an incredibly high birth rate. That’s why the strip has almost doubled in population since 2000.
That’s Wikipedia. And with a reported death rate around 600 per 100,000 they’re either the healthiest country in the world or these numbers are highly suspect.
It could be that way, but the historical numbers are from the PCBS they could be wrong systemically; but I don’t know of a better source.
With strikes targeting rockets and tunnels, the Israeli tactic of ‘mowing the grass’ returns to Gaza - 2021 Washington post
You just described the “mowing the grass” doctrine.
Yes. Ultimately if Hamas/Gazans continue to insist on “Genocide or Bust” as their foreign policy that’s really the only way to kick the can down the road.
Apartheid is the main catalyst for violence. If normal people had lives they could look forward toz and see a future then Hamas would lose its support.
Gaza gets more than enough aid to build that sort of a future for it’s people. We’re talking billions of dollars of consistent aid for a population of about 2M. Just the UNWRA from 2014-2021 averaged $750M/yr of aid and the PA injected a further $1.7B in salary for non-working government employees living in the strip. That’s enough to rebuild the Gazan airport every year. With that money they could have coated the strip with Ground Light Rail. They could have expanded the Commercial Port in Gaza City. In three years they could have built out fiber to every household in the strip.
https://www.cia.gov/the-world-factbook/countries/gaza-strip/#economy
$5000 GDP per Capita. That’s pretty dire, especially considering Gaza has no ability to conduct trade, import supplies, build industries.
A 30% unemployment rate is huge…
The numbers sound big individually, but per Capita they are very poor.
$750M in aid just from the UNWRA per year from 2017 to 2021. That’s enough to rebuild their airport every single year. That’s enough to coat the 23 mile spine with Ground Light Rail. That was enough to bring fiber Internet to every household in Gaza.
They’re poor because their squandering massive amounts of aid. Can you imagine how much good that aid would do in Haiti?