Ask Lemmy
A Fediverse community for open-ended, thought provoking questions
Please don't post about current US Politics. If you need to do this, try [email protected] or [email protected]
Rules: (interactive)
1) Be nice and; have fun
Doxxing, trolling, sealioning, racism, and toxicity are not welcomed in AskLemmy. Remember what your mother said: if you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all. In addition, the site-wide Lemmy.world terms of service also apply here. Please familiarize yourself with them
2) All posts must end with a '?'
This is sort of like Jeopardy. Please phrase all post titles in the form of a proper question ending with ?
3) No spam
Please do not flood the community with nonsense. Actual suspected spammers will be banned on site. No astroturfing.
4) NSFW is okay, within reason
Just remember to tag posts with either a content warning or a [NSFW] tag. Overtly sexual posts are not allowed, please direct them to either [email protected] or [email protected].
NSFW comments should be restricted to posts tagged [NSFW].
5) This is not a support community.
It is not a place for 'how do I?', type questions.
If you have any questions regarding the site itself or would like to report a community, please direct them to Lemmy.world Support or email [email protected]. For other questions check our partnered communities list, or use the search function.
Reminder: The terms of service apply here too.
Partnered Communities:
Logo design credit goes to: tubbadu
view the rest of the comments
You think you're going to get a better answer by asking that here rather than by reading the Wikipedia article or a media company's summary of what Hamas is?!
As neutrally as possible:
Hamas is an organization in the area of historical Palestine. It has been governing the Gaza Strip, a small piece of land between Israel, Egypt and the Mediterranean Sea, since 2007.
Ever since then, Israel has been blockading the Gaza Strip. Every few years, eg. in 2014 and 2021 and now again, Hamas fires rockets at Israel or otherwise attacks it, to which Israel responds with airstrikes.
Palestinian narrative: Israel is a settler colonial state that has taken away Palestinian land and is imprisoning Gazans in Gaza. Fighting against that is legitimate resistance against oppression. Israel's goal is ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians.
Israeli narrative: Israel is a safe haven for the historically oppressed Jewish people. Arabs have plenty of other countries for themselves. The aim of Hamas is to eliminate the Jewish state and maybe even the Jewish people. Israel is doing its best to avoid civilian casualties in its airstrikes against Gaza.
The actual truth: There is no such thing as the actual truth. There is a reason why this is the most difficult conflict in the world.
inb4 people with strong opinions on both sides tell me their opinion is obviously right and the above is nowhere near neutral
No matter what "narrative" you seek to believe, the fact is that Hamas hasn't been firing every once in awhile - They have been firing rockets and mortars regularly. Sometimes daily. You can see a list here and more info here
These attacks almost exclusively target civilians. more than 20,000 rockets in the past 20 years.
Additionally, airborne arson attacks are carried out..
edit:fixed links
Largely ineffective rocket attacks. See these charts for what near daily rocket attacks and near daily snipers, police beatings, etc, do for relative casualties between Israeli and Palestinian peoples.
https://israelpalestinetimeline.org/charts/