Anger is growing at Hamas and anger is growing at Israel in Gaza

In Gaza, anger grows at Hamas along with fury at Israel: An insider’s look at a Palestinian man who’s lost his livelihood

That includes the man himself. He has lost his main pharmacy, his livelihood, his house and his father’s house to Israeli bombings in the last four months.

Hamas will have a huge task in rebuilding Gaza after the fighting is over. It’s impossible for Hamas to do that without international cooperation.

Since Hamas took control of Gaza, they’ve fought five wars with Israel. The U.S., Qatar and Egypt are now involved in negotiations over what the future Palestinian leadership would look like when the war is over.

Hamas still has supporters in Gaza. A recent poll found 57% of Gazans support Hamas’ decision to attack on Oct. 7. Most of the Palestinians surveyed said they had not seen the videos of Hamas’ attacks on Israelis that day and didn’t think Hamas committed atrocities.

Israel has vowed to kill Sinwar, the leader of Hamas, but he is still hiding, leading negotiations with Israel for a hostage-prisoner exchange and ceasefire.

But Hamas still maintains a fighting presence on the battlefield, and has even reasserted itself as a governing force, paying partial salaries to civil servants and sending police officers to patrol in areas where Israeli troops have withdrawn.

Source: In Gaza, anger grows at Hamas along with fury at Israel

The War Between the Palestinians and Israel: A Reflection from the Gazans on a Day in the Life of Mohanad Mehrez

“An entire generation in Gaza never saw a tank in their lives. The crazy man brought the tanks to the center of the refugee camp because of stupidity,” Mohanad Mehrez wrote.

“(Hamas) should give consideration to their people,” says Suheir Safi, amid the wafting smoke of a mud oven, where Palestinians baked bread near a tent. “Every shepherd is responsible for his flock.”

“The resistance says it’s ready for rounds of combat for months and years,” Al-Ghoul says. “So are we, but provide us with our daily bread, so we resist together.”

Hamas’ attack was an honorable act against Israeli oppression, but it was poorly thought out due to Hezbollah and Iran not joining the attack, as stated by Abdelsalam Al-Ghoul.

The conflict between Palestinians and Israel has been the most significant in their history, with large destruction of homes and infrastructure in Gaza. About 85% of the population, according to the U.N., have now fled their homes and are sheltering in tents, schools and overcrowded buildings.

“Netanyahu and Sinwar, enough war and enough destruction,” they chanted, in a protest captured on film and shared on social media. The people want a cease-fire.

Several demonstrations have taken place in recent weeks in Gaza, expressing frustration with Hamas over the war. The leaders of Israel and Hamas were targeted by Palestinian protesters at a demonstration.

A proposal for a cease-fire was responded to by Hamas in a positive spirit, and the streets of Rafah erupted in cheers. But Hamas still drew criticism from some Gazans, for submitting a host of demands for shaping Gaza’s reconstruction and future.

Israel’s military says its strikes in response to the attack on Israel are aimed at military infrastructure and fighters. The military of Israel did not immediately respond to a request for comment, but had previously accused Hamas of deliberately putting militant in densely populated areas.

Abdelaal was unsure if Hamas had considered what would happen to us if they launched an attack on Israel. “We didn’t receive any warning to leave.”

What’s ‘domicide,’ and why has war in Gaza brought new attention to the term “domicide,” writes U.N. Special Rapporteur on the Right to Adequate Housing

First, he escaped Israeli bombing on his Gaza City neighborhood. He lived in a UN school until it was hit. After fleeing to central Gaza, he was able to escape many times when the Israeli military got closer to him.

It will be a lot of work and cost to rebuild Gaza. The amount of rubble and debris generated by airstrikes and demolitions is alone so staggering that it could take more than four years just to clear it, OCHA says.

Late last month, the court found it “plausible” that Israel has committed acts that violated the Geneva agreements, and it directed Israel to ensure its forces do not commit any such acts.

South Africa thinks that Israel’s actions go beyond that figure. Israel, the case says, “is inflicting on [Palestinians] conditions of life intended to bring about their destruction as a group,” including mass displacement and “the large-scale destruction of homes and residential areas.”

Killing can be described as murder, war crime, a crime against humanity or an act of genocide, depending on the gravity of the act. “It should be applied for the destruction of homes.”

“The systematic and indiscriminate leveling of entire neighborhoods through explosive weapons — as happened in Aleppo, and Mariupol, and Grozny, and towns in Myanmar, or most acutely these days, in Gaza — should be considered a crime against humanity,” wrote Rajagopal.

One official at the UN believes that needs to change. In an opinion piece published late last month in the New York Times, Balakrishnan Rajagopal, the U.N. special rapporteur on the right to adequate housing, called for domicide to be explicitly codified into international humanitarian law.

The word “domicide” is not included in the convention which governs international law about treatment of civilians during conflict. The treaties prohibit reprisals on civilians and their property, and they demand the destruction of property to be “rendered absolutely necessary by military operations.”

Source: What is ‘domicide,’ and why has war in Gaza brought new attention to the term?

The destruction of housing units in the Gaza Strip and the consequences for the future of the U.N.’s Office of the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs

Over 68,000 housing units in Gaza have been destroyed and nearly 300,000 have been damaged, according to OCHA. Taken together, it represents 60% of all housing units in the Gaza Strip.

Azzouz and others argue that this kind of destruction wreaks deep psychological damage on people, for whom the loss of their home means a deeply felt loss of security, comfort and memories.

The total is close to 30% of the territory’s population. And “many more” will be unable to return home immediately due to damage to infrastructure and the danger of unexploded ordnance, the U.N.’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) says.