War only becomes a war when it is between two sides, just like a duel with swords or pistols.
But when it is one-sided, it becomes a massacre. War involves a great deal of thought, strategy, and tactics aimed at achieving victory over the opponent and pushing them to accept what they were previously unwilling to.
What is happening now in the fifth Gaza war is that it is one-sided, with Israel no longer seeking to simply break Hamas, but crush the Palestinians by placing them between a rock and a hard place. Their hammer is continuous killing, especially targeted at children and women, in order to slow down Palestinian population growth.
The anvil is providing an opportunity to leave.
What is happening happening can no longer be called a war – it is instead a unilateral offensive, with Hamas only offering resistance with a few shots in Gaza or the West Bank, in Jenin and Tulkarm, and sometimes sending a “burst” of rockets that neither kill nor destroy.
Many of these are more like children’s rockets, going up into the sky and then fizzling out when they come down, or they fall victim to the Iron Dome or Arrow missiles. More recently, Huthi missiles are being intercepted by American THAAD missiles.
Since the beginning of the war, the number of Israeli casualties has not significantly exceeded two thousand, including the 1,200 who died in the October 7, 2023 attack.
The fifth Gaza war is no longer a war – massacres are not wars, where there is no duel and no clash of swords, but rather a one-sided attack on a prostrate victim awaiting their fate.
Hamas’s claim, directly through Abu Obeida or through Al Jazeera commentators, that its survival signifies a great victory, a clear triumph, is a form of strategic deception.
This is because no Palestinian state has been established, nor has Gaza remained liberated as it was at the beginning of the conflict. Gaza is now occupied, and a rehearsal for the Nakba is taking place, with residents moving from northern Gaza to its center and south.
Whenever their tattered tents are erected, Israel’s aircraft strike, burning them down.
The slaughter of women and children serves as a motivation to leave behind scorched earth, especially when the same arsonist and killer offers a tempting proposition to abandon their homeland.
History will bear witness to fact that Israel is repeating every crime the Nazis committed against the Jews, from using starvation and withholding of medicine and treatment as weapons of war, to the killing and mutilation of the victims trapped under the rubble.
Hamas, whose fighting has diminished, is left only with proving its existence and maintaining a media presence, while the war is at a standstill and Palestinians pay the price every day and every hour.
Has the time come for Hamas to realize that Palestine’s goal at this moment is survival and holding onto the land? This will be difficult while a one-sided war is being waged.
So, will Hamas relinquish its rule and its weapons – which have reached their end – after a Nakba in which Palestine will need the entire Arab world for building, reconstruction, and survival?
