Gaza's Underground: Hamas's Entire Strategy Rests on Its Tunnels | Hacker News Reader

Gaza's Underground: Hamas's Entire Strategy Rests on Its Tunnels

mwi.westpoint.edu

12 pointsjspencer50818 comments

Unfortunately the world did nothing in the proceeding ~15 years. Imagine what Gaza could look like, and how improved the lives of Palestinians could be, if that $1B were spent on schools, hospitals, roads, and infrastructure.

It's shocking to me that anyone thinks of Hamas as anything but a terrorist organization and ruthless regime.

> It's shocking to me that anyone thinks of Hamas as anything but a terrorist organization and ruthless regime.

Hamas is more than that. It formed a government that provided services to Gazans. Hamas is an offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood, which won the 2012 election in Egypt on the same grounds: the Muslim Brotherhood was seen as fairly effective at running clinics that provided free services (it's now illegal in Egypt since the coup).

None of that discounts the indiscriminate violence that Hamas has engaged in.

People have to face the fact that, increasingly, the choice in the Arab world is between some kind of popular Islamist regime and a more moderate dictatorship. The civil society that forms the basis for democracy just isn't there. Islam is only comparable force. So when people talk about a future Palestinian state, they should be asking "who would the king be?"

"We want to provide services to our people, and violently attack our neighbors." And then, in an extreme motte-and-bailey, when anyone criticizes the violence, we get reminded of the services they provide to their people. And it's true; they do. And they violently attack Israel, with great persistence, determination, ingenuity, and ferocity.

Same with the Houthis. Same with Hizbullah. Same with the Muslim Brotherhood.

And Iran tries very hard to equip them for that violence. Iran is much the same, though they prefer to use proxies for their attacks.

Is there anyone in the Middle East who can competently provide services to their population without being violent extremists?

I'm going to guess that within hamas you have people who commit violence and people who provide community services, and these aren't the same people. If you want to provide for your community then the ruling organisation might be the only game in town to do that.

On a very much larger scale, one might disprove of the actions of the US military but would work for the local council, and you wouldn't feel culpable because of the distance.

Good comment.

Actually UNWRA funding was spend the money on schools. A majority of now them damaged or destroyed.

But there was a secondary non-UN source of funds via Qatar directly to Hamas. Thus funding source was approved and encouraged by Netanyahu. Netanyahu actually empowered and transferred money to Hamas, while disempowering moderates because he felt that was the best way to ensure there was never a 2 state solution. Read it here in the Israeli press:

https://www.timesofisrael.com/for-years-netanyahu-propped-up...

https://www.thenation.com/article/world/why-netanyahu-bolste...

You should educate yourself on what is actually going on, rather than repeating tropes.

Let's not forget that Palestinians elected Hamas in 2006 [0] in what is largely considered a fair election*. And if anything, Israel's interference would have been against Hamas (see Wikipedia link).

[0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2006_Palestinian_legislative...

* There are some caveats to "fair" in this case, which is why I linked to the Wikipedia article. But it is by and large considered a legitimate democratic process.

> Let's not forget that Palestinians elected Hamas in 2006 in what is largely considered a fair election.

What point are you trying to make with this statement? It’s also true that there hasn’t been an election in the past 17 years. I’m unclear what you’re trying to imply about the will of the Palestinian people here.

The idea that Netanyahu is responsible for Hamas' popularity is false. Yes, Israel has played Hamas off against the PA, yes that was a very bad move, but it's not the reason Palestinians prefer Hamas to the PA. Money doesn't explain everything.

> The idea that Netanyahu is responsible for Hamas' popularity is false.

The claim was that Netanyahu preferred Hamas "to ensure there was never a 2 state solution", which is true.

And so far it that seems to be working out. Mass starvation, infectious diseases, day 7 of the internet blackout in Gaza, the university in Gaza was just blown up with wired explosives, the Israeli government (even Mossad on Twitter, heh) proudly show it off.

Hamas doesn't explain all that, the expansionist goals do, including why one would have preferred Hamas. There was never a realistic threat of Hamas "destroying all of Israel" from Gaza, regardless of what Hamas might have wished they were capable of, but the destruction of all of Gaza, and the people in it, is going on with a speed and ferocity we haven't seen before.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/gallery/2024/jan/11/palest...

Allegedly, the count of bombs dropped on Gaza, one of the most densely populated areas in the world, half the population being minors, now surpassed the amount of bombs dropped in the second Iraq war by US and UK combined in ~8 years, that number being 29,199 bombs according to Wikipedia:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_bombings_during_the_Ir...

Here's an older (this all moves so quickly) article also discussing the 2000lbs bombs: https://edition.cnn.com/gaza-israel-big-bombs/index.html

> A man sits on debris as Palestinians conduct a search and rescue operation in Jabalya refugee camp in Gaza City, on November 1

Were there tunnels under the refugee camp? I don't know, and I don't care. One cannot hide the elephant of the violent excesses, the genocidal language and the settlers who seem to have their every whims catered for, completely behind the fig leaf of Hamas and the actors that support them.

> There was never a realistic threat of Hamas "destroying all of Israel" from Gaza, regardless of what Hamas might have wished they were capable of

This is the argument I just don't get. Are you saying Hamas is not all that bad because, although they have clear genocidal intent, they are not likely to be able to carry it out?

Its like saying a hitman, who fails to carry out a plan to kill, is better than a driver whose car malfunctions and actually causes a fatal accident.

"Its like saying a hitman, who fails to carry out a plan to kill, is better than a driver whose car malfunctions and actually causes a fatal accident. "

No, it's like saying a a hitman who fails to carry out a plan to kill is better than an army of hitmen who succeed. And that is simple to say.

[edit]

If you really want to understand the people with whom you disagree, you might find it useful to understand that no one believes that this situation is just some accident into which the IDF has been forced to act. That is a long history, but the idea that one group is malicious and the other group is just acting like a person operating a car is central to the disagreements.

To use your metaphor for a lot of us what we are hearing is that drivers in cars have a historical mandate to mow down pedestrians who aren't in crosswalks. I don't think that is true, and I don't think that the IDF is operating ethically in any sense.

That's not an argument, that's a cold hard fact.

The argument is that someone wishing they could commit ethnic cleansing does not excuse actually committing it on a third party. Just like Hamas thinking collective punishment is justified doesn't mean you get to respond with collective punishment. Hamas and other terrorists are not the standard.

How much are the 3 Hamas leaders in Qatar worth? $11b? Maybe Hamas should have tried to take care of its own instead of sending suicide bombers into Israel

Someone brought up recently that the UK used tunnels to house military infrastructure during WWII, specifically they converted some tube stations and other things to military command centres, and some of those centres still operate.

https://twitter.com/Alonso_GD/status/1747929379869540802

In the Israeli media, there is rumours from families of hostages that some hostages are dying from poison gases being pumped into the tunnels:

https://www.jpost.com/israel-hamas-war/article-782544

> “The results of the investigation: Ron was indeed murdered,” she wrote. “Not by Hamas. Think more in the direction of Auschwitz and the showers but without Nazis and without Hamas as the cause. No accidental shooting, no report, premeditated murder, bombings with poisonous gases.” According to her, the IDF filled the tunnel in which he was held with gas, and his son was poisoned to death.

IDF is mowing down their own people, like they did before with the three escaped hostages trying to surrender waving white flags. I wonder if the use of chemical weapons in this case also constitute a war crime.

> IDF is mowing down their own people

I wouldn't put it like that, but for what it's worth:

https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2024-01-17/ty-article/.p...

> 'Unlawful, Unethical, Horrifying': IDF Ethics Code Author on Alleged Use of 'Hannibal Directive' During Hamas Attack

> Asa Kasher, the philosopher who wrote the IDF's Code of Conduct, tells Haaretz that incidents in which the infamous operational order may have been used on October 7 must be investigated immediately: 'There is absolutely nothing [in the code] to allow someone to kill an Israeli citizen, in uniform or not'

Then why are they bombing the entire surface of the region?

Hitting hospitals, schools, refuge camps, homes, residential tower blocks, businesses... murdering thousands of civilians?

And yet all these propaganda articles always fail to present any kind of evidence that any target was legitimate * or tunnels used for anything relevant * weapon stores * Hamas facilities... "just trust us"

Best they could do was stage some week fake evidence at the hospital. Can't imagine future conflicts with AI generated video and image "evidence"

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