NY Times does a in-depth piece on the differnt faces of Hamas and Palestinians who dare to challange it….
It also shows the brutality of Hamas and the collateral damage in Israeli effort to hunt it’s fighters who use civilians to hide in and keep hostages……
Hamas also does have a civilian government arm operation ….
Some Palestinians have been injured or killed as Hamas wages an insurgent style of warfare that risks Palestinian lives to strike the Israeli military from densely populated areas. Others have been attacked or threatened for criticizing the group. Some Palestinians have been shot, accused of looting or hoarding aid.
Much international attention has focused on Israeli hurdles to delivering aid to Palestinians, its military operations that have killed tens of thousands of people and a bombing campaign that has reduced cities to rubble. American officials have repeatedly expressed deep frustration with Israel for those failures, too, as well as for not providing basic security in the territory.
But the reality of the war, according to U.S. officials, is that the Israeli military and Hamas carry out questionable acts nearly every day. Many of the reports reviewed by American intelligence analysts involve Israeli actions: military strikes that kill large numbers of civilians, errant attacks on aid convoys or other deadly incidents. But a large number of reports involve Hamas, both its acts of terrorism against hostages and its abuses of Palestinians.
Vice Adm. Frank Whitworth, the head of the U.S. intelligence agency that analyzes satellite imagery, compared the role of intelligence officials monitoring Gaza to that of an umpire.
“We also have a responsibility to tell the whole story,” he said at a gathering of reporters recently. “We certainly are enabling Israel to protect itself. But we are also calling every ball and strike and balk and foul, and we’re doing so in a very complete way.”….
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Since the attacks in Israel on Oct. 7, which killed 1,200 people, Israel’s aim has been to “destroy Hamas.” In practice that means that the government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu wants to end the group’s hold on power in Gaza. But after 11 months of war, U.S. officials say Hamas’s control has been loosened but not broken.
Palestinians are quick to excoriate Israel for the deaths and destruction in Gaza. But some Palestinians said in interviews that Hamas has put Gazans in Israel’s cross hairs by launching attacks from neighborhoods, running tunnels under apartment buildings and hiding hostages in city centers…..
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Hamas also hides hostages among Palestinian civilians, with devastating consequences….
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To break Hamas’s control of Gaza, Israeli officials say they need to destroy not just its military power but also its ability to function as a government. Critics of Israel have questioned that strategy, which they say hurts ordinary Palestinians.
But nearly a year into the war, the civilian government still functions….
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Media visit to South Gaza wasteland now….
The Israeli military gave journalists a tour of the barren strip of land on Gaza’s southern border that has become a major obstacle in talks over a cease-fire — and to a nearby, devastated district where troops have been battling militants for months.
The escorted tour on Friday was a rare glimpse of Gaza’s southern city of Rafah and the Philadelphi corridor, the narrow strip that borders Egypt and which Israeli troops seized in May. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says Israel must keep control of it under any cease-fire deal, a demand rejected by Hamas — and Egypt.
The corridor itself is a bleak place.
A fresh asphalt road ran along the border fence, replacing what had been a shattered route. It passed large swaths of dirt dug up by Israeli bulldozers and a few isolated piles of flattened buildings. In the distance stretched the demolished skyline of Rafah. On the other side of the border the deserts of Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula were visible….
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Netanyahu says a number of tunnels found in the corridor going under the border were used by Hamas to smuggle in weapons. Egypt says it sealed off all the tunnels on its side years ago.
Rafah’s nearby district of Tel el-Sultan was a landscape of destruction, months into Israel’s offensive in the city. Giant piles of wreckage that had once been homes of Palestinian residents lined the roads. A few shattered concrete skeletons of apartment buildings still stood.
Israeli military spokesman Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari said troops were still fighting Hamas militants operating from a “maze of tunnels” underneath the district. He showed journalists the entrance to a tunnel where he said Hamas militants killed six Israeli hostages two weeks ago as troops neared…..
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The Palestinian economy…
The Palestinian economy is “in free fall,” the United Nations reported Thursday, with production in Gaza plunging to one-sixth of its level before Israeli forces began a blistering military response to the Oct. 7 attacks in the territory.
The report from UN Trade and Development, or UNCTAD, also warned of “rapid and alarming economic decline” in the West Bank, citing expanded Israeli settlements, land confiscations, demolition of Palestinian buildings and violence by settlers.
The report made no mention of corruption in Palestinian institutions.
“The Palestinian economy is in free fall,” Pedro Manuel Moreno, the agency’s deputy secretary-general, told reporters in Geneva. “The report calls for the international community to halt this economic free fall, address the humanitarian crisis, and lay the groundwork for lasting peace and development.”…..
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Sep 13, 2024 – ISW Press
The US Embassy in Baghdad assessed that Iranian-backed Iraqi militias likely conducted the attack on a US diplomatic compound near Baghdad International Airport on September 10.