For my part, I’m skeptical that either the invasion or the handover would go well, partly because I’ve observed so many military operations that started optimistically and ended as bloody quagmires. But Barak also made another important point: Israel will now finally end Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s policy of bolstering Hamas.
What? Israel supported Hamas?
Yes, under Netanyahu, Israel approved the transfer of over $1 billion to Gaza from Qatar — intended to cover expenses such as salaries and energy costs — but some funds reached Hamas’ military wing, Ha’aretz reported. (Qatar has denied that the money was misused.) Netanyahu’s aim, according to Barak and others, was to buttress Hamas so as to weaken the rival Palestinian Authority and undermine any possibility of a two-state solution. “Those who want to thwart the possibility of a Palestinian state should support the strengthening of Hamas and the transfer of money to Hamas,” Netanyahu reportedly said in 2019.
That monetary lifeline to Hamas will now surely be cut, and that may hurt the organization as much as any number of bombs.
Israel has the right to defend itself and strike military targets in Gaza, and there should be strong international pressure on Hamas to release its hostages. My reporting in Gaza over the years convinces me that Gazans themselves would be much better off if Hamas could be removed: Some American liberals don’t appreciate how repressive, misogynistic, homophobic and economically incompetent Hamas is in Gaza, to say nothing of its long history of terror attacks on Israel. All this explains why many Gazans are fed up with Hamas.
“Hamas spends money building tunnels, not investing in people,” a Gaza woman told me. She was stuck in Jerusalem, where her young son was receiving cancer treatment at a Palestinian hospital.
The despair in Gaza, she said, is such that for years some young men have simply dreamed of becoming “martyrs” and winning honor by killing Israelis.
“In Gaza, there is no hope,” she said. “There is no life, there is nothing we have from living in Gaza. The only thing people can do is become a martyr.”
The woman, whom I’m not identifying for fear of retaliation by Hamas, says that she is against the killing of civilians on either side, and that now she weeps each day as she follows the bombing of Gaza and wonders if her husband and other children there will survive. Her son with cancer was sitting a few feet away, watching videos on his mom’s phone, and I looked over to see what he was watching.
It was TikToks of his neighborhood being bombed.
He was glued to the screen as videos showed areas the size of multiple football fields near his home turned into rubble; satellite imagery shows other large areas pulverized as well. No one knows how many people are caught in the wreckage, but some Gazans told me they had heard cries from inside collapsed buildings. They lack proper equipment to rescue people, so eventually, the cries stop, and a stench rises.
Despite her own opposition to Hamas, the woman said that anger at the Israeli attacks will probably boost support for Hamas in the territory.
One well-educated young woman inside Gaza, Amal, told me over WhatsApp that the victims she knew of were mostly civilians, and she sounded full of despair.
“Constant bombardment has me feeling as if I am not human anymore, as if our souls mean nothing at all,” she told me. “We are being massacred.”